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CANADA’S BEST DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS (2025)
Equity is good medicine at Unity Health Toronto
Black, Indigenous and racialized
people, those in the LGBTQ+
community and people with
disabilities.
“We thought about putting
a mentorship program on
the ground that looked like
everyone else’s mentorship
program,” says Locke. “But
then we asked ourselves, ‘What
would mentorship look like if we
adapted our program to build a
more representational leadership
team?’”
We asked
ourselves,
‘What would
mentorship look
like if we adapted
our program to
build a more
representational
leadership team?’”
The Council on Anti-Racism, Equity and Social Accountability at Unity Health Toronto oversees
transformational improvements in systemic racism and social accountability.
R
unning a health care
organization that
includes three hospitals
and 11,000 staff is a
complex undertaking. Even more
so when you serve one of the
largest and most diverse cities
in North America. When Unity
Health Toronto was founded in
2017 with the integration of three
Catholic hospitals, making sure
that staff reflect the diversity of
patients became an important
long-term goal.
Manson Locke is vice president,
people, and chief human resources officer at Unity Health Toronto.
He says diversity and inclusion has
long been part of the organization’s DNA. “It’s a base of strength
for us that we have this mission
that was given to us 100 years
ago by the Sisters of St. Joseph’s
of Toronto. We were a door open
to absolutely everybody, and we
would strive to get into those
parts of society where people are
left behind. That’s something
that translates very well to our
modern efforts around equity and
inclusion.”
Unity Health Toronto
embarked on foundational work
toward addressing racism and
discrimination as continuing barriers to people’s ability to access
health services and to realize their
full potential. This included the
establishment of the Council on
Anti-Racism, Equity and Social
Accountability in 2020.
In 2024, Unity Health Toronto
kicked off a landmark equitybased program designed to
provide mentorship opportunities
to aspiring leaders within the
organization. The focus is on
recruiting mentors and mentees
who self-identify as belonging
to communities that experience
barriers in leadership, including
— Manson Locke
Vice President, People, and
Chief Human Resources
Officer
Faye Roberts is the manager of
volunteer services at Unity Health
Toronto and one of the organizers
of the program. “We started out
focusing on LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities and BIPOC
communities because we know
that they experience implicit bias
in institutions,” she says, referring
to Black, Indigenous and people of
colour.
The five-month program
allowed mentees to learn from
leaders who had already experienced and overcome barriers
