Leonie Tchatat

About Ms. Tchatat

Recipient of the 2024 RBC Black Diamond Ball award, Co-Founder of the “Résolutions : Overcoming Racism Together” conference, Ms. Leonie Tchatat is the Founder and CEO of La Passerelle-I.D.É. Toronto and Paris, recipient of the 2024 Toronto Community Champion Award by the City of Toronto. Ex-commissioner at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Co-President of the “Call to Action Against Racism” Advisory Committee, Léonie Tchatat has played a key role in the development of initiatives defined by innovation and anchored in a profound knowledge of issues of importance regarding the exclusion/inclusion of the growing diversity of francophone black and racialized in Canadian and Ontarian society.

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Ms. Léonie Tchatat has been working for more than 28 years on initiatives to eradicate systemic racism in our society. In 2021, she was appointed to the City of Toronto's Black Mandate Funding Committee, whose goal is to create a Black-mandated funding framework to deliver on the City of Toronto's commitment to advance the International Decade for People of African Descent. In line with her ongoing work, she was invited to speak at the EFUS international conference in Nice in 2021, which brought together more than 250 European and international cities and regions to mobilise in favour of enhanced, inclusive and sustainable urban security.

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Ms. Tchatat has received numerous awards in recognition of her accomplishments: in 2009, she was named “Chevalier à l’ordre de la francophonie et du dialogue des cultures de la Pléiade”. In 2002, she was named a member of the Passages to Canada Speakers Bureau. In 2005, she was a member of the Director’s Committee for Citizenship and Immigration Canada – Francophone Minority Communities. She was given a position in the Administrative Council for the Public Education Channel for the French Language TFO for 2 mandates. A strategist and an activist, she has founded a training programme in Cultural Competencies, renowned as an exemplary practice for the promotion of immigrant integration in Canada by the Canadian government, and has launched 2 large public awareness-raising campaigns on Francophone immigrant contributions in Ontario, titled ‘Immigrant means: a stronger Ontarian francophonie!’ and ‘Immigrant means: a prosperous French Ontario!’. It is recognised that, thanks to Ms. Tchatat, thousands of immigrants have found a way of integrating into Canadian society. Ms. Tchatat has been named representative of the Canada-France Seminar for young people and diversity integration, organized by the Canadian Ambassador in France and the National Council for Cities.