Mayor Chow,

More than 93% of community youth ice time in the City of Toronto is allocated to boys, leaving less than 7% for girls. This statistic results from the City’s antiquated ice allocation policy, which discriminates against girls and other equity-deserving groups contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Girls and girls’ leagues will remain significantly underrepresented in City prime ice allocations due to the current practice of first honouring existing contracts with legacy leagues, which are largely skewed in favour of boys. Effectively, this means boys’ leagues get the best times and girls’ leagues get the leftovers in the form of less convenient times and arenas that are less in demand because they are less central. Similarly, other equity-deserving groups whose needs are not met by the traditional hockey system have difficulty starting new leagues that work for them because the grandfathering of rink allocations still tilts the system in favour of (mostly white) males.

The gloves are off: Girls deserve more than leftovers when it comes to ice time.

If the City is to achieve its articulated goal of ensuring that ice allocation adheres to the City’s own human rights and equity policies, then both girls’ leagues and leagues serving other equity-deserving groups need to be allocated more than the leftover slots not already taken by the boys.

We are asking the City to commit to:

1. setting measurable goals for City prime ice allocation that reflect the diversity of the City, will measure the ice allocation numbers against that goal and will publish the data on the Parks, Forestry and Recreation website in addition to the other data it currently reports;
2. reserving 40% of community youth prime ice time (that would mean 24% of total ice time) for teams with at least 30% equity-deserving groups (defined as protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code) to incentivize teams to become more diverse if they want to use City ice (released to other teams if these teams want less than 40% of the ice time);
3. reserving 10% of community youth prime ice time for new leagues with 30+% equity-deserving groups (released if these teams want less than 10% of the ice time); and
4. auditng this process every three years to ensure that girls’ leagues and other equity- deserving players are getting ice time that is consistent with the City’s human rights and equity policies.

We have already tried to settle this matter amicably, however, did not receive a response from the City. Therefore, we are presenting this petition to you, and proceeding to take the City of Toronto to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

Mayor Chow, if you feel it is important for girls and other equity-deserving groups to have a fair shot at ice time in the City of Toronto, we do hope you will take swift action to make it happen.