Employment equity is the principle of correcting disadvantages and removing barriers that certain groups face to entering, remaining in or advancing in the workforce. Since 1996, the Employment Equity Act (the Act) has been the main tool for advancing this principle in Canada’s federal public service.
Among other measures, the Act requires monitoring the representation of four “designated groups” in the federal public service: women, “Aboriginal peoples,” “persons with disabilities,” and “members of visible minorities.”
Criticisms of the Act include the fact that it is limited to these four designated groups, uses outdated language in describing them and does little to encourage analysis of how multiple aspects of one’s identity may affect workplace experiences.
Recent data show progress in promoting all four groups within the public service. These data also suggest that all designated groups except people with disabilities have consistently been hired at rates that exceed their workforce availability.
However, the salaries of employees of designated groups are generally lower than those of other public servants. In addition, the groups and metrics chosen by the Act can mask other forms of inequality, including intersectional impacts within subgroups – such as specific ethnic groups within the broader “visible minorities” category – or inequalities faced by groups about which the Act is silent, such as two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and other sexually and gender‑diverse employees.
A 2023 report commissioned by the Minister of Labour issued 187 recommendations for modernization of the Act, including several significant legislative changes. The report was followed by similar recommendations by the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Despite initial agreement by the government at that time on several of these recommendations, no legislative changes have since been made.
Read the full text of the HillStudy: Employment Equity in Canada’s Federal Public Service
By Robert Mason and Ryan van den Berg, Library of Parliament
Categories: Employment and labour, Executive summary, Government, Parliament and politics, Law, justice and rights, Social affairs and population