Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

No surprise:

A coalition of human rights groups advocating for Black and racialized Canadians has lodged a formal complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) for discriminating against its own employees.

The coalition also outlined a number of actions Monday it wants the federal government to take to combat what it calls “systemic discrimination within its structures.”

“We’re relying on the Canadian Human Rights Commission to play a role in the fight to dismantle systemic discrimination, not to be the perpetrator in all of this,” Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat (BCAS), said in Ottawa Monday.

The coalition said it has asked the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) to review the CHRC’s accreditation with the group.

GANHRI is an umbrella organization that coordinates policy and action between the United Nations and domestic human rights organizations.

The coalition said it wants Canada’s human rights body reviewed by GANHRI for violating international human rights law and failing to adhere to the Paris Principles.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993, the Paris Principles are a set of principles national human rights organizations have to follow to access the United Nations Human Rights Council and other bodies.

The CHRC receives and investigates complaints from federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations and private sector organizations such as banks, airlines and telecommunication companies. It decides which cases will proceed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Racism within the CHRC

Last spring, the Canadian government’s human resources arm, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBCS), reported that the CHRC had discriminated against its own Black and racialized employees.

The TBCS came to that conclusion after nine employees filed a policy grievance through their unions alleging that “Black and racialized employees at the CHRC face systemic anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination.”

“The organizations remain hopeful that this action will lead to significant reforms within the CHRC, ensuring it can effectively safeguard human rights and foster an inclusive society,” the coalition said in a statement released Monday.

The coalition said it does not wish to see CHRC’s funding cut but wants it to fulfil its role of combating systemic racism.

“We would like to see appropriate funding, and the government not cut funding for the [CHRC] as any type of remedy to address any shortfalls,” Thompson said.

The coalition is calling on the federal government to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to allow complaints to go directly to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, rather than through the CHRC.

The coalition also wants the CHRC’s role changed so that it acts to support people making complaints before the tribunal.

The group said it wants the Employment Equity Act amended “to better reflect intersectionality and to specifically include Black and other equity-deserving groups as designated groups.”

The coalition said it also wants the federal government to appoint a Black equity commissioner to serve as an officer of Parliament with powers akin to that of the Auditor General of Canada. The commissioner would be tasked with ensuring equity across “all levels of government and the public service,” the coalition said.

The coalition said it also wants public servants found to have committed acts of discrimination to be held accountable for their actions.

Criticism of the federal action plan

Last week, President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand announced the first steps of the Liberal government’s action plan to support Black public servants.

It includes boosting the number of Black counsellors providing mental health support to public servants and their family members to 60 across the public service.

Anand also announced the launch of an executive leadership program for Black executives to improve career development services for Black public servants.

The coalition criticized the move on mental health services, saying it would have preferred for the department to work with Black public servant groups to develop the initiatives.

“Black employee networks within the federal government [as well as unions] were not consulted on that … announcement about the employee assistance program,” Thompson said. “We’re very, very concerned about that. That approach has to change.”

The coalition includes the BCAS, the Canadian Black Nurses Alliance, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Red Coalition, the National Union of Public and General Employees, the Federation of Black Canadians and the Black Canadians Civil Society Coalition.

Later Monday, Anand conceded that her government has “a lot of work to do in terms of building trust with public servants from the Black community.” She said she did reach out to the community before her announcement last week.

“In advance of that announcement, I and my team engaged in consultations with a number of Black public servants,” she said. “Consulting with Black public servants is at the heart of what we are doing as we come forward with supports for Black public servants.”

Source: Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

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Advocates in Geneva to denounce discrimination against Canada’s Black public servants

2023/11/11 Leave a comment

A reminder that the data they use is less solid than presented, based upon the past 6 years of disaggregated data for employee groups and EX, with Black public servants doing as well or in some cases, better than other visible minority groups:

How well is the government meeting its diversity targets? An intersectionality analysis

A delegation from Amnesty International Canada is in Geneva, Switzerland, this week to highlight the country’s human rights failings, including the systemic discrimination of Black workers in the federal public service.

The team is speaking about the issues with various countries ahead of Canada’s participation in the fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Friday. The UPR is a peer-review process where UN Member States have the opportunity to review the human rights records of others. At the UPR, Canada will be required to share the progress it has made on recommendations provided at the last UPR in 2018.

“Tomorrow, Canada will hear recommendations from all member states,” said Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section on Thursday. “As of yesterday, there were 164 countries who wanted to speak and wanted to make a recommendation to Canada.”

Discrimination within the public service is an issue that has been top of mind for unions and organizations for the past several years, with a class-action lawsuit filed by thousands of Black public service workers in 2020, alleging workers faced decades of employee exclusion and discriminatory hiring practices.

The Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada for Fiscal Year 2021 to 2022 report found that Black employees represented 20.6 per cent of the visible minority population, or 4.2 per cent of the entire core public service. Despite growing numbers of workers in equity groups, those employees were over-represented in the lowest salary levels and under-represented at the highest. Though not included as an equity group, the report found that Black employees were disproportionately earning salary ranges below $75,000.

Most recently, a report released by the office of Canada’s auditor general last month, found that government departments and agencies weren’t doing enough to measure inequalities and improve the experiences of racialized employees in the workplace. Despite having established equity, diversity, and inclusion action plans, the report found that the organizations weren’t effectively reporting on progress, sufficiently using data to identify barriers faced by staff and that, at the manager level, there was not enough accountability for behavioural and cultural change.

Nivyabandi said the issue of Black public servants is one of several issues that it’s raising, on top of the rights of Indigenous peoples, migrants and women. She said the organization is also calling for better oversight of how human rights obligations are implemented in Canada.

“We’re very concerned and very little progress has been made,” Nivyabandi said, adding that Amnesty International Canada prepared its own review titled “Canada: Human Rights in Peril” ahead of the UPR. She added that, since the last cycle, Canada has only fully implemented five of the almost 100 recommendations that were made.

“Progress is stalling and we’re here to talk to other member states to make sure that they add pressure on Canada to ensure that Canada finally takes its obligations more seriously.”

Representatives from the Indigenous Nations of Pessamit and Wet’suwet’en as well as Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat (BCAS) joined Amnesty International Canada’s delegation.

Thompson said one of his main goals during the trip was to bring attention to the “egregious conduct” of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the government agency responsible for dealing with complaints of discrimination in employment which itself was found earlier this year to have discriminated against its own employees.

“Our position is that the Canadian Human Rights Commission needs to be held accountable for its human rights violations and that it is violating the Paris Principles which it’s required to adhere to as a human rights body,” Thompson said.

During a speech on Wednesday, Thompson announced BCAS was submitting a complaint to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, a body that has the power to decertify or downgrade human rights commissions’ ratings, looking to review the CHRC’s accreditation. Thompson said a formal complaint will soon be filed.

“We’re essentially talking to as many member states as possible, bringing to their attention Canada’s human rights track records, the Canadian Human Rights Commission violating human rights, its poor standing essentially, before the member states deliver recommendations on Friday,” Thompson said.

Action is needed now to address discrimination in the public service, said Thompson, noting the lack of representation in executive positions and little opportunity for workers to advance within the government. And while the federal government recently announced a new panel to help address discrimination in the public service, which is expected to write a public report on its findings in early 2024, a statement from BCAS said there is a need for “immediate and critical policy changes,” rather than more studies.

BCAS is also calling for Canada to release of the Employment Equity Act review, for its recommendations to be implemented, and for the appointment of a special representative to combat anti-Black racism, said Thompson.

“The case of anti-Black racism in the federal public service is very very powerful and emblematic one precisely because it’s happening within the public service where the state has the greatest possibility and opportunity to rectify it,” Nivyabandi said. “It’s very telling when you have a situation of anti-Black racism that has been raised over and over again, it’s still not being resolved.”

“We’re here to make sure that Canada finally takes action.”

After the UPR process takes place on Friday, Canada will have until March to decide what recommendations it will commit to and implement over the next five years.

Source: Advocates in Geneva to denounce discrimination against Canada’s Black public servants

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