A walk in the park at the Bow River Flow festival.

Cowboy imagery is an important part of Calgary’s identity. We put it everywhere; the airport, Stephen Avenue, city hall. But our true character is much different than the image we cultivate.

The election of Mayor Naheed Nenshi has made the rest of the country and a few Calgarians reconsider their impressions of our city. His is perhaps the most visible manifestation of a dramatic change in the face of Calgary over the past 20 years. No less significant, his purple-coloured campaign struck gold at the end of a decidedly rainbow collective of supporters and campaign workers.

Taking advantage of the opportunities that Calgary’s gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity provide could be the key to our sustainability.

We can talk about diversity in various ways. Demographically speaking, Canadian cities are among the most diverse in the world. At 50 per cent, Toronto is neck and neck with Miami as the city with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents. Metro Vancouver is close with 44 per cent. And 23 per cent of Calgarians are immigrants, making our city the fourth most ethnically diverse in Canada.

Our diversity has helped define Calgary as a more vibrant, sophisticated and welcoming city. It is especially visible in our arts and culture scene. Though still dominant, gone are the days when the Calgary Stampede was the only cultural game in town. Our city’s cultural mosaic is multi-faceted and expanding. With cultural events including imagineAsia, GlobalFest, Sled Island, Afrikadey and Carifest, the diversity of our city is finding its voice.

No question, we are a diverse community, and more and more we celebrate that diversity through festivals of music, food, dance and theatre. The Canadian multicultural experiment is envied around the world, but it is not without its failings. Evidence suggests we don’t practise inclusion or embrace diversity in the political and economic life of our city.

Since 2001, Sustainable Calgary has been tracking the diversity of approximately 250 positions of power and influence in the city. The list includes elected politicians — from trustees to members of parliament, the boards of directors of the city’s largest social development and private sector organizations, and media personalities. The survey asked: With respect to gender, visible minorities and aboriginals, does the diversity within this group represent the diversity of our city? Sadly, the answer is no.

In 2010, women were 50 per cent of Calgary’s population, visible minorities 25 per cent and Aboriginal Peoples six per cent. Among the 250 positions of power and influence identified in the survey, 31 per cent were women — down from 34 per cent in 200 1— and 9.8 per cent were visible minorities. No Aboriginal Peoples were among this group.

With 46 per cent of board directorships, women were best represented in the not-for-profit sector, followed by 40 per cent in the media sector. At 14 per cent, visible minorities were best represented among our politicians. The corporate sector was the least diverse. Of the five largest private sector employers surveyed, 16 per cent of board members were women and there were no visible minorities or Aboriginal Peoples in a sample of 63 directorships.

Of course, Calgary is no more or less diversity-challenged than the rest of the country. Only 22 per cent of our parliamentarians are women, putting us in 51st place among nations. Rwanda (54 per cent) and Sweden (45 per cent) lead the pack. In the private sector, 21 of Canada’s top 1,000 companies are headed by women and only 13 per cent of board members in Canada’s top 500 companies are women.

Research has shown that embracing diversity builds social capital, improves the quality of political debate, and improves our capacity to understand, communicate and trade with the wider world. According to recent research from Corporate Knights magazine, the stock price of European companies with gender diverse boards outperformed the average by 17 per cent. The Maytree Foundation, an Ontario-based not-for-profit, reports that diverse boards make better decisions, provide greater legitimacy in the community and are more in keeping with our representative democracy.

The embrace of diversity also resonates with the latest business trend and social media buzz around the wisdom of the crowd. Two leading authors on the subject, Jeff Howe and James Surowiecki, make the case that the crowd is “talented, creative and stunningly productive,” but more importantly, “wise crowds need a diversity of opinion.”Collectively, Calgarians represent a wide range of life experience, world views, spiritual beliefs and cultural knowledge — assets we will need to create a competitive, resilient and sustainable economy. Diversity includes a smart business strategy, provides equality of opportunity and leads to better decisions. Valuing gender, ethnic and cultural diversity makes us stronger.

We’ve come a long way and there is much to celebrate. But there’s no room for complacency. Our future will be brighter if we honour, nurture and leverage diversity in all its dimensions. Opportunity knocks.

Next article: Regional relations

Geoff Ghitter teaches urban studies at the University of Calgary. geeessgee.blogspot.com. Noel Keough is an assistant professor in the faculty of environmental design at the university, and is co-founder of Sustainable Calgary Society. nkeough@ucalgary.ca.