Public service notebook: BCAS applauds government’s commitment to update the Employment Equity Act

2024/05/16 Leave a comment

The question remains whether there is adequate time for the current government to present and pass legislation prior to the election. Unlikely that a likely Conservative government would be so inclined:

Nicholas Marcus Thompson, chief executive officer of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said he was “very pleased” with the federal government’s commitment to “modernize” the Employment Equity Act, including by expanding designated equity groups, as outlined in Budget 2024.

The government first announced it would be updating the act to create new groups for Black and 2SLGBTQI+ people in December, alongside the release of the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force’s final report, which included that recommendation. The four current groups include women, people with disabilities, Indigenous people and members of visible minorities.

In April, the government reiterated its plans, announcing in the budget its “intention to propose legislative amendments” to the act.

“It will certainly go a long way in terms of addressing specifically anti-Black racism and discrimination,” said Thompson, who noted it “would have been nice” to see more measures around delayed mental health supports for Black employees, first announced in Budget 2022, as well as funding for the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent included in the budget. “Black folks will not be excluded, hidden in the visible minorities category as it stands.”

In an interview, Anand said there was no funding for Black public servants included in the latest budget as funds remained from previous years.

“It’s not the case that we are forgetting that we want programming to support them, not at all,” said Anand, who in February announced the first initiatives of the government’s “action plan” for Black public servants.

BCAS filed a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Employment Equity Act in 2020, arguing that it violated the Charter of Rights by discriminating against and excluding Black employees.

Source: Public service notebook: Mediation and measures to prevent hearing injuries

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Ottawa backs listing Black and LGBTQ workers under Canada’s workplace equity laws: source

2023/12/13 Leave a comment

Of note pending the official announcement. IMO, the addition of LGBTQ addresses the major gap in the Act as Black people are covered under visible minorities and desegregated data provides the needed granularity.

Will see the degree to which this is a priority for the government once legislation is tabled:

The federal government says it supports listing Black and LGBTQ people among groups facing systemic workplace barriers under the Employment Equity Act, CBC News has learned.

The Liberal government is backing the legislative change after a task force report recommended the move.

A source told CBC News earlier on Monday that Ottawa “broadly supports” that recommendation and others from a task force that reviewed the legislation. The government made an initial commitment Monday to modernize the act, the source said.

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan and the task force chair, McGill University law professor Adelle Blackett, will present the committee’s findings outside the House of Commons foyer on Monday.

The stated purpose of the 1986 Employment Equity Act is to knock down employment barriers marginalized communities face. It identifies four groups that face additional barriers in the workplace: women, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

Decades after the law’s passage, it is “startling to see how unrepresentative some employment remains across Canada,” the report states.

The task force recommends that Black workers comprise a separate group under the Employment Equity Act, instead of falling under the label of “visible minority.” Statistics Canada says 1.5 million people in Canada reported being Black in 2021. The Black population accounts for 16 per cent of the racialized population and 4.3 per cent of the overall population.

“Many Canadians may only recently have learned that slavery existed in Canada,” reads a section of the task force’s report, obtained by CBC News before its release. “The case for a distinct Employment Equity Act category specifically for people of African descent is rooted in part in the legacies of slavery.

“The history of segregation — in service provision, housing, schooling and employment — is also not well known in Canada.”

The task force cites Census Canada data which shows that Black workers tend to be overqualified for their jobs, work in low-level occupations and earn less money compared to non-racialized Canadians of the third generation or later.

The task force also recommended that LGBTQ workers comprise a new group under the law. One million people in Canada identify as LGBTQ and they account for four per cent of the total population.

A ‘disturbingly recent history’ of persecution

The task force report says LGBTQ workers have endured a “disturbingly recent history” of persecution. They were demoted or forced to resign for engaging in same-sex relationships, says the report.

“The Government of Canada has acknowledged and apologized for the fact that throughout the Cold War Era, from the 1950s through to the early 1990s in Canada, federal government employees faced a systematic campaign literally to purge them from the federal public service,” the report says.

The task force also is proposing replacing the terms “Aboriginal Peoples” and “members of visible minorities” with “Indigenous Peoples” and “racialized people” in the legislation.

The senior government source told CBC News that the “first step” the government will undertake is further consultation with affected communities, unions and employers on how best to implement the task force recommendations. Then, the Liberals will introduce legislation.

The task force report notes that women remain a group facing barriers that require removal. But it cites claims that progress with workplace equity has tended to benefit white women more than Indigenous or other racialized women.

“Early employment equity implementation has tended to focus on including women as a category without paying sufficient attention to diversity within the category of women,” the report says. “The need to approach the category of women in a disaggregated and intersectional manner was stated poignantly by many of the stakeholders who appeared before our task force.”

Ottawa announced the employment equity task force review in 2021. Its 12 members consulted Canadians, employer and worker organizations, civil society groups, experts and public sector representatives on modernizing the employment equity legislation that applies to all federally regulated workplaces.

More than 1.3 million people are employed in federally regulated industries and workplaces — about six per cent of Canada’s workforce.

Among other recommendations, the task force says parliamentary employees and public sector workers who operate abroad should be covered by the Equity Act.

Penalties too low, report says

Since the murder of George Floyd in U.S. police custody in 2020, the use of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training and practices has increased in workplaces. But the report said EDI should not eliminate the need for robust legislation.

“Voluntary measures alone will not work to bring equity to Canadian workplaces,” it said.

The report says that penalties for violating the act are too low and are rarely levied.

“Our task force was informed that only four employers have ever received a notice of assessment of a monetary penalty,” the report says. “We learned that the last penalty was issued in 1991, which is also when the largest penalty was issued — $3,000.00.

“Someone needs to be making sure that reasonable progress is actually occurring, with a view to achieving and sustaining employment equity that is properly resourced and effectively structured to avoid incentivizing non-compliance. Employment equity must not be sacrificed to wishful thinking.”

The task force calls on the federal government to establish an independent equity commissioner who would report to Parliament.

The commissioner would take over tasks from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, whose “tiny” employment equity division can’t keep up with the oversight work, the report says.

The commissioner should have a separate budget, guaranteed in legislation, that reflects the number of employers in federally regulated sectors.

“It is time to break out of the idea that equity work should be done on a nickel and a dime,” the report says. “If we are committed to championing employment equity in this global moment of rising intolerance, if we understand how critical substantive equality is to our workplaces, our economy as a whole and our identity as Canadians, we must show it.”

Source: Ottawa backs listing Black and LGBTQ workers under Canada’s workplace equity laws: source

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Does Canada’s census undercount visible minorities?

2021/07/17 Leave a comment

A relatively minor issue IMO compared to other priorities given only affects less than 3 percent of Census respondents (but likely to increase over time given mixed unions).

The separate issue of Blacks being counted only as part of visible minorities applies only to the federally regulated sectors (banking, communications, transport) and TBS now provides disaggregated data for visible minorities, Indigenous peoples and Persons with disabilities for the last four years (summaries in the annual employment equity groups, detailed tables on open data – https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/innovation/human-resources-statistics/diversity-inclusion-statistics.html).

And of course, the census data has these breakdowns that allow a wide range of analysis of socioeconomic status and other issues:

Statistics Canada is working to improve how it collects and analyzes data about people who belong to more than one visible minority group, as critics fear the federal agency’s current methodology has led to an “undercount” of racialized populations.

Ever since questions about visible minorities were added to the census in 1996, people belonging to those population groups have been classified in several ways.

At issue are those who check off more than one group out of the listed options: Chinese, South Asian, Black, Arab, West Asian, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Latin American, Japanese and Korean. Those individuals are lumped together in one group — which Statistics Canada calls “multiple visible minorities” — and are not broken down by the pairs or combinations of groups to which they belong.

Someone who checks off Black and Arab, for example, is included in that catch-all category, instead of being counted as part of Canada’s Black or Arab population. In contrast, people who identify as part of a visible minority group and the white population are counted, in most cases, as a member of whichever minority group they endorsed.

In the 2016 census, 232,275 people — or 2.7 per cent of the total visible minority population — were identified as multiple visible minorities.

That’s led some people, like Toronto lawyer Courtney Betty, to question whether the true number of people belonging to specific communities is being counted inaccurately.

“The whole idea of the census is to know how many individuals are within the population of our society, and potentially get a breakdown, so that we can do proper planning as to how we’re going to look at growth and also allocate economic resources,” Betty told the Star. “If you don’t have a proper count, that can’t happen.”

Betty is one of people leading the legal team representing hundreds of current and former Black public servants involved in a proposed class-action lawsuit, which alleges decades of discrimination and harassment within federal departments and agencies.

The multiple visible minorities category is being considered in the context of the lawsuit as part of an argument that the federal government won’t be able to claim that specific racialized communities, like the Black population, are adequately represented in the federal public service if it doesn’t have precise counts of those populations in the first place.

“I think there’s something that has to be adjusted, whether it be on the intake side … or on the analysis side,” Betty said. “Even if it’s a matter of …‘We recognize that there may be 50,000 Blacks that may not have been counted, and therefore, as we’re planning our policy decisions, we’re going to take that number into account.’”

Statistics Canada says it’s an issue the agency is actively studying.

“I know there’s an appetite to have more information,” said Hélène Maheux, a senior analyst with the agency’s diversity and socio-cultural statistics department. “Right now, we are looking at different alternatives, providing more disaggregated information for the multiple visible minority (category) for the 2021 census.”

Part of the problem is that counting a single individual as part of several populations muddies the data. There are also some who would prefer to be identified as a combination of groups instead of being counted as part of separate populations, the Star has previously reported.

But another reason, Maheux says, is that Statistics Canada’s database doesn’t actually allow for more detailed analysis of census data.

“It is not possible to distinguish all the various combinations of the visible minority groups included inside the multiple visible minorities. I had this challenge when I was doing this analysis. I wanted to include them, but it wasn’t possible because the database was not processed in a way that allowed me to make that distinction.”

When the Star asked Statistics Canada to provide, as one example, data on the number of Black people who were included in the multiple visible minority count, the department said the information was not “readily” available. The only way to obtain the data would be through the creation of a “custom tabulation,” which would need to go through a writing, testing and verification process.

Maheux said in the past, analysts have not typically received requests to dig into the category.

“But with the current context, we are receiving more requests. We are looking at avenues to improve our database,” she said.

It’s not just Statistics Canada that knows changes must be made.

On Tuesday, Ottawa launched a 13-member task force set to modernize the Employment Equity Act, which was first introduced in 1986, to improve “the state of equity, diversity and inclusion in federally regulated workplaces.”

Among the issues the task force will examine is whether visible minority groups should be updated, expanded or redefined.

Any changes would directly impact the way Canada’s census poses questions about race; the purpose of asking people to identify with certain population groups is tied to the act, which necessitates collecting information about visible minorities.

Liberal MP Greg Fergus said the work the task force is undertaking is critical to changing how Canada thinks about race. He hopes it will lead to a better snapshot of what’s really happening on the ground.

“For the Black community, it’s very clear that when Blacks are lumped into a visible minority, we actually end up becoming invisible,” Fergus told reporters following the announcement.

Adelle Blackett, a McGill University law professor who chairs the task force, said there have long been warning signs that the way racialized groups are categorized could lead to valuable data being lost.

She cited the 1984 Equality in Employment commission led by Judge Rosalie Abella, who wrote in her final report that combining “all non-whites together as visible minorities … may deflect attention from where the problems are greatest.”

The task force plans to conclude its review and present its recommendations to the federal labour minister in early 2022.

Source: Does Canada’s census undercount visible minorities?

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For the first time in decades, major changes are coming to Canada’s workplace equity laws

2021/07/16 Leave a comment

Of note as would also apply to federal public service (where TBS is lead). Hopefully the focus will be on the substantive issues, not just the terminology:

Federal legislation that aims to ensure equal opportunities for employees from under-represented groups is heading for its most significant overhaul since its introduction 35 years ago.

The Liberal government announced today that it has convened a new task force to review the Employment Equity Act, which the government describes as “an important tool to promote fairness, equality and diversity in federally regulated workplaces.”

The legislation states that no person should be denied employment opportunities for reasons unrelated to ability. It says that creating those conditions “requires special measures and the accommodation of differences.”

Labour Minister Filomena Tassi said the legislation has improved the standing of various groups that have been marginalized in the workplace, but that the act was overdue for an update.

“It’s about bringing the act into the 21st century,” Tassi said.

Future changes to the legislation, she added, “are absolutely going to result in more equitable workplaces.”

The 13-member task force conducting the review is being asked to come up with recommendations to “modernize” the legislation. The task force will host its first meeting on July 15 and is expected to have a final report by early 2022.

About 1.3 million people, representing about six per cent of Canada’s workforce, are employed in federally regulated industries and workplaces.

Review could result in more precise categories of marginalized workers

The existing Employment Equity Act identifies four groups that have faced additional barriers in workplaces: women, Indigenous Peoples, people with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

Those categories were defined when the act was introduced in 1986. The legislation was largely inspired by the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, which was led by Rosalie Abella before she was appointed to the Supreme Court.

Among other things, the task force will be charged with reviewing those groups, which likely will result in the creation of more precise and varied categories of under-represented workers.

Adelle Blackett, a law professor at McGill University who was named chair of the task force, said LGBTQ people, for example, probably will need representation in the next iteration of the act.

“The time is now,” Blackett told CBC News. “We have a really important opportunity to achieve equality.”

Blackett said the national reckoning over the atrocities committed in Canada’s residential school system, and the murder of George Floyd in the United States, are driving the effort to address systemic inequalites.

“It’s hard not to be thinking about how to build a legacy of meaningful inclusion, including in our workplaces,” Blackett said.

According to the latest report on equity within federally regulated workplaces, women, Indigenous Peoples and people with disabilities remain underrepresented in federally regulated workplaces.

Representation of visible minorities is more favourable, with those workers filling slightly more jobs than expected based on their overall share of the workforce.

Unifor says existing act has ‘failed to deliver’

The launch of the review task force comes following recent efforts by the Liberal government to reduce inequities across a range of sectors — including new pay equity legislation that will go into effect at the end of August.

Critics, including the federal New Democrats, have described some of the announcements as pre-election manoeuvring.

NDP critic for women and gender equality Lindsay Mathyssen said last week’s news on pay equity follows the Liberal’s recent track record of providing “pretty words instead of substantive actions.”

Unifor, the largest union representing workers in the federally regulated private sector, said changes to the act are badly needed.

“Despite being in force for 35 years, the Employment Equity Act has failed to deliver on its promise,” Unifor national president Jerry Dias wrote on Twitter. He called on the federal government to ensure that input from workers is considered during the review.

“Updating terms, expanding inclusion and prioritizing enforcement will go a long way,” Dias added.

Source: For the first time in decades, major changes are coming to Canada’s workplace equity laws

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