News & Events Event Reports

North America Regional Hub: Strengthening Community Cohesion and Countering Online Hate — Operationalising Local Prevention Efforts in Edmonton

Publication Date:

19/11/2024

Content Type:

Event Reports

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Community CohesionEdmontonFoundation for a Path ForwardHate SpeechNorth America Regional HubOnline hate

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Event Details

Description: On 16 October 2024, the Strong Cities Network, in collaboration with the Foundation for a Path Forward and the City of Edmonton, and with funding support from Canadian Heritage hosted a workshop in Edmonton (Alberta) focused on addressing threats posed by online hate and the interplay between online and offline harms in Edmonton. Discussions centred on enhancing Edmonton’s anti-racism strategy and operationalising a data-driven early warning system for online hate monitoring. The event underscored a commitment from all participants to address the challenges of online hate through collaborative, community-based approaches.

Where & When: 16 October 2024, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Cities Represented

Canada: Edmonton, Alberta

Other Organisations Represented

• Edmonton Police Service
• Edmonton Police Commission
• Edmonton Public Schools
• Organization for the Prevention of Violence
• pipikwan pêhtâkwan
• REACH Edmonton Council for Safe Communities
• Senate of Canada
• W.G. Wagner School

Key Takeaways

For the Mayor’s Office & the City

• Develop a Centralised Community Resource Network: Building a shared network of trusted community-based organisations allows for rapid, coordinated responses in crises. Edmonton’s engagement with its community and local leaders serves as a model for fostering strong partnerships that ensure inclusive support during incidents of hate-motivated violence. This resource network would further strengthen and broaden this engagement.
• Prioritise Proactive and Inclusive Partnerships: Relationships with diverse organisations, especially those representing marginalised communities, are essential to an effective response. The City’s partnerships with organisations like Organization for the Prevention of Violence and Pipikwan Pêhtâkwan (which is developing a culturally-informed AI tool to counter anti-Indigenous and other hate) bring unique strengths to the City’s efforts to counter hate while addressing community-specific needs.
• Strengthen Public Messaging and Community Engagement: City leaders should provide consistent, visible support to affected communities and prioritise community-centred communications in the aftermath of a hate incident.  
• Ensure Sustainable Funding for Community-Based Organisations: Unlike one-time grants, sustainable funding models allow organisations to deliver long-term impact and resilience-building programmes.
• Leverage Social Media for Positive Messaging and Countering Misinformation: Cities should create templated social media kits that can be quickly deployed during crises to maintain a consistent city-backed narrative that can counter harmful messaging and post-crises conspiracies.

For National Governments

• Support City-Led Prevention Efforts: National-level resources and training are critical to empowering local prevention initiatives, equipping cities to respond effectively to rising hate and extremism.
• Encourage Whole-of-Society Approaches: Strengthening cooperation across law enforcement, social services, and community organisations can help create comprehensive strategies to address all forms of hate and extremism that leverage the comparative advantage of diverse actors.

For Partners & Donors

• Enhance Digital Literacy: Support the development of city-led digital literacy programmes to counter the spread of hate online. These initiatives are especially relevant for youth and communities vulnerable to online hate.
• Facilitate Good Practices for Hate Reporting: Develop and invest in more pathways for cities to expand hate crime and incident reporting, making this process more accessible and inclusive by engaging community-based organisations in this effort.

For Strong Cities

• Continue to Foster Knowledge Sharing and Best Practices: City leaders, community-based organisations and other local stakeholders – whether within a single or among different cities – benefit from sharing with and learning from each other about how to address shared challenges. Strong Cities will continue to provide opportunities for cities to learn from each other, integrating good practices from across the North American Resource Hub and wider network.
• Continue to Engage more North American Cities in Prevention Efforts: Strong Cities plans to deepen its collaboration with Canadian cities, supported by the Foundation for a Path Forward and Public Safety Canada, to strengthen local prevention models and foster city-led resilience against hate and extremism.

Next Steps

Through insights from this workshop, along with learnings from Strong Cities’ global membership and its peer-to-peer learning events, the Strong Cities North America Regional Hub will continue to support the City of Edmonton’s ongoing efforts to implement its Anti-Racism Strategy. For its part, the City is actively using feedback from the workshop to explore new approaches and leverage existing programs and partnerships to enhance the delivery of the strategy. Following this workshop, the City also presented its early warning system concept at the Strong Cities conference in Victoria (British Columbia) on ‘Preventing Hate & Building Social Cohesion Amid Global Crises: Unleashing the Potential of Cities in Western Canada & the Western United States’, held on 30 — 31 October 2024.

Additional Resources

• Anti-Racism in Our City, City of Edmonton
• Global Crises, Local Impacts Initiative webpage, Strong Cities Network
• Global Crises, Local Impacts: Key Findings & Recommendations to Date, Strong Cities Network (April 2024)
• A Guide for City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network (updated May 2024)
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network (updated May 2024)
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network (updated May 2024)
• Resources for Cities: Addressing Hate & Extremism, Strong Cities Network (updated May 2024)
• Navigating Local Impacts of Global Crises: Ten Considerations for Mayors and Cities – Lessons from the Israel-Gaza Crisis, Strong Cities Network (December 2023)

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