Order of Canada Appointments: 2024 Update

2025/01/03 Leave a comment

This analysis, conducted over the past decade, examines the diversity of Order of Canada appointments. Appointments are contingent upon nominations and typically reflect contributions over an extended period. This updates the analysis in my analysis of last year, How diverse are Order of Canada appointments? Key findings include:

  • Women are significantly underrepresented across all periods.
  • Visible minorities are underrepresented, while Indigenous peoples are slightly overrepresented relative to their population share.
  • Visible minority representation has increased over time.
  • Contributions to the arts have generally constituted the largest share of appointments, followed by health, business, public service, and activism.
  • The share of appointments by rank and group follows the typical pattern in most diversity analyses, where diversity decreases with increasing rank. However, this pattern is only observed for women. In contrast, the share of Indigenous companions is higher than for officers, which in turn is higher than Indigenous members. The share of visible minority officers is greater than the share of visible minority members.
Order of Canada 2013-24 Diversity – Key slidesDownload

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How diverse are Order of Canada appointments?

2024/06/07 1 Comment

My latest analysis (for the charts, go to the IRPP link):

In the 2015 federal budget, the Harper government announcedadditional funding of $13.4 million over five years and $2.8 million in ongoing funding for the Canadian honours system.

The objective was to enhance inclusivity by increasing Order of Canada nominations from “under-represented sectors,” such as business, and regions, particularly the West.

The funding was prompted by an Ottawa Citizen analysis that showed only 26 per cent of recipients since the Order’s creation in 1967 came from the West, compared to its 31 per cent share of the population.

In contrast, Atlantic Canada, with 11 per cent of the population, had double the representation in recipients. The study also highlighted a growing proportion of awards going to individuals in the arts, while the share for business professionals had decreased.

Nine years later, has the desired shift occurred? Did the change in government later in 2015 influence the outcomes?

I evaluated that question by delving into an analysis of more than 2,000 Order of Canada appointments made between 2013 and 2023, examining regional, background and employment-equity perspectives.

Approximately three per cent of appointments are companions (the highest rank), 22 per cent are officers and nearly three-quarters are members (the lowest rank).

It is crucial to distinguish award and recognition programs from employer-employment equity initiatives and political appointments.

Employers, whether private or public sector, have considerable levers to increase diversity. Governments have considerable latitude in their appointments, as seen in the increased representation of women, racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples under the Trudeau government.

Award and recognition programs, however, can’t do much more than encourage more nominations from underrepresented groups.

https://e.infogram.com/3383e710-d685-4697-8ae3-6a0acb642705?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2024%2Fdiversity-order-canada%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Diversity

Figure 1 explores diversity through a lens of gender, racialized minority and Indigenous perspectives, comparing the average percentage of the awards given from 2013-17 and 2018-23 with the data from 2023.

There are fluctuations between the years for all groups, but the percentages of racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples have trended upward, with a significant leap in 2023.

Racialized minorities, however, are still notably underrepresented relative to their population share, while the representation of Indigenous Peoples surpasses their demographic proportion.

Within the appointments of racialized minorities, women constitute 30 per cent, reflecting an increase to 32 from 27 per cent between 2013-17 and 2018-23.

In terms of Indigenous appointments, there is near gender parity but with a slight decline in the percentage of Indigenous women appointed, dropping to 45 from 52 per cent over the same period.

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Rank comparisons

Figure 2 presents a comparison of representation by rank. The proportion of women among companions declined notably between these two periods, whereas their representation among officers increased, along with a decrease in members.

In the case of racialized minorities, the share of companions decreased, but their representation among officers and members increased. Similarly, a shift is observed among Indigenous officers and members, marked by a significant increase in the number of Indigenous companions.

Traditional employment analysis involves assessing levels or ranks in Order of Canada terms and their corresponding representation. The conventional expectation is to observe higher representation at more junior levels, compared to senior positions. However, this general trend holds true only for women.

In contrast, there is a reversal of this pattern for Indigenous Peoples while racialized minority officers exhibit a higher percentage than members. This indicates a deliberate and conscious effort to appoint Indigenous Peoples to the more senior ranks, as illustrated in Table 1.

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Promotions to the companion level constitute 43 per cent of all recipients. However, only 4.7 per cent of officer appointments are promotions from the member level.

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Regional representation

Figure 3 examines the regional balance. British Columbia appointments increased from 11.3 per cent (2013-17) to 13.3 per cent (2018-23), and Prairie appointments rose from 12.1 per cent to 14.7 per cent.

Conversely, Ontario appointments declined from 46.3 per cent to 43 per cent, and Quebec appointments decreased from 21.4 per cent to 19.7 per cent.

In 2023, British Columbia appointments exceeded B.C.’s share of the population, while the Prairies remained underrepresented. Quebec underrepresentation increased, while both Ontario and Atlantic Canada saw an increase in overrepresentation.

The North was slightly underrepresented. Recipients who spent part of their careers abroad accounted for slightly more than three per cent of all recipients.

https://e.infogram.com/0a683ec3-d5af-439c-a606-93a70b44561b?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2024%2Fdiversity-order-canada%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Background of recipients

Figure 4 explores the diversity of backgrounds among Order of Canada recipients. Generally, backgrounds in the arts, health, business and public service dominate, with notable representation from individuals with academic, activist and scientific backgrounds.

The percentage of business-oriented recipients slightly declined. The same holds true for those with backgrounds in arts, academia and communications from 2013-17 to 2018-23. Conversely, there was an increase in individuals with backgrounds in health, activism, sports, science and philanthropy.

As for representation from the West, particularly the Prairies, there has been a small regional shift, likely reflecting an overall economic shift to Western Canada.

The Chancellery of Honours is responsible for overseeing the Governor General’s award programs. Chancellery staff met with me to discuss these findings. They also provided an update on efforts to improve representation.

The chancellery now has a statistician who tracks nominations and appointments and who validated this analysis.

This advisory council is reasonably diverse in terms of women, racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples. The Governor General and staff make ongoing efforts to encourage nominations from underrepresented groups. Regrettably, they declined to provide data on nominations, though they did indicate that more women are appointed than nominated.

In terms of employment-equity groups — women, racialized minorities, and Indigenous Peoples — underrepresentation reflects the overall pattern of society as a whole, where relatively fewer people from these groups have prominent or senior positions.

That said, the increase in racialized minority and Indigenous appointments is notable, particularly in contrast with the stagnation of appointments of women, who make up about one-third of appointments.

Note on methodology

This analysis relies on the Order of Canada appointment lists released by the Governor General in June and December. Gender details are directly sourced from names and citations, while information regarding racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples is obtained through a combination of names, citations and, when necessary, web searches.

Provincial data is extracted from the appointment lists, with a preference for the smaller province in cases where more than one is listed (although this is a rare occurrence).

Source: How diverse are Order of Canada appointments?

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Order of Canada appointees far less diverse than the population, analysis shows

2023/01/11 Leave a comment

Based on my analysis posted earlier. Comments from Sarah Kaplan and Erin Tolley decrying the lack of diversity without fully recognizing as legitimate the focus of the Order on longer term contributions rather than new and emerging talent for many arts and culture awards (the Governor General Performing Arts Awards are for lifetime contributions).

Personally, I don’t find it “completely unacceptable” that the Order doesn’t provide “full representation” given its longer term focus, nor do I find its “elite” focus unacceptable. By definition, the Order is the elite Canadian award, just as the Nobel is the world elite award, whereas others are not.

That being said, there are opportunities to encourage more nominations for women and visible minorities, learning from the efforts to increase business and Prairie representation through additional funding for promotion in 2015 under the Conservative government which had, however, limited success.

The 2022 list of appointees to the Order of Canada is far less diverse than the Canadian population and even less diverse than it was in 2021, a new analysis shows.

The Governor General made 184 appointments to the order in 2022. It’s considered one of the country’s highest civilian honours, one which recognizes “people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation,” according to Rideau Hall. Over 7,600 Canadians have joined the order’s ranks since its creation in 1967.

But analysis by retired public servant Andrew Griffith, who served as Canada’s director general of citizenship and multiculturalism, found that last year’s appointees were not representative of the Canadian population.

Order of Canada must change, professor says

Source: Order of Canada appointees far less diverse than the population, analysis shows

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Order of Canada 2013-22 Diversity Analysis

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

For the last ten years, I have been tracking the diversity of Order of Canada appointments, from the perspective of gender, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples, along with regional and occupational backgrounds.

In many ways, these appointments are emblematic of other recognition and award programs in that they generally reflect the views and perspectives of those nominating and, in the case of the Order, a medium and longer-term track record and contribution in contrast to awards programs focussed on new talent.

In many ways, this results in an understandable backward looking perspective. Moreover, unlike employment equity programs where managers are empowered to factor diversity in hiring and promotion decisions, awards programs have less latitude to do so as they have to make their assessments based upon the nominations received.

The Governor General’s Office has over the years made several attempts to encourage more diverse nominations, including funding under the Conservative Government in 2015 to encourage more nominations for more business and regional nominees. The data suggests that these efforts had limited effect in the longer term.

The most striking findings of this analysis are that women appointees average around one third of the total, ranging from a low of 29 percent (2019, 2022) to a high of 46 percent in 2015 and visible minority appointees have increased from a low of 4 percent in 2014 to an exceptional high of 13 percent in 2021 before reverting to a more typical 7 percent. The two groups that are over-represented in comparison of their share of the population are men and, more recently, Indigenous peoples in 2021 and 2022 at eight percent.

Of note, while visible minority appointments are 71 percent men, Indigenous peoples appointments are equally balanced between men and women.

Occupation data ranges from categories that are clear such as arts, health and sports, and those that have less clear “boundaries” such as business and philanthropy and I have tried to be as consistent as possible.

Advisory council correction.

For those interested in the nomination process and the review committee the links are: Nominate someone, Advisory Council. The Advisory Council has gender balance, 20 percent visible minorities and 10 percent Indigenous. In terms of the Office of the Governor General (the public servants) which review nominations for the Advisory Council, 14.9 percent are visible minorities with the number of Indigenous public servants is 5 or less (out of a total of 141).

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Women, visible minorities make up larger share of latest Order of Canada appointments

2022/01/07 Leave a comment

My working deck highlights more of the findings of my analysis of the close to 1,700 appointments made over the past 9 years, looking at representation of women, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples, broken down by level, province and background. Given that most appointments reflect a long-term contribution, there is a gap between the population and visible minority appointments:

Working on a more detailed analysis but this provides the highlights:

Women, visible minorities and Indigenous people accounted for a larger share of the latest Order of Canada appointments than in recent years — a sign that Rideau Hall’s quest to diversify one of the country’s highest civilian honours is making progress.

Of the 135 people recently inducted into the Order of Canada, 40.7 per cent (55) are women, 12.6 per cent (17) are visible minority and just over eight per cent (11) are Indigenous.

The numbers are higher in all three categories than in the previous three years. Last year, most of the inductees were white men, and in 2019 well under a third were women.

Retired public servant Andrew Griffith, who served as Canada’s director general of citizenship and multiculturalism, said that while the numbers represent a “significant improvement,” it’s too soon to say whether it’s a trend.

“I’m always wary of claiming victory on the basis of one year,” he said. “So what I look at, whether I’m looking at these kind of numbers or other diversity numbers, is are you seeing a sustained change, a sustained increase.

“What I would like to see is two to three years from now comparing, let’s say, the previous three year period to the next three year period, and see if the needle has been moved.”

The Governor General makes appointments based on recommendations from the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, which advises her based on nominations suggested by members of the general public.

Griffith said this process means Rideau Hall doesn’t have as many options to diversify the Order of Canada as other institutions.

The newest appointees include entreprenuer and philanthropist Mohamad Fakih and former senator Murray Sinclair, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“The Order of Canada relies on public nominations. The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General encourages people to nominate individuals who are reflective of our diversity, including Indigenous peoples and persons from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds,” a spokesperson for the Office of the Governor General said in a statement to CBC.

“As of 2019, the OSGG has asked new appointees to the Order of Canada to complete a voluntary self-identification questionnaire. We look forward to identifying trends as we gather data in the coming years.”

‘Perpetually vigilant’

Sarah Kaplan, director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said the numbers show improvement but still don’t reflect Canada’s demographics.

“It seems to me that if your population is made up of about half women, or people of diverse genders, and you’re not representing that same proportion in the country’s most prestigious honours, then you are doing a disservice to the community,” she said.

She said she’d like to see Rideau Hall and the advisory council reach out to communities for suggestions rather than rely solely on nominations.

“Who’s going to know about that process and figure out how to navigate the nomination system?” she said. “It’s going to be people who are already in the centre of power, and that’s a pretty closed set of folks in the Canadian context.”

She also said the Office of the Governor General must keep pushing to make the Order of Canada better reflect Canadian society.

“The thing about improving representation in a society that has historically privileged just one group of people is that you have to be perpetually vigilant,” she said.

“And so one year’s progress does not mean that we have now fixed the problem, and that it will naturally trend upwards in subsequent years.”

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/representation-better-order-of-canada-2021-1.6302725

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Most new Order of Canada appointees are white men, despite diversity-boosting efforts

2021/01/11 Leave a comment

For the full analysis, see my deck below:

Most of the new appointees to the Order of Canada in 2020 were white men, despite some progress made in boosting the diversity of the elite group.

Of the 175 people picked for the prestigious civilian honour last year, just over one third were women. About 7.4 per cent were members of visible minorities — up two per cent from the previous year –  and 5.1 per cent were Indigenous, according to analysis by immigration and diversity researcher and former government official Andrew Griffith.

Velma Morgan, chair of Operation Black Vote Canada, called those figures “extremely problematic.”

“We talk about diversity as our strength as Canadians. We advertise that to the world,” she said. “Yet this is not demonstrated when we’re trying to recognize those people who have made contributions to Canada.”

Morgan said institutions can’t expect to command broad public respect when they fail to represent the population.

“Black communities have been here for hundreds of years. So when we don’t see ourselves represented in one of the highest honours of the country, it says something — that we’re not being recognized for things that we have done and continue to be doing,” she said.

Morgan said stepping up outreach to underrepresented groups and enhancing public awareness about the program could help to address the longstanding imbalance. The makeup of the panel that reviews nominations should also better reflect the population, she said.

The Toronto Star reported last month that The BlackNorth Initiative — which pushes corporations to improve the diversity of their boardrooms and executive suites — has written a letter to Gov. Gen. Julie Payette complaining about the low number of Black Order of Canada recipients and has suggested the names of individuals who could be worthy of the honour.

The Order of Canada program relies on nominations from individuals or organizations, which are reviewed by an independent advisory council. That council makes appointment recommendations to the governor general, who accepts them according to convention.

Modernizing honours programs a ‘priority’

Rob McKinnon, a spokesperson for Rideau Hall, said modernizing all honours programs is one of Payette’s “key priorities.”

He said her office has taken steps to increase diversity, such as data collection on gender identity, disabilities and Indigenous and visible minority status through a self-identification questionnaire. The office also has launched communications strategies and social media campaigns meant to increase the number of people being nominated for civilian honours, he said.

“The best way to augment the representation of a merit-based public program like the Order of Canada is to increase the participation of Canadians [in] it, thereby generating a larger volume of diversified nominations,” McKinnon said in an email.

“In that spirit, Governor General Julie Payette has taken steps and asked her team to look at ways of increasing the public profile of all its honours programs and to make the nomination process as user-friendly as possible and easily accessible to all. Such improvements will lead to the recognition of individuals with more diverse backgrounds.”

McKinnon acknowledged that while progress is being made, it’s slow. He noted that while nominations of women to the Order of Canada have remained steady — about 200 per year since 2000, from a pool of 500 to 800 nominations each year — women nominated to the order now see a success rate of about 72 per cent, compared to 58 per cent for men.

Recognizing contributions to building Canada

Diversity consultant Chi Nguyen said the Order of Canada program has clung to a tradition of installing “upper crust” people selected by an elite group – and that must change.

“Often you’re tapping the people who look like you, who run in the same circles as you,” she said.

“So I think those numbers are increasing and they look better than they have in the past … but it still doesn’t recognize the other ways in which lots of newcomers, Indigenous folks are contributing to building our country.”

Griffith, who has tracked Order of Canada appointments since 2013, said while the trend line appears to be moving in the right direction, there is still much progress to be made.

“You want to make sure that the awards — to an extent, not a perfect extent — have that representation of the population,” he said. “Because it highlights that everybody can make a contribution. It highlights that all different aspects of Canadian society are getting some recognition.”

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Order of Canada Appointments: 2013-20

2021/01/05 Leave a comment

With the second batch of 2020 appointments announced, I have updated my analysis of the appointments looking at diversity from the angle of women, visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, province, and area of activity.

While the percentage of women appointed in 2019 was lower than average, this rose to a more typical one-third of appointments in 2020. Representation of visible minorities was higher than previous years, representation of Indigenous peoples also rose from 2019 but remained lower than 2017 and 2018, but still higher than previous years.

There is a certain subjectivity with respect to area of activity. For example, activist, academic, public service or business and philanthropy. I have tried to be as consistent as possible.

The presentation below provides the details.

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21 racialized Canadians who could help the Order of Canada look more like Canada

2020/12/07 Leave a comment

Did a quick diversity analysis: 10 Black, 5 Chinese, 2 South Asian, 1 Japanese, 1 Indigenous (surprising that Murray Sinclair has not already been awarded the Order), and no Arab/West Asian or Southeast Asian. 15 women, 5 men. Weighted towards activists:

Earlier this week, the BlackNorth Initiative made a point that seemingly too few people had realized: the 114 people named to the Order of Canada this year were overwhelmingly white and men.

The organization, led by the Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism, sent a letter to Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, whose office hands out the awards, calling for change. 

Only one Black Canadian, Denham Jolly, was listed when the honours were announced Nov. 27, along with a few Indigenous and Asian recipients. Outside of this year, the more than 4,000 Canadians appointed to the Order of Canada are mostly white. Since 2013, only 4.8 per cent of appointees have been visible minorities, while they account for 22.3 per cent of the population of Canada, based on research from Andrew Griffith, who focuses on diversity in politics, and reported by CBC News.

The Star asked community organizations, staff and members of the public which racialized Canadians they think could receive a nomination in the future.

Anyone can make a nomination and the nominees don’t have to be Canadian citizens, rather simply someone who has “enriched the lives of others and made our country a better place” over their lifetime. Elected officials and judges are ineligible while in office. 

These are some of the suggestions: 

M. NourbeSe Philip is an award-winning poet, writer and lawyer born in Tobago and based in Toronto. Philip’s work has helped build an understanding of the Caribbean experience in Canada. Before writing full-time, she was a practising lawyer for seven years. Her work includes “Harriet’s Daughter,” “Caribana: African Roots & Continuities” and “Zong!” In 1990, Philip was named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. 

Maryka Omatsu was the first Asian woman judge, appointed to the Ontario Court 1993. She is a member of the Order of Ontario as of 2015. Omatsu played a key role in achieving redress for Japanese Canadians interned during the Second World War and is the author of “Bittersweet Passage,” a book that documented the Japanese Canadian community’s campaign for an apology and an acknowledgment of the racism they endured during WWII.

Adelle Blackett is a law professor at McGill University. As a legal scholar, her work has focused on human rights and labour law. In 2009, Quebec’s national assembly appointed her to the province’s human rights commission. She’s received several awards and fellowships over the years, including from Barreau du Québec for her social commitment and her contributions to the advancement of women, and from the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers for her contributions to the legal community and community at large. She was also elected a fellow to the Royal Society of Canada in 2020 and was a 2016 fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Gary Yee is a lawyer who has devoted his career and community activities to legal clinics, adjudicative tribunals, access to justice and anti-racism. Yee was the president of the Chinese Canadian National Council, where he spearheaded the redress campaign for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act. 

Paul Taylor has worked in food security and anti-poverty in both Toronto and Vancouver. He is currently the executive director of FoodShare Toronto. Taylor works to both feed and support communities while changing narratives and perceptions about the causes of food insecurity and advocating for workers’ rights. In 2020, Taylor was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.

Dr. Alan Tai-Wai Li has been a physician with the Regent Park Community Health Centre since the 1980s. Li has worked in HIV/AIDS research through the Ontario HIV Treatment Network and the Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment. His work has focused on many marginalized communities including newcomers and racialized communities living with HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ people, people struggling with mental health and addictions, and those experiencing poverty and homelessness.

Lynn Jones has spent her life campaigning for civil rights in Nova Scotia as an educator, and a community and labour organizer. She grew up at a time when her hometown of Truro, N.S., was segregated in a family of activists. She worked with Saint Mary’s University to create the Lynn Jones African-Canadian and Diaspora Heritage Collection, which documents her family’s activism and 50 years of Black Nova Scotian history. Jones was also a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, where she pushed for an anti-racism report on unions and their communities in Canada in 1995.

Vivek Shraya is a Calgary artist who works across music, literature, visual art, theatre and film. Her bestselling book “I’m Afraid of Men” explores the role masculinity has played throughout her life as a trans woman. Shraya is founder of the publishing imprint VS and has taught creative writing at the University of Calgary. Her album with the Queer Songbook Orchestra, “Part-Time Woman,” was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize.

Amy Go has been a social worker for over 30 years and worked to break down barriers for immigrants and racialized people. Go has worked to promote culturally appropriate long-term care through her work as executive director at the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. She co-created the CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses in 2001, helping women around the globe pass registration exams to work in their profession. She is also the founding president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.

Akua Benjamin has been involved in numerous community groups and initiatives advocating for change, and challenging racist policies and structures. Groups in which she has played leadership roles include the Black Action Defence Committee, National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the Congress of Black Women. In 2003, she became the first Black director at Ryerson University. She was a social work professor at Ryerson University for decades and is now head of the Akua Benjamin Project at Ryerson.

Winnie Ng is a long-time social justice and union activist. For more than three decades, Ng championed workers’ rights through her involvement in labour organizations and networks, including as acting executive director of the Labour Education Centre, the Canadian Labour Congress’s Ontario regional director and Ryerson’s CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy. 

Afua Cooper has made contributions to Black studies and art in Canada. Cooper is a sociology professor at Dalhousie University where she was the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies from 2011 to 2017. She founded the Black Canadian Studies Association and was Halifax’s seventh poet laureate. Her book “The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal” was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award.

Murray Sinclair served the justice system in Manitoba for decades. He was the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba and the second in Canada. The senator was chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, conducting hearings across the country on the impact of residential schools on Indigenous people, culminating in a report on a way forward toward reconciliation. (Note: officials are ineligible while serving.) 

Baldev Mutta has been in social work for more than 40 years. He founded Punjabi Community Health Services, which started in Mississauga and expanded across Ontario. He has worked for the last 28 years developing a holistic model to address substance abuse, mental health and family violence in South Asian communities and increase access to services for these communities.

Debbie Douglas is the executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. She has highlighted issues of equity and inclusion including race, gender and sexual orientation within the immigration system and advocated for safe, welcoming spaces in settlement and integration. She has received several awards, including a Women of Distinction Award from YWCA Toronto, the Amino Malko Award from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and an Urban Alliance on Race Relations Racial Equity Award. 

Susan Eng is a lawyer and has been involved in community efforts, including as a founding board member of the Chinese Canadian National Council and as part of the campaign for redress for the Chinese Canadian head tax. Eng was a chair of the Toronto Police Services Board and a vice-president of Canadian Association of Retired Persons. 

Angela Marie MacDougall is the executive director of Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services. MacDougall has advocated for women’s empowerment and against violence against women, and worked on strategies to create gender equity. The City of Vancouver named her a Remarkable Woman in 2014.

OmiSoore Dryden is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University. She has studied the experiences of Black Canadians in the health-care system. She led research into the barriers that gay, bisexual and trans men encounter when attempting to donate blood in Canada.

Grace-Edward Galabuzi is a Ryerson University professor researching experiences of recent immigrants and racialized groups in the Canadian labour market; race and poverty, and social exclusion. Galabuzi also worked in the Ontario government as a senior policy analyst on justice issues in the early ’90s.

Avvy Go is a lawyer and director of the Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. Go has worked largely in legal clinics serving low-income individuals and families, immigrants and refugees. She has also served on several boards and councils including the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council and the Ontario Justice Education Network. Outside of her legal practice, Go organized in the community for causes related to poverty, racism and Chinese Canadians.

Ingrid Waldron is a sociologist and professor in the faculty of health at Dalhousie University. Her work has encompassed the impacts of racial inequities on health. Over the last eight years, through the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health (ENRICH) Project, she has studied the social and health effects of environmental racism in Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/12/05/21-racialized-canadians-who-could-help-the-order-of-canada-look-more-like-canada.html

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BlackNorth Initiative calls for ‘too white’ Order of Canada to ‘reflect the deep cultural mosaic of our country’

2020/12/02 Leave a comment

While the overall point of under-representation of visible minorities and Black Canadians in particular is factually correct, Wes Hall does not appear to understand how the Order selection process works. It is based upon nominations, which are reviewed by the selection committee which makes the recommendations, for the formal approval of the Governor General.

Rather than calling on the Governor General, the correct and more effective approach is to ensure more nominations of visible minority and other under-represented groups.

Proposing the nomination of dead Canadians is a non-starter as this would have to be open to all and most award programs are for the living, not the deceased, the most prominent being the Nobels.

Recognition of Viola Desmond on the $10 bill is both more significant and more appropriate.

In doing the background research for the chart above (and associated deck https://multiculturalmeanderings.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/order-of-canada-2013-20-diversity-1.pdf ), the Governor General’s office provided with earlier gender data that showed that the selection committee made an effort to improve women’s representation: while only 26.9 percent of nominations were women, 32.6 percent of appointments were women (2010-14 data):

The BlackNorth Initiative has spoken out about the racial gap in home ownership among Black people, the lack of Black people in boardrooms — and now it has turned its attention to one of the country’s highest civilian honours: The Order of Canada.

In a letter to Julie Payette, Canada’s Governor General, whose office hands out the awards, the initiative points out that only one Black Canadian was included out of the 114 recipients in 2020.

“If the Order of Canada is truly meant to reflect our country, then why do we not honour, dignify and celebrate the contributions of countless Black Canadian leaders who have pre-eminence, national and international service, and achievement?” asks the letter, signed by the initiative’s founder and chairman Wes Hall.

“The problem is that the vast majority of those 7,000 people who have received the Order are white and do not reflect the deep cultural mosaic of our country, especially Blacks.” 

Hall is also the executive chairman and founder of Kingsdale Advisors, which advises many of Canada’s large publicly traded companies. Hall says his experience working as a Black man in Canada led to many business leaders reaching out to him, resulting in the BlackNorth Initiative.

“I’m curious to see the reaction to this letter,” he said in an interview with the Star. “Our job is to keep shedding light on the systemic racism in our society, and hope they change their process.” 

The letter makes a number of recommendations, including the investiture of five Black Canadian leaders: businessman Michael Lee-Chin; athlete and Olympic gold-medallist Donovan Bailey; lawyer Robert Sutherland (born in Jamaica in 1830, died in Toronto in 1878); businesswoman and activist Viola Irene Desmond, who died in 1965; and social worker and Canada’s first Black MLA, Rosemary Brown, who died in 2003. The latter three have died, and the Order of Canada isn’t awarded to people posthumously — they’re given to living people. 

Hall says this was deliberate. He points out that the only 2020 Black recipient, B. Denham Jolly — who was awarded for his contribution to the promotion of equality and opportunity within the Greater Toronto Area — is already 85.

“I could die tomorrow, and no one would know about my accomplishment to society,” said Hall. 

He points out in the letter to Payette that, since 2013, only 4.8 per cent of the Order of Canada appointments are made up of visible minorities, “well below the 30 per cent of the population who identified as visible minority.”

“71.4 per cent of appointees in 2019 were men. The low number of women among the 2019 appointees — just 28.6 per cent of the total — and the low number of visible minorities — just 5.4 per cent — show the Order of Canada falling short of representing Canada’s diverse population,” the letter reads. 

Accusing the Order of Canada of forgetting countless Black Canadians, the letter urges Payette to do the “right thing.” 

“This chronic lack of recognition of Black Canadians must end. The time is now to set a path forward to equality, equity and justice for Black Canadians.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/12/01/blacknorth-initiative-calls-for-too-white-order-of-canada-to-reflect-the-deep-cultural-mosaic-of-our-country.html

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Men accounted for more than two-thirds of Order of Canada appointments last year

2020/10/09 Leave a comment

I have been tracking Order of Canada appointments since 2013 from a diversity perspective.

While my initial interest was sparked by the Harper government’s effort to increase the number of appointments from Western Canada and the business community (limited success), I increasingly viewed this a an integration indicator and one that likely reflected other award and recognition program (my 2017 detailed review can be found here: The Order of Canada and diversity):

Less than a third of Canadians appointed to the Order of Canada last year were women — a figure that represents the widest gender imbalance in appointments to the order in years.

Analysis by diversity researcher Andrew Griffith, a former senior government official, shows that 71.4 per cent of appointees in 2019 were men. The low number of women among the 2019 appointees — just 28.6 per cent of the total — and the low number of visible minorities — just 5.4 per cent — show the Order of Canada falling short of representing Canada’s diverse population.

Griffith said there may be a lag effect because the Order of Canada tends to be given in recognition of a lifetime’s body of work — and high-profile women were scarce in many fields until relatively recently. But he said he expected to see progress toward gender parity among Order of Canada recipients mirror the advances experienced by women in the public service.

“It indicates where the country has been because these are previous contributions that are being recognized, and yet it says how far we have to go to ensure that, at the honours level where we recognize Canadians, that we’re actually recognizing a broad, diverse spectrum of Canadians,” he said.

A lack of balance

Griffith looked into Order of Canada appointments since 2013. He said he found that, on average, the gender balance on appointments over the seven-year period was 65.6 per cent male and 34.4 per cent female. The appointments came closest to gender balance in 2015, when 54.4 per cent were men and 45.6 per cent were women.

Over the seven-year period Griffith studied, members of visible minorities made up an average of 4.8 per cent of Order of Canada appointments — well below the 22.3 per cent of the population who identified as visible minority in the 2016 census.

In that same period, Indigenous nominees comprised 4.7 per cent of the appointments — very close to the 4.9 per cent identified as Indigenous in the last census.

More than 7,000 people have been invested in the Order of Canada since it was launched in 1967 as one of the country’s highest civilian honours. Appointments are made by the governor general based on recommendations by an independent advisory council, which reviews nominations and holds confidential discussions before voting on each nominee.

Natalie Babin Dufresne, spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, said there has been some progress toward gender balance in the Order of Canada in recent years. She noted that just 21 per cent of the appointees in 2000 were women.

Although the number of women nominated to the Order of Canada has remained steady at about 200 a year, out of roughly 500 to 800 total nominations, Babin Dufresne said the success rate for nominations is higher for women — 72 per cent, compared to 58 per cent for men.

“Progress remains slow, and new initiatives continue to be developed to improve this situation so that we can achieve results with the Order of Canada that are comparable to other programs, such as the Sovereign Medal for volunteers, where close to 48 per cent of the recipients are women,” she said in an email.

“Data collection to get a better understanding of historical trending for other diversity groups began during the current mandate, and will offer us some important insights in the coming years to better target our initiatives and efforts to increase representation for all groups, including gender, visible minority and Indigenous representation.”

Babin Dufresne said modernizing the broader Canadian honours system is one of Gov. Gen. Julie Payette’s top priorities.

While there is no mention of diversity representation in the Order of Canada’s constitution and regulations, Babin Dufresne said steps have been taken to boost its diversity, such as new data collection on gender identity, disabilities, visible minority and Indigenous status, and a new, more user-friendly nomination platform.

She also pointed out that all Order of Canada ceremonies are now livestreamed to boost visibility and accessibility.

Babin Dufresne said the best way to improve diversity in a merit-based public program like the Order of Canada is to get more Canadians to nominate more people — which is why her office is working to increase the public profile of all of Canada’s honours programs and to make the nomination process user-friendly.

Sarah Kaplan, director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto, said more must be done to make the Order of Canada reflect the country.

‘Not acceptable’

“It’s not acceptable, in the Canadian context — a country that considers itself to be a land of opportunity, a land of equal opportunity, a land that pays attention to the diverse communities that exist within Canada — that we would see the awards going mainly to men,” she said.

Kaplan rejected the notion that bringing in quotas could erode the merit-based selection process, arguing that there are plenty of Canadians from all backgrounds who have made extraordinary contributions to Canadian society who aren’t recognized because they don’t fit the “historical template.”

“Our definition of merit is one that is self-reinforcing, about giving the same elite people the same awards. And so, when people say it should be based on merit, they’re not recognizing the fact that the idea of merit itself has been designed by the people in positions of privilege to reinforce their privilege and keep others out,” she said.

Rideau Hall said the Order of Canada advisory council makes appointment recommendations based on merit, but also takes factors like diversity into account.

The spring meeting of the advisory council was postponed due to the pandemic so the July appointments were not named. A new group of appointees is to be announced later this year.

Source: Men accounted for more than two-thirds of Order of Canada appointments last year

Filed under Aboriginal, gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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