Standing with communities against hate

Empathy is a quiet kind of strength, a way of tending to one another that keeps us alive and connected even as individualism rises and the ties between us are stretched thin, and as many actors wage a “war on empathy”. In my role as VP, Grants and Community Initiatives, I work to offer leadership that attends to evidence and listens deeply with the heart.

When we listen to community in this historical moment, we find that many people are worried about increasing hate crimes and the rise of far-right wing groups in Hamilton.

Last summer, I was grateful to the CBC for its coverage of white supremacist groups training for violence in Hamilton parks and gyms. I had already witnessed these groups in my neighbourhood, and I know such groups can thrive when no one is looking. Their ideologies would deny me, as a trans person, the right to exist in public (or at all). More recently (February 2026), a group of people wearing masks carried white-supremacist group gathered in front of Hamilton City Hall, less than a block away from HCF’s offices.

Both personally and professionally, I stand with all communities against hate and work towards justice.

In practice, this shows up in our commitments to Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation and the actions we take along the path to healing harms and building a principled future together. It shows up when we use data to track our granting to equity-deserving communities, when we try to reduce the burden on grant applicants by making applications and reports easier to complete. And it shows up in our participatory granting pilot, in which HCF shares power with a circle of equity deserving community-led organizations who make decisions together, without HCF involvement, about how to share a collective funding pot.

To navigate the complexity of these times, I try to spend my energy discerning what is within my sphere of influence and what is outside it.  While I can’t control who subscribes to hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric, I can assure the broader community that HCF is more committed than ever to equity and reconciliation (two of our core values), and I strive to align our actions with those values each day I come to work.

In my role, I formally report to our CEO, Rudi Wallace, who is accountable to our Board of Directors. Together, we answer to a much broader group of affected communities. Standing with them against oppressive social forces like racism and hate is part of what accountability means for the Foundation.

CA Klassen
Vice-President, Grants & Community Initiatives