Yahoo Finance Vancouver PuSh Festival board apologizes for controversial firings from over a year ago
The board of Vancouver's pre-eminent performing arts festival, the Push International Performing Arts Festival, has apologized to two former employees for how it handled their terminations last summer.
Last summer, the festival announced "an organizational restructure," due to the impacts of the coronavirus crisis.
However, it chose to eliminate the position of its full-time associate artistic director, a position held by Joyce Rosario, a woman of colour. Another position, held by Janelle Wong-Moon, also a woman of colour, was eliminated.
The firings were heavily criticized, especially as the terminations came at a time of racial reckoning for many industries.
On Wednesday, the board issued a statement apologizing for its actions.
"We acknowledge the harm done to Joyce and Janelle's careers, financial stability, reputations, and well-being. The disingenuous handling of their terminations, the public messaging about their departures, the incorrect statement attributed to Janelle, the way in which their names were used in the ensuing months without their consent was disrespectful," it read in part.
Camyar Chai, a board member, said the time it took to issue the apology — almost a year and a half — was necessary.
"When we rush these things, they don't come to fruition the way we hope to," said Chai on CBC's On The Coast, adding that the group was still repairing the fallout from last year.
"Bad systems or antiquated systems make good people do regrettable things. This is not unique to PuSh. I think this is something that many organizations — not just arts and culture — but across the board are reckoning with and we decided to do it in this way which takes time and patience."
Gabrielle Martin, the director of programming for the festival, said there have been other changes as well.
She said some of the hierarchical structure that had been in place before has been removed and leadership is more representative of the diverse communities the festival serves.
There are also new directives to prioritize Indigenous voices and those from the Global South — a term used to describe politically or marginalized and often lower income countries outside Europe and North America.)
"[The PuSh Festival] has been invaluable to Vancouver's artistic ecology and cultural and there's a lot to honour and continue," she said.
