BMO has dropped “diversity” from its core values
The bank’s CEO recently informed employees of a change in corporate vocabulary
The Bank of Montreal is the latest corporate brand to capitulate to anti–diversity, equity and inclusion sentiment.
According to the Toronto Star, the bank’s CEO, Darryl White, told employees at an internal presentation this month that BMO’s core values include integrity, responsibility, empathy and inclusion—all good things, sure, but there’s been a glaring vocabulary swap.
“Note that inclusion is replacing diversity. Corporate interpretations of concepts like diversity have become too input focused. Inclusion is more holistic, more outcome focused,” he said, per the Star’s story. “And it reflects our own focus on the outcomes that ensure that all employees—and clients—are valued, respected and included when we drive progress through our strategy.”
A spokesperson for BMO did not answer the Star’s question about whether the change is meant to mirror anti-diversity efforts in the United States, which have strengthened since President Donald Trump took office last January. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump signed executive orders instructing both public- and private-sector organizations to eliminate DEI policies. BMO has more than 1,000 bank branches in the US.
“What BMO is doing is very consistent with a larger shift that we see in the industry,” Wyle Baoween, CEO of Canadian consulting firm Inclusivity, told the Star. “The question here is, will they still hold themselves accountable for social equity, for diversity, for inclusion? Or are they just trying to find a way to get out of that?”
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
