Question Period Note: EMPLOYMENT EQUITY PROGRAM – GENERAL

What is the government doing to ensure fair, inclusive and equitable workplaces?

• The Government of Canada believes that Canada’s strength lies in its diversity. Creating equitable, diverse and inclusive workplaces will help grow our middle class and build a country where every Canadian has a real and fair chance to succeed.

• One of the ways the Government promotes equity and diversity is through the Employment Equity Act. The Act seeks to address barriers in employment faced by women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities in federally regulated private sector.

• By identifying and removing employment barriers, employers help ensure that all Canadian have equal access to employment opportunities so they can reach their full potential and contribute meaningfully to Canada’s economic growth.

General
The purpose of the Employment Equity Act (the Act) is to achieve equality in the workplace so that no one is denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability and to correct conditions of disadvantage experienced by four designated groups: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

Employers’ requirements under the Act

All federally regulated employers covered under the Act have four core obligations:
• survey their workforce to collect data on the representation of designated group members in each occupational group in their workforce;
• identify any underrepresentation of the designated groups in each occupational group in their workforce;
• review their employment systems including written and unwritten policies and practices in order to identify employment barriers; and
• prepare and implement a plan to remove employment barriers and achieve equitable representation.

Employers covered under the Act
The Act applies to:
• federally regulated private-sector employers with 100 or more employees, including federal Crown corporations (e.g. Canada Post) and other federal organizations (e.g. port authorities) covered under the Legislated Employment Equity Program (LEEP);
• all core public administration organizations identified in Schedules I or IV of the Financial Administration Act (federal government departments and agencies);
• separate agencies in the federal public sector listed in Schedule V of the Financial Administration Act with 100 or more employees (e.g. Canada Revenue Agency); and
• the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Division of responsibilities under the Act

Under the Act:
• the Minister of Labour is responsible for the Act and the programs and initiatives described below;
• Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission carry out employer obligations for the core federal public administration and the President of the Treasury Board tables the public sector annual reports to Parliament;
• the Canadian Human Rights Commission is responsible for conducting compliance audits of all federally regulated employers (i.e. both the LEEP and the federal public sector); and
• an Employment Equity Review Tribunal can be established to hear cases where the Canadian Human Rights Commission has found non-compliance.

Employment equity programs and initiatives carried out by the Labour Program
The Minister of Labour is responsible for the following employment equity programs and initiatives that are delivered by the Labour Program of Employment and Social Development Canada.

• Legislated Employment Equity Program
Each year, the federally regulated private-sector employers, federal Crown corporations and other federal organizations are covered under the LEEP are required to file an employment equity report with the Minister of Labour by June 1. This report contains six forms that include representation data on the four designated groups and all employees by employee occupational groups, geography, industrial sector, salary ranges and pay gaps, and the number of employees hired, promoted and terminated. It also contains a narrative report describing the measures that have been taken, consultations with employee representatives, and results achieved in implementing employment equity.
The Labour Program receives and validates the employer reports, then consolidates and analyzes the information to produce the Minister’s “Employment Equity Act: Annual Report” that must be tabled in Parliament.
The Labour Program also provides guidance and tools to the LEEP employers relating to the implementation of employment equity in the workplace.
According to the “Employment Equity Act: 2020 Annual Report”, for 2019, the LEEP covered 595 employers with a total of 776,997 employees, representing approximately 3.8% of the Canadian workforce.
• Federal Contractors Program
The Act assigns responsibility for administering the Federal Contractors Program (FCP) to the Minister of Labour. The FCP applies to provincially regulated employers with at least 100 employees receiving goods and services contracts of $1 million or more from the Government of Canada. The FCP ensures that employers who do business with the Government of Canada seek to achieve and maintain a workforce that is representative of the Canadian workforce, with respect to the members of the four designated groups under the Act.
Once an employer receives an eligible contract from the Government of Canada, the contractor must fulfill the following requirements:
o collect workforce information;
o complete a workforce analysis and an achievement report;
o set goals to correct underrepresentation;
o make efforts to ensure that progress is made towards having full representation of the four designated groups within its workforce; and
o report the above information to the Labour Program.
The Labour Program conducts compliance assessments one year after the initial federal contract award date and every three years thereafter. If a contractor is found to be in non-compliance, with approval from the Minister, they may be prevented from bidding on new contracts until they comply.

As of February 2022, the FCP applied to 401 employers covering 602,312 employees.
• Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity
Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity (WORBE) is a grants and contributions program designed to support private-sector employers subject to the Act in their efforts to improve the representation and participation of designated group members in areas with low representation. The projects funded seek to raise awareness, identify barriers and best practices, or test innovative approaches in employment equity.

Previously, $500,000 per fiscal year was allocated in funding, and in 2021-22, the funding was increased to $2 million. Beginning in 2022-23, funding of $3 million will be available per fiscal year to eligible recipients, including federally regulated private-sector employers, employer associations or councils, sector associations or councils, non-governmental organizations, not-for-profit organizations, and academic institutions. Each project can receive a maximum of $500,000 per fiscal year and $1.5 million in total contributions funding. Projects must conclude within 60 months.

Since its launch in 2014, WORBE has supported 16 projects, as follows:
o 4 grant projects completed in 2016
o 2 contribution agreements concluded in 2017
o 3 contribution agreements concluded in 2018, and
o 7 projects in progress that will conclude in spring 2022

An Open Call for Concepts was launched on January 18, 2022 and closed on February 15, 2022 to allocate funding for 2022-2023.
Employment Equity Achievement Awards
The Employment Equity Achievement Awards publicly recognize LEEP and FCP employers and individual business leaders from these organizations for their employment equity achievements and their commitment to creating diverse and inclusive Canadian workplaces. Awards are usually presented by the Minister of Labour at an official ceremony for four categories: Outstanding Commitment, Innovation, Sector Distinction, and Employment Equity Champion.
In 2021, due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic, there was no application process for the awards in 2020-2021. Instead, the Minister hosted a virtual event in June 2021 to recognize employers and their ongoing efforts in implementing employment equity. A similar event will take place in spring 2022.
• Pay gap reporting
In Budget 2018, the Government of Canada introduced a new pay gap reporting measure that requires federally regulated private-sector employers subject to the Act to report new salary data as part of their annual reporting requirements.
This measure will provide Canadians with user-friendly, comparable online information on the pay gaps of these employers to raise awareness of pay gaps that affect the four designated groups – women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities, making Canada the first country to make this level of information publicly available. It will prompt employers to examine their compensation and human resource practices and show leadership in reducing pay gaps, helping to shift business culture and expectations towards greater equality.
Pay gap reporting measures came into force on January 1, 2021. Pay gap data for the year 2021 will be reported by June 2022 and be published in fall 2022 or early 2023 on the Government website and in the Minister of Labour’s Employment Equity Act: Annual Report 2022.

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