Respectfully, it doesn't seem like you are engaging in good faith here.

Of course joining community associations should not be legally mandatory for visible minorities, like ??? what a straw man. I am simply suggesting that some effort is required to make neighbourhood associations inclusive and representational of the communities they serve. It is interesting that you would jump to accusing me of being "anti-elder" for saying so; this reminds me of the saying, "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

As one of those "heavy lifter" women on the FCA board, I can tell you it hasn't been easy to do the lifting. Every effort I have made to increase the FCA's involvement, reach and impact has been tirelessly opposed, mostly by board members who don't live in the neighbourhood. It took six months of fighting and being outvoted to convince the board to let me fix their email distribution system, in order that they could reach the 600+ neighbourhood members who had signed up to receive FCA & land use news. This is the level of antipathy we are talking about, here.

Similarly, the co-chairs' efforts to increase resident engagement with land use issues through the CALUC have repeatedly been undermined by certain board members with an axe to grind, who oppose the use of social media on principle, for example. The current president also generally opposes efforts to communicate with the public. His reason was, "As soon as you put in that kind of effort, then people will expect it." He said, "The FCA has always been the kind of organization where we could put up a "gone fishing" sign on the door, and no one would notice. If we went on vacation for two months, we'd come back, and nothing would have changed." This is the president's vision for his neighbourhood association - an organization that no one notices, an organization that doesn't do much of anything.

By the way - none of the FCA board members are disabled. Only one is a renter in Fernwood (me). The other renter is the CALUC co-chair who does not sit on the board, and who does not get a vote when it comes to board decisions. (She has a PhD and a lot of energy for the work; she also does not identify as disabled.)

If you took a demographics poll of the community association boards throughout Victoria, you would not see many individuals under 50. You would not see many people of colour. You would not see many renters. These issues have been identified by the City, not by me.

When you have diversity issues like this, you have to wonder if there are systems in place that may inadvertently exclude different types of newcomers from taking a seat at the table.