The Hidden Cost of Rebuilding Trust: Why Canadian Municipalities Must Think Twice About Canceling IDEA Programs
The Speed of Trust And the Cost of Its Loss
The Speed of Trust—And the Cost of Its Loss
As I observe communities across Canada grappling with economic pressures and shifting political winds, I'm seeing many municipal governments reconsidering their commitments to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) programs. The climate of apprehension is unmistakable: municipal staff and council members are watching anti-DEI backlash unfold in the United States and wondering if Canadian communities will follow suit.
The psychological toll is evident in city halls across the country. Staff responsible for IDEA initiatives report being told they "can't present on this topic anymore" at council meetings. Community members from marginalized groups are expressing fears about losing programs that support their participation in civic life, while others argue these initiatives represent wasteful spending during fiscal constraints. The increasing polarization is creating an atmosphere where some view these programs as politically risky rather than essential infrastructure.
However, this perspective fundamentally misunderstands the true cost of abandoning IDEA initiatives—not just in terms of social progress, but in the measurable, long-term expense of rebuilding public trust once it's been damaged.
My bottom line: Cancelling IDEA programs doesn't save money—it creates a costly trust deficit that can take years and significant resources to rebuild.
Why IDEA, Not DEI: The Canadian Context
In my work with municipalities across Canada, I've observed the shift toward using the acronym IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) rather than the more commonly known DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). This isn't merely semantic—it reflects Canada's distinctive legal and social landscape. The Accessible Canada Act, which became law in 2019 with the goal of making Canada barrier-free by 2040, requires federally regulated organizations to proactively identify, remove, and prevent barriers to accessibility across seven priority areas.
Through my research, I've found that the next step in thinking about diversity, equity and inclusion at work is to re-frame the DEI conversation to one about "IDEA"—that is, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility. Including accessibility as a central pillar of our initiatives helps us think beyond conventional ideas of disability and start to consider access to opportunity for all people. This framework recognizes that diversity and inclusion are our goals; we cannot achieve them without a specific focus on accessibility, opening the door for everyone. For if people can't "get in the door", how can we achieve our diversity goals?
The IDEA framework also places "Inclusion" first, emphasizing the importance of creating environments where everyone feels welcomed, respected, and valued—not just represented.
Understanding Municipal Trust in the Canadian Context
Through my consulting work with municipalities, I've identified three critical types of trust that IDEA programs help sustain:
Social Trust encompasses how community members relate to one another across different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, including accessibility needs. In Canada's increasingly diverse municipalities, where cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal see over 50% of residents identify as racialized, social cohesion directly impacts community stability and economic vitality.
Civic Trust refers to residents' confidence in community organizations, volunteer committees, and citizen engagement processes. IDEA programs often serve as bridges, helping underrepresented communities, including people with disabilities, participate more fully in civic life and volunteer activities that form the backbone of Canadian community governance.
Institutional Trust represents citizens' faith in their local government's competence, transparency, and commitment to serving all residents fairly. This is perhaps the most fragile and the most expensive to rebuild when damaged by the perceived abandonment of equity commitments.
The Canadian Diversity Reality
Recent research from the Environics Institute reveals that one in four Canadians (26%) report experiencing mistreatment at some point in their lives due to their race or ethnicity, with First Nations people (57%) and Black Canadians (48%) experiencing the highest rates of discrimination. Critically, endemic racism is widely acknowledged by most Canadians, including those who do not experience it directly.
This data demonstrates that IDEA programs aren't addressing theoretical problems; they're responding to documented, measurable challenges that affect a significant portion of Canadian municipal residents. When municipalities cancel these programs, they're not eliminating the underlying issues; they're simply removing the structured response to them.
Beyond IDEA: Why Belonging Infrastructure is the Missing Foundation
While IDEA frameworks address important structural elements, my groundbreaking research reveals that organizations are missing a critical foundation: belonging infrastructure. My 2021 research, the largest workplace belonging study in Canadian history, involving 3,508 participants across 13 Toronto Stock Exchange companies, discovered that traditional IDEA approaches often fail because they focus on representation without ensuring voice.
"Belonging isn't a perk. It's the infrastructure of innovation, retention and trust," as I explain in my research, which validated five measurable indicators of belonging that determine whether IDEA programs actually translate into trust-building outcomes.
My research exposed a troubling phenomenon I call "Outlier Treatment Bias." "Traditional statistical methods are designed to reduce variation by emphasizing measures like the mean and median. In doing so, they systematically treat employees whose experiences diverge from the majority as noise in the dataset rather than as signals worth understanding." This means that the very people IDEA programs aim to support, marginalized communities, are statistically erased from organizational feedback systems.
The Five Indicators That Actually Build Trust
My framework identifies five measurable indicators that determine whether municipalities can build genuine trust through their inclusion efforts:
Comfort: When an organization prioritizes comfort, people feel seen for who they are, including their accessibility needs, cultural backgrounds, and intersecting identities. This requires more than just physical accommodations; it demands psychological comfort where people can be authentic.
Connection: The need to be known and trusted. For an organization to score high on connection, people will be aligned on values and goals. Connection creates a shared sense of responsibility and accountability. In municipal contexts, this means that residents genuinely feel known by their local government.
Contribution: Perhaps the most revealing indicator, contribution doesn't mean recognition programmes or a simple "thank you." Employees reported receiving praise for specific feedback, but outside of that particular area, they were never consulted. They said, "I'm thanked for my input, but my ideas never go beyond the room they're expressed in."
Psychological Safety: While many organizations focus solely on this indicator, my research shows it's just one piece of the puzzle. When a person is genuinely accepted into a group, making a mistake or even failing is seen as an opportunity to learn and grow, not a chance to shame, blame, or exclude.
Wellbeing: In an organization with high well-being, members' experiences are valued and respected. This requires everyone to share responsibility for caring for individuals, groups, teams and the organization as a whole.
The 50/50 Accountability Model That Changes Everything
Traditional IDEA programs place 100% of the responsibility on community members to "fit in" or navigate existing systems. My data-backed approach introduces the 50/50 Accountability Model: "Instead of telling employees to 'fit in,' my research and workplace systems create what I call 'The Belonging Equation'—50% leaders, 50% employees; 50% accepting belonging, 50% giving belonging."
"We've been conditioned to adopt fitting in practices, ie, behave like x and you are rewarded with y. Here's the problem with that: Belonging is a human need, like hunger or thirst. When someone cannot fit because of elements beyond their control, and 100% responsibility lies with them to fit in, that's a no-win situation."
For municipalities, this means shifting from asking residents "How can you better engage with our processes?" to "What support do you need to contribute meaningfully to community decisions?"
The Hidden Cost of Performance in Distress
My neuroscience research revealed something that directly impacts municipal effectiveness: "Performance without belonging is performance in distress." When community members feel included statistically but not genuinely heard, their cognitive resources are drained by trying to navigate hostile systems rather than contributing solutions.
When belonging is compromised across multiple indicators, task completion drops by 42%. For municipalities, this translates directly to reduced community engagement, lower participation in civic processes, and decreased trust in local government.
Why Traditional IDEA Programs Fail
My research challenges fundamental assumptions about how inclusion works. Many organizations that approached change initiatives solely through diversity metrics have failed to achieve their goals. An effective DEI strategy focuses on learning and development, mentorship, and allyship, extending beyond race and gender.
The problem is structural: some DEI efforts ignore that complexity, reducing employees to a single category, such as gender, race, age or disability status. That leaves people, regardless of whether they feel included in "ingroups" or "outgroups," feeling diminished.
For Canadian municipalities serious about building trust rather than just tracking metrics, the belonging first approach offers a measurable framework for moving beyond representation to genuine inclusion that builds lasting community trust.
The Election Year Trap
Municipal elections present particular risks for IDEA program continuity. As political winds shift and new councils take office, there's often pressure to demonstrate fiscal responsibility by cutting programs perceived as "non-essential." However, higher levels of trust have carry-through effects for quality of life and community vibrancy in addition to the effective functioning of local government.
The challenge intensifies when national or international political movements influence local politics. The recent backlash against DEI programs in the United States, coupled with rising political polarization, can create pressure on Canadian municipalities to follow suit. However, the gap between the views of racialized and non-racialized Canadians has narrowed over the past few years, suggesting that Canada's social context differs significantly from its southern neighbour.
Measuring the Cost of Broken Trust
When municipalities cancel IDEA programs, they often trigger what Stephen M.R. Covey terms the "low trust tax"—the increased costs that occur when trust levels decline. In the municipal context, this manifests in several measurable ways:
Immediate Costs (0-12 months): $125,000-$450,000
The immediate aftermath of cancelling IDEA programs creates multiple expensive problems for municipalities:
Community Disengagement and Reduced Participation: When residents lose trust in municipal commitment to inclusion, civic participation drops dramatically. Research shows that communities with high trust levels see 40% higher participation in public consultations and volunteer activities. Lost volunteer hours alone represent $50,000 to $150,000 annually in unpaid labour value for mid-sized municipalities.
Increased Conflict Resolution and Security Costs: Community tensions require additional resources for public meetings and events. Security costs increase by $10,000 to $25,000 monthly, while conflict mediation services cost $15,000 to $40,000 to manage community disputes and rebuild dialogue.
Staff Turnover and Replacement: Municipal employees committed to inclusive governance often leave when programs are cancelled. Replacing 3-5 mid-level municipal employees costs $75,000 to $187,500 (using the 30-50% of salary replacement cost standard), plus additional recruitment premiums for specialized positions.
Emergency Communications and Reputation Management: Managing immediate community backlash costs $25,000 to $50,000 in crisis communications, community meetings, and damage control efforts.
Medium-term Costs (1-3 years): $300,000-$1.2 million
The cascading effects create compounding costs for municipal operations:
Grant and Funding Losses: Federal and provincial grants increasingly prioritize equity and accessibility considerations. Municipalities with cancelled IDEA programs lose 15-25% of discretionary grant opportunities, representing $200,000-$800,000 in lost funding annually for communities that previously received $1.5-3 million in grants.
Reduced Economic Development: Businesses are increasingly evaluating communities on their inclusion practices when making location decisions. Loss of 2-3 major business relocations or expansions represents $500,000 to $2,000,000 in lost economic activity and tax revenue over 3 years.
Legal and Human Rights Challenges: Municipal discrimination complaints incur costs of $25,000 to $100,000 per case in legal fees and settlements. Municipalities face 2-4 additional cases annually following IDEA program cancellations, totalling $150,000-$600,000 over 3 years.
Decreased Service Delivery Effectiveness: Without inclusive design principles, municipal services become less accessible and effective. Retrofitting services and infrastructure costs 40-60% more than inclusive design from the start, representing $200,000 to $500,000 in additional expenses.
Long-term Costs (3+ years): $750,000-$3.5 million
The most devastating costs emerge as municipalities lose competitive advantage and community cohesion:
Population and Tax Base Erosion: Municipalities known for abandoning inclusion struggle to attract and retain diverse residents, particularly young professionals and families. A 5% population decline represents $1-3 million in lost annual tax revenue for communities with budgets ranging from $20 million to $ 60 million.
Infrastructure and Service Inefficiency: Operating without inclusive principles creates systemic inefficiencies. Municipalities experience 20-30% higher costs for service delivery due to poor accessibility design and reduced community engagement, resulting in $2-4 million over 5 years for mid-sized communities.
Regional Reputation Damage: Communities develop reputations as unwelcoming, which can affect tourism, business attraction, and regional partnerships for 5-10 years. This "community brand penalty" costs $500,000 to $2,000,000 in lost economic opportunities annually.
Democratic Deficit and Governance Breakdown: Reduced community trust leads to lower voter turnout, decreased public input, and governance challenges. The cost of operating with poor community engagement includes failed initiatives, increased conflict, and policy reversals, representing $300,000-$800,000 annually in wasted resources and missed opportunities.
The Cost of Rebuilding Trust
For municipalities that cancel IDEA programs, the rebuilding process involves several costly phases with measurable financial impacts:
Immediate Response Phase (Months 1-6): $75,000-$300,000
When trust breakdowns occur at the municipal level, immediate costs accumulate quickly:
Crisis Communication Management: Municipal crisis communications typically cost $15,000-$30,000 per month, with major incidents requiring 3-6 months of intensive management
Emergency Community Consultations: Organizing rapid community engagement sessions costs $20,000 to $50,000, including venue rental, facilitation, translation services, and accessibility accommodations
Staff Retraining and Policy Development: Rapid policy development and staff cultural sensitivity training costs $25,000 to $75,000 for mid-sized municipalities
Legal and Human Rights Compliance: Addressing discrimination complaints and human rights challenges costs $15,000 to $100,000 in legal fees and settlements, according to municipal insurance data
Increased Security and Conflict Management: Community tensions may require additional security at public meetings and events, costing $5,000 to $25,000 monthly
Relationship Repair Phase (Years 1-3): $200,000-$800,000
Medium-term rebuilding requires extensive community relationship restoration:
Comprehensive Community Engagement Programs: Rebuilding community trust requires 2-3 times the normal engagement budgets. For municipalities spending $50,000 annually on community engagement, repair costs $100,000 to $150,000 annually.
Enhanced Accessibility and Inclusion Infrastructure: Implementing proper accessibility measures and inclusive design costs $75,000 to $250,000, depending on municipal size and existing infrastructure gaps
Partnership Reconstruction: Rebuilding relationships with community organizations, cultural groups, and advocacy organizations requires dedicated funding of $30,000 to $100,000 annually.
Staff Capacity Building: Comprehensive staff training on inclusive governance and belonging principles costs $15,000 to $40,000 annually.
Increased Monitoring and Reporting: Implementing enhanced measurement systems and community feedback mechanisms costs $10,000 to $30,000, with ongoing annual costs of $5,000 to $15,000.
Long-term Rebuilding Phase (Years 3-7): $500,000-$2 million
The most expensive phase involves systemic municipal transformation:
Institutional Culture Change: Comprehensive organizational culture transformation for municipal governments typically costs 5 to 10% of the annual operational budget. For a municipality with a $20 million budget, this represents $1-2 million in additional costs over the rebuilding period.
Enhanced Service Delivery Systems: Implementing truly inclusive service delivery requires system overhauls costing $100,000 to $500,000, including technology upgrades, staff training, and process redesign.
Community Infrastructure Investment: Building lasting trust requires investment in community spaces, programs, and services that demonstrate a commitment to inclusion, typically costing between $200,000 and $800,000 over the rebuilding period.
Ongoing Measurement and Accountability: Implementing a belonging framework or similar measurement systems costs $25,000 to $75,000 initially, with ongoing annual costs of $10,000 to $25,000.
Lost Grant and Partnership Opportunities: Municipalities with damaged trust records often lose access to federal and provincial grants prioritizing equity. This can represent $100,000 to $1 million annually in lost funding opportunities.
Research from the Institute of Leadership & Management shows that organizations prioritizing trust-building report 30% higher engagement levels, while studies of municipal trust breakdown indicate that rebuilding efforts take 3 to 7 years to restore pre-crisis community confidence levels.
Best Practices for Maintaining Trust During Transitions
Canadian municipalities facing pressure to cancel IDEA programs can adopt several strategies to maintain trust while addressing legitimate concerns:
Transparent Evaluation: Rather than wholesale cancellation, conduct public evaluations of program effectiveness, involving community stakeholders in assessment and redesign processes.
Integration, Not Elimination: Integrate IDEA and Belonging considerations into all municipal functions rather than treating them as separate, eliminable programs. This approach often reduces costs while maintaining trust.
Education-First Approach: Rather than expecting communities to lead solutions without a proper foundation, municipalities must prioritize comprehensive education initiatives. Most communities operate from limited perspectives and single-lens approaches, which often creates more division rather than solutions. The key is equipping front-line municipal services—Police, Fire, Ambulance, Public Library, and Public Works—with proper tools, resources, and training so they can model inclusive practices and educate their communities through daily interactions.
These essential services have the most frequent and trusted contact with residents across all demographics. When a firefighter responds to a call, a librarian assists a patron, or a public works employee interacts with residents, these moments become opportunities for modelling belonging and teaching inclusive practices. Research indicates that individuals are more likely to change their attitudes through consistent, positive interactions with trusted authority figures than through formal community consultations.
Municipalities should invest in comprehensive training programs that equip these front-line workers with my five belonging indicators—comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and wellbeing—enabling them to create inclusive interactions that gradually shift community perspectives. This approach builds trust from the ground up through everyday positive experiences rather than expecting divided communities to suddenly collaborate effectively.
Belonging-Based Budget Allocation: Evaluate programs not just on diversity metrics but on whether they create the five conditions necessary for genuine community trust and participation.
The Canadian Advantage: Building on Strong Foundations
Canadians' current preoccupation with other pressing concerns does not mean we have lost sight of this issue of racial equity and inclusion. Research shows that strong majorities believe that people from different races in their own community get along (78%) and have equal opportunities to succeed in life (73%).
This suggests that Canadian municipalities have a significant advantage over their international counterparts: a population that generally supports diversity and inclusion initiatives. However, my research shows that good intentions aren't enough. Communities need measurable belonging infrastructure to translate positive attitudes into authentic inclusion that builds lasting trust.
Implementing Belonging-First Municipal Governance
For Canadian municipalities ready to move beyond traditional IDEA programming to genuine trust-building, my framework offers immediate practical applications:
Monthly Belonging Audits: Instead of annual diversity surveys that may suffer from Outlier Treatment Bias, implement monthly pulse checks across all five belonging indicators. This catches trust erosion before it becomes a crisis.
Community Contribution Tracking: Move beyond simply thanking residents for their input to documenting how their ideas actually influence policy decisions. My research indicates that this is where many inclusion efforts often fail; people feel heard but not influential.
50/50 Accountability in Public Engagement: Design community consultations that ask "What support do you need to contribute meaningfully?" rather than expecting residents to navigate existing bureaucratic processes.
Belonging-Based Budget Allocation: Evaluate programs not just on diversity metrics but on whether they create the five conditions necessary for genuine community trust and participation.
Leadership Belonging Training: Train municipal staff to recognize and address all five belonging indicators, not just psychological safety, to create environments where diverse community voices can actually influence decisions.
Conclusion: Trust as Infrastructure
Trust empowers local officials to garner public support for ambitious, long-term goals. In this sense, IDEA programs function as social infrastructure—invisible but essential systems that enable communities to function effectively. Just as municipalities wouldn't abandon water treatment systems during budget pressures, they shouldn't abandon the systems that maintain social cohesion and institutional legitimacy.
The true cost of cancelling IDEA programs isn't measured in immediate budget savings—it's calculated in years of expensive trust-rebuilding efforts, decreased community capacity, and lost opportunities for collaborative problem-solving. As Stephen M.R. Covey writes, "change happens at the speed of trust," and as trust decreases, costs also increase.
For Canadian municipalities, the path forward isn't abandonment; it's strategic evolution toward belonging-first governance. By implementing an evidence-based framework alongside IDEA initiatives, municipalities can create a measurable trust-building infrastructure that transforms community engagement and civic participation.
My research is clear: municipalities that measure and optimize across all five belonging indicators see improved community engagement, reduced conflict, and enhanced collaborative problem-solving. This isn't theory; it's documented outcomes from the largest workplace belonging study in Canadian history, now being adapted for community governance.
In an era of increasing global uncertainty and social complexity, Canadian municipalities that combine IDEA frameworks with belonging infrastructure will not only be doing the right thing; they'll be implementing the most advanced approach to inclusive governance available, backed by rigorous neuroscience research and measurable outcomes.
For municipalities interested in implementing belonging first approaches to community engagement, the Belonging First methodology offers evidence-based frameworks specifically designed for Canadian organizational contexts. This research-driven approach moves beyond traditional IDEA programming to create measurable trust-building infrastructure.
References
Adams, M., Bailey-Wisdom, M., & Neuman, K. (2025, April 21). Now is not the time for Canada to walk away from diversity, equity and inclusion. The Globe and Mail. https://www.environicsinstitute.org/insights/insight-details/now-is-not-the-time-for-canada-to-walk-away-from-diversity--equity-and-inclusion
Accessible Canada Act (S.C. 2019, c. 10). https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/a-0.6/
Boston Consulting Group. (2018). How diverse leadership teams boost innovation. BCG Insights. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation
Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. (2025). Community of practice: Transdisciplinary approaches to DEIA.
https://ccdi.ca/
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. (2021). Accessible Canada regulations (SOR/2021-160).
Carter, A. D. (2021). A neuroscience-based framework for belonging in the workplace [Master's thesis]. Adler University. https://adleruniversity.academia.edu/AndreaCarter
Carter, A. D. (2024). In the face of DEI backlash, belonging plays a key role to future success. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/in-the-face-of-dei-backlash-belonging-plays-a-key-role-to-future-success-230289
Carter, A. D. (2024). I studied 3,508 workers and found why your psychological safety training isn't working. Sovereign Magazine. https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/hr-recruiting/andrea-carter-why-psychological-safety-training-isnt-working/
Carter, A. D. (2025). Belonging as infrastructure: Why Andrea Carter says we've been doing inclusion all wrong. Rich Woman Magazine. https://richwoman.co/belonging-as-infrastructure-andrea-carter-inclusion-wrong/
Covey, S. M. R. (2006). The speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Free Press.
Electricity Human Resources Canada. (2024, February 16). Accessibility & disability-related terms. https://ehrc.ca/toolkits/from-disability-to-inclusion/accessibility-disability-related-terms/
Employment and Social Development Canada. (2024). Summary of the Accessible Canada regulations. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-canada/regulations-summary-act.html
Environics Institute for Survey Research. (2024). Race relations in Canada 2024. https://www.environicsinstitute.org/projects/project-details/race-relations-in-canada-2024
Gallup. (2023). State of the global workplace: 2023 report. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
Government of Canada. (2019). About an accessible Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-canada.html
Government of Canada. (2021). Summary of the Accessible Canada Act. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-canada/act-summary.html
Health Data Research Network Canada. (2024, October 15). Inclusion, diversity, equity & accessibility. https://www.hdrn.ca/en/data-equity/idea/
Hunt, V., Layton, D., & Prince, S. (2015). Diversity matters. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/diversity-matters
Institute of Leadership & Management. (2023). Building trust in organizations: Research report. https://www.institutelm.com/resourceLibrary/building-trust-in-organizations.html
Lee, I. H. (2022, April 22). DEI, I&D, DEIB, or IDEA – Various diversity acronyms and what they mean. https://ivanhlee.com/dei-id-deib-idea/
Level Access. (2025, April 2). The Accessible Canada Act and Canadian accessibility laws. https://www.levelaccess.com/blog/canadian-accessibility-laws/
Mallory, B. (2024). Social, civic, and institutional trust: Necessary conditions for a pluralistic democracy. Carsey School of Public Policy. https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/social-civic-institutional-trust-necessary-conditions-pluralistic-democracy
McKinsey & Company. (2020). Diversity wins: How inclusion matters. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters
People Keep. (2024, April 16). Employee retention: The real cost of losing an employee. https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/employee-retention-the-real-cost-of-losing-an-employee
PowerToFly. (2025, January 13). Diversity and inclusion acronyms: A 2025 glossary. https://powertofly.com/up/diversity-and-inclusion-acronyms
Statistics Canada. (2023, August 30). Employment and disability in Canada, 2022. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230830/dq230830a-eng.htm
University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. (2024). Understanding public trust at the local level. https://extension.unh.edu/resource/understanding-public-trust-local-level
Woolcock, M. (2013). Local solutions for local problems. World Bank Group. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/07/03/Local-Solutions-for-Local-Problems