Question Period Note: DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

The Government of Canada is working to promote diversity and inclusion in the public service.

• Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is broad and deep. It is reflected in Ministers’ mandate letters, in the establishment of an Anti-Racism Secretariat and Strategy, in the appointment of a Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, and in the creation of both the Office for Public Service Accessibility and a Centre on Diversity and Inclusion at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

• Today, the public service broadly reflects the workforce availability of three out of four Employment Equity groups. But we cannot ignore the fact that racism that is an everyday reality for Black Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, and people of colour.

• We have to make sure that our public service not only reflects the population it serves, but that it offers an opportunity for all employees to express their full potential.

• To help us get there, I have announced several key initiatives dedicated to diversity and inclusion. This includes improving our data collection and analysis, reviewing representation gaps in the most senior ranks of the public service and strategizing how to close them, such as through external recruitment.

• Throughout, we are inviting public servants from equity-seeking groups to help co-develop initiatives to address barriers and create a culture change towards greater diversity and inclusion.

The work of building a representative public service is a concerted effort that must be taken across the enterprise, given that these responsibilities are held by many organizations with different areas of influence and control. To name a few:

• the Clerk sets out expectations and appoints deputy heads
• the Public Service Commission administers the Public Service Employment Act and delegates to Deputy Heads the authority to appoint public servants
• Treasury Board sets the policy frame for the core public administration, and sets terms and conditions of employment
• The Treasury Board Secretariat collects and researches data and supports senior executive talent management
• And of course, Minister Tassi is responsible for the Employment Equity Act and sets the definition of equity-seeking groups for all federally regulated organizations. The Employment Equity Act has provided impetus for progress on increasing representation of the four EE-designated groups in the public service in the last two decades. But as our focus shifts to a broader definition of diversity, more needs to be done.

Recent events, such as the upsurge in the Black Lives Matter movement and how COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected equity-seeking groups, have highlighted inequities and further underscored the importance of promoting inclusion.

The Federal Black Employee Caucus (FBEC) has advocated strongly for disaggregated data and initiatives to increase the Executive representation of Black employees. FBEC’s recommendations and the steps being taken in the public service are aligned with the recommendations of the previous reports, such as the Many Voices, One Mind report on Indigenous representation and the Final Report from the Joint Union/Management Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in the Public Service.

In Budget 2018, the Government announced funding for a Centre for Wellness, Inclusion and Diversity in the public service. This launched in June 2019 and rebranded itself as the Centre on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) in October 2020, after funding was announced in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement. CDI’s resources will continue to support the evolving diversity and inclusion agenda in the public service, and the wellness component will be handled by the Centre of Expertise on Mental Health in the Workplace.

• Diversity and Inclusion are key priorities of the Government of Canada. Mandate letters include commitments to increase representation for under-represented groups. Inclusion is one of the three priorities articulated in the Clerk’s Beyond 2020 initiative. The Clerk of the Privy Council issued a Call to Action on anti-racism, equity, and inclusion in January 2021, and the September 2020 Speech from the Throne also included provisos to increase diversity and inclusion.

• Overall, the representation of women, Indigenous Peoples and members of visible minorities in the public service is above their workforce availability estimates. Representation of persons with disabilities is below workforce availability, but there are initiatives in place to hire more people from this group.

• In the Executive cadre, women, persons with a disability, and members of a visible minority are also represented to their availability in the workforce. The public service is working to improve its leadership development in order to increase representation of Indigenous employees and other Employment Equity designated groups in senior leadership.

• 16.7% of public servants identify as a member of a visible minority, of which 19% are Black. In January 2018, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would recognize the United Nations’ International Decade for People of African Descent (2014-2025) and commit to addressing systemic anti-Black racism in Canada. Recently, we established an Anti-Racism Secretariat at Canadian Heritage, which has developed an Anti-Racism Strategy for all of Canada.