Chair, Professor Adelle Blackett, FRSC, Ad E
A Transformative
Framework to
Achieve and Sustain
Employment Equity
Executive Summary
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity – Executive
Summary
Available upon request in multiple formats (large print, MP3, braille, e-text, DAISY), by contacting 1
800 O-Canada (1-800-622-6232). By teletypewriter (TTY), call 1-800-926-9105.
© His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, 2023
For information regarding reproduction rights:
PDF
Cat. No.: Em8-81/2-2023E-PDF
ISSN: 978-0-660-69182-4
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 1
Introduction
A Proactive Approach
Employment equity is a proactive approach to achieving and sustaining substantive equality in the
workplace. It takes all of us.
It has been almost 4 decades since the sole commissioner of the Royal Commission on Equality in
Employment, then judge, now former Supreme Court of Canada Justice, the Hon. Rosalie Silberman
Abella, explained the urgency of her proactive, distinctively Canadian approach.
This is the first time since the Employment Equity Act came into force in 1986, and was significantly
revised in 1995 that an independent, arms-length task force has been established to offer a
comprehensive review of the entire employment equity framework.
The federal Employment Equity Act framework is a combination of the Employment Equity Act and
covered programs, including:
• the Legislated Employment Equity Program;
• the Federal Contractors Program; and
• the Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to Equity (WORBE) program.
Amendments introducing pay transparency reporting came into force on January 1, 2021.
The Employment Equity Act framework covers four “designated” groups, referred to in this report as
“employment equity” groups:
• women;
• Aboriginal peoples;
• persons with disabilities; and
• members of visible minorities.
The report is the culmination of significant research and engagement with a broad cross-section of
stakeholders, primarily from February through October 2022 and included:
• over 100 roundtable discussions and meetings with more than 300 attendees;
• over 400 written submissions and 350 expressions of views via electronic correspondence;
• enhanced engagement through grants and contributions or contracts with key
organizations and experts; and
• discussions with commissioners leading independent offices or units.
What happened?
Our task force heard one message loud and clear: Not only is there widespread commitment to
employment equity in Canada. There is also a firm recognition that employment equity is not optional.
Executive Summary
Page | 2
For a society that is as deeply diverse as ours to flourish, we must prioritize achieving and sustaining
employment equity in the workplace.
Yet along the way, something happened. For some, employment equity just got outdated. The
terminology did not keep up with the times and was not inclusive enough. The data collection
challenges began to weigh down the process with outdated, less than reliable information. Processes
became bureaucratized. Boxes got checked, but were things really getting better?
It is, however, startling to see how unrepresentative some employment remains across Canada. Thirty-
seven years since the Employment Equity Act was passed, it is hard to consider that a framework has
remained truly proactive if its objectives have not yet been substantially achieved in the workplaces it
covers.
As a country we may have forgotten our history of discrimination and segregation in our society that
for some employment equity groups extended well into the 1960s. By adopting legislation on
employment equity federally, Canada set out to transform our workplaces.
Employment equity was an early model of reflexive regulation, designed to encourage employers to
take a close look at their workplace and identify the practices necessary to transform their workplace.
But it was never assumed that they could do this alone. The conditions necessary to make employment
equity effective must extend beyond employers acting alone.
Based on the law, extensive research, and consultations, this report cautions vigilance to ensure that
the proliferation of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) practices actually supports rather than
supplants the Employment Equity Act framework. Voluntary measures alone will not work to bring
equity to Canadian workplaces. Similarly, employment equity must not be allowed to be reduced to a
numbers-crunching exercise that loses track of individual workers and in particular equity
changemakers. Employment equity requires us to pay close attention in particular to retention,
promotion and other practices that ensure the well-being and progress into higher ranks. The
preponderant focus on numbers crunching in employment equity has displaced a focus on making
equitable inclusion the norm. And the Employment Equity Act framework must not be reduced to a
mere checklist or a series of forms to fill out.
It is often said that diversity is a fact, and inclusion is a choice. But in Canada there is more, and it is
crucial: equity is the law. We have worked hard to build a vision of substantive equality through our
Constitution that allows us to reckon with our history and to build inclusive spaces for us all.
Employment equity was a significant advance when it was first proposed, even before Section 15 of
the Charter had entered into force. But we need to stop exceptionalizing employment equity.
Employment equity is substantive equality in action in the workplace. It implements Canada’s
international commitments to effectively advance equality and reflects Canadian constitutional and
human rights case law.
Recent federal equity legislation – the Accessible Canada Act and the Pay Equity Act – breaks through
the inertia with firm commitments and timelines to achieve a barrier free Canada and achieve and
maintain pay equity. This report seeks to do the same, that is, to refocus our attention on what is
needed to make achieving and sustaining employment equity a reality.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 3
In Canada, we have an opportunity, indeed a responsibility, to lead by cultivating social justice through
equitable inclusion. Equitable inclusion means all of us have a place in Canadian workplaces. Equitable
inclusion is about capturing a vision of our country that is greater than any one of us but very much
about all of us. Employment equity is about making workplaces better and more inclusive for all of
us.
A transformative framework
This report proposes a transformative framework: three pillars are necessary to achieve and sustain
employment equity in the workplace:
1. Implementation through barrier removal
2. Meaningful consultations
3. Regulatory oversight
The first pillar is the requirement on workplaces to examine their practices, proactively, to implement
employment equity, including by identifying and eliminating workplace barriers. Representation
numbers are a pivotal part of the evidence-based exercise. Employers implement through barrier
identification and removal including taking special measures to eliminate underrepresentation, with
regular reporting. Although special measures through representation goals have received considerable
attention, they are far from the whole exercise. Over the decades, we have largely forgotten how
important barrier removal is to employment equity’s successful implementation. If the focus is not
broadened to cover the fundamental work of barrier removal through comprehensive employment
systems reviews, improvements will plateau or worse, be lost. In particular, substantive equality in the
context of employment equity is an invitation to rethink the place of individual accommodations in
the context of proactive legislation designed for equitable inclusion. This report seeks to reclaim
barrier removal’s centrality to the implementation of employment equity.
The second pillar is meaningful consultations of employers and workers throughout the process of
identifying barriers, eliminating them including through the implementation of special measures, and
reporting. Over the decades, this second pillar has been weakened, and today is too often overlooked
or addressed in a cursory manner. Yet it is crucial. Meaningful participation provides both an
opportunity to understand quantitative data more effectively, and to build a richer set of data that
incorporates qualitative features. Without this pillar, a heavily bureaucratized employment equity
approach that forgets about the workers themselves can be harmful. Relationships matter, especially
for employment equity groups who have faced disadvantage and trauma. Canada’s reckoning with
truth and reconciliation underscores that self-determination by First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples
must be part of the human rights-based framework through which equitable inclusion is understood.
Employment equity is part of a process of deliberately undoing systemic discrimination, while building
respectful relationships within inclusive workplaces. Meaningful participation is grounded in the
Executive Summary
Page | 4
principle of “nothing about us without us”. We recommend the establishment of Joint Employment
Equity Committees.
The third pillar is active support for compliance, accountability and enforcement through sustainably
resourced regulatory oversight. Workplaces should be supported through guidance and oversight by
state regulatory actors who understand the workplace context and are sufficiently well resourced to
give real-time advice. They should be able to provide independent, transparent external auditing to
ensure that equitable representation is both achieved and sustained. The structures that are in place
leave the Employment Equity Act framework largely to achieve implementation on its own. 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. On
regulatory oversight we must put our money where our principles are. The regulatory oversight needs
to be rethought. Central to our recommendations is the establishment of an Employment Equity
Commissioner.
Chapters 4 – 6 provide a detailed discussion of each of the three pillars and are outlined below. But
before addressing how to strengthen each pillar, the report presents three cross-cutting chapters:
• Equitable inclusion in a changing world of work: Toward supportive & sustainable coverage (Chapter
1), which explains the changing coverage of employment equity, which is an important
part of a broad, comprehensive law of work seeking to secure social justice.
• Data justice (Chapter 2), which explains that data collection is rooted in the human rights
purpose of employment equity: of achieving and sustaining substantive equality in the
workplace. We recommend establishing an Employment Equity Data Steering Committee
and no longer using the Workforce Availability (WFA) Benchmark in the federal public
service.
• Rethinking equity groups (Chapter 3). We show that history matters, and provide an evidence-
based explanation for proposing to expand the coverage of employment equity and the
redefinition of some employment equity groups.
Chapter 7 returns to the theme of equitable inclusion, to explore some of the more technical regulatory
implications of supportive and sustainable employment equity coverage. This includes broadening the
coverage of the Federal Contractors Program.
Chapter 1: Equitable Inclusion in the Changing World of Work: Toward
Supportive and Sustainable Coverage
A clear message came through our broad consultations, study of the law, statistics and expert reports:
employment equity is central to labour law in Canada and a crucial component of what makes work
fair.
Chapter 1 reports that the world of work has changed significantly since the Employment Equity Act
was first introduced. It looks to federal public service and federal private sector coverage and considers
demographic differences across urban and rural contexts. The report addresses the rise in various
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 5
forms of precarious work in fissured workplaces, retains yet nuances employment equity’s focus on
employment.
First, the Employment Equity Act framework cannot stand alone. It needs to be understood as an
important part of a broader, comprehensive law of work. Employment equity requires strong
surrounding labour and employment laws upholding decent work in the changing workplace.
Attempts to reduce the prevalence of precarious work complement attempts to achieve substantive
equality at work. In this regard, employment equity coverage is not quite about broad coverage the
way much other labour and human rights law imagines coverage.
In other words, and second, the purpose of the Employment Equity Act is to secure social justice through
equitable representation of workers, but not just in any jobs. Employment equity is unabashedly about
making sure that all workers have an equal opportunity to be represented in good, stable occupations
– what internationally, including in the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 8, entails “promot[ing]
sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent
work for all.” While employment equity was never meant to be a complete response, it can be part of
the response, by correcting a distinct set of problems. Alongside and in relation to the other workplace
measures that foster substantive equality, namely pay equity, accessibility, and human rights protection,
employment equity creates opportunities for equitable inclusion, including, indeed especially, for those
who have been excluded and relegated to precarious, non-standard occupations. There is a focus on
achieving and sustaining employment equity through the removal of barriers to equal opportunity for
all: equitable inclusion of employment equity groups, as a matter of social justice, into good, stable
jobs alongside all other workers.
It follows that third, we still need to know what is happening around jobs where the conditions are
more precarious, and who is occupying precarious occupations if we are going to be able to foster
employment equity. Employment equity group members are disproportionately represented in
precarious work. They earn disproportionately low wages. They are disproportionately underemployed
or unemployed. Despite their education, despite their skills, they are overrepresented in precarious
work. Employment equity seeks to correct that inequity. But it is one piece of the puzzle. We need a
holistic approach to labour and employment law, and an understanding of employment equity’s
“why”.
Equitable inclusion is a challenge to the overrepresentation of employment equity groups in precarious
work. We must therefore go back to first principles and ask: what categories of employment should be
covered under the Employment Equity Act framework to ensure that employment equity group members
are equitably included in the workplace?
Finally, Chapter 1 takes a hard look at discouraged workers and workers who are overqualified for the
work in which they are employed. Moreover, we address the concern that the benchmarks used to
calculate availability reproduce the occupational segregation. In other words, if workers with
doctorates who drive taxis are simply being captured as taxi drivers, we have a problem. We need the
data that allow us to capture this overrepresentation and to remove the barriers that prevent those
workers from getting the job opportunities for which they are qualified. We need to rethink the data
collection, to foster data justice.
Chapter 1 contains only two recommendations. First, it recommends recasting the Employment Equity
Act’s purpose to achieve and sustain substantive equality in the workplace through the three pillar
Executive Summary
Page | 6
framework, that is, implementation through barrier removal, meaningful consultations and regulatory
oversight. Second, it recommends ensuring that employment equity data collection and benchmarks
are systematically rethought to eliminate barriers and foster data justice.
Chapter 2: Data justice
There is tremendous, understandable fatigue with superficial data collection. Across the board,
stakeholders called the data collection system broken, filled with data lags, lack of follow up, and
lacking in the quality necessary to ensure the right mix of data on statistical disparities alongside
information about employment equity group members’ situation. Our task force finds that the federal
bureaucracy has lost sight of the purpose of employment equity to redress systemic discrimination
and gotten caught up in a numbers-crunching exercise. Current data methodologies are overly
complicated, not transparent and inaccurately represent the experiences of employment equity groups.
There is also a lack of trust and support among stakeholders for reporting data benchmarks and
methodologies.
Chapter 2 calls for us to move away from a disproportionate focus on number-crunching and toward
data justice. Data justice is a call to focus on the “why” of employment equity: we collect data in
employment equity to promote and protect the human right to equality. Data collection should not
be approached as an end in itself. If data collection is not understood to be undertaken in alignment
with its human rights purpose, it can cause harm.
Data justice involves building trust with employment equity groups, ensuring public transparency on
data methodologies and collection, as well as keeping reporting simple. Moreover, there is a need to
work with Statistics Canada to collect and release more useful, timely and informative labour-wide
employment and equity data. Put simply, data justice needs to focus on building sustained progress
over time.
The data justice approach to employment equity data collection forces us to examine and
fundamentally revisit how data have been understood, to ensure that research and analytical
approaches do not embed systems of discrimination. Data justice facilitates the identification of
barriers to equitable inclusion at work. It enables workplace actors to work together to ensure that
employment equity is implemented. It provides accountability, ensuring that reasonable progress can
be made and monitored, so that employment equity will be achieved and sustained. Data justice is the
backbone of substantive equality.
Chapter 2 includes several recommendations for the Government of Canada to revisit how data are
developed, analyzed and reported publicly, and to do so in a timely manner, and in a way that can be
communicated clearly and easily. In this way, the report recommends strengthening public
accountability by democratizing access to employment equity data and systematically rethinking
employment equity data collection and benchmarks to eliminate barriers and foster data justice.
To address historical discrimination and a lack of trust among many equity-seeking communities, we
propose that the Employment Equity Act specifically clarify that the purpose of data collection is to
support achieving and sustaining substantive equality in the workplace by building trust in all three
pillars of the revised framework.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 7
Central to the recommendations is the creation of an Employment Equity Data Steering Committee
as part of the Employment Equity Act framework, to support implementation, meaningful consultations
and regulatory oversight to achieve and sustain employment equity. The Steering Committee should
consist of senior government officials under a revised Employment Equity Act. It would provide advice
regarding employment equity data and undertake research.
Specifically, the production of the current benchmark used in the federal public service, WFA is now
understood to be a distraction, taking time and energy away from the fundamental work of barrier
removal. Government should be the site for experimentation and creativity for sustainable change.
Our task force was persuaded that the federal government, assuming its dual responsibility as a
symbolically important federal employer as well as regulator, can do better. We recommend that WFA
no longer be used. Rather, we recommend mandating the proposed Employment Equity Data Steering
Committee to consider how best to draw on existing and emerging projections capabilities, to redress
the time lag in the calculation of LMA alone, and move toward a benchmark that supports a focus on
removing barriers, meaningful consultations and regulatory oversight. Our aspiration should be that
our workplaces reflect our populations. The benchmarks help us to get there. They should not be
hindrances. They should not get in the way of the real work of equity. So long as representation is
lower than Census population levels, employers should be permitted to continue to work to correct
underrepresentation.
Data collection is an ongoing, interactive process and requires an all of society approach. It should be
integrated into the Canadian government’s adherence to the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals, including on gender equality and decent work, and tackled holistically.
In turn, the report also recommends that legislation intersecting with the Employment Equity Act (i.e.,
Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) be reviewed and as appropriate
amended to clarify that data collection frameworks are intended to be interpreted through a human
rights approach.
Chapter 2 engages closely with the issue of self-identification, recommending that it should remain
voluntary under the Employment Equity Act framework. It identifies measures to enhance confidentiality
while streamlining and centralizing the practices within the federal public service.
Disaggregated data should be connected to its human rights purposes:
• The purpose is achieving substantive equality in the workplace, that is, employment equity.
The purpose of disaggregated data is not individual or group stigmatization, or reinforcing
deficit narratives. Rather, the focus is on redressing systemic workplace exclusion.
• The process must foster respectful relationships with members of equity groups in the
workplace context. Employers, unions and other workplace actors are integral to the
process of achieving employment equity.
• An important tool to achieve this purpose is data collection, and in particular disaggregated
data collection.
Intersectionality should remain centred on its human rights purpose. Its “why” is to gain deep insight
into how systemic discrimination is experienced by people who have been historically marginalized
and continue to face exclusion. Its “why” is to ensure that context matters, in all its complexity. Its
“why” is to bring lived experiences to the centre of policy and action for substantive equality.
Executive Summary
Page | 8
Listening to employment equity groups drove home how critical it is for data collection to be
conducted in full respect of privacy rights as a human right. Privacy protection is also critical to
addressing self-identification. Privacy rights should not be understood as a shield preventing the
proper functioning of the Employment Equity Act framework. Rather, privacy protections are part of
the proactive character of employment equity law and should be understood to offer crucial support
to achieving and sustaining employment equity.
Acknowledging as well that collecting intersectional, disaggregated data is consistent with Canada’s
international human rights treaty obligations, our task force recommends clarifying that disaggregated
data collection and reporting is permitted and guidance is available in support of promising practices,
including on how to prioritize employment equity initiatives on those employment equity groups and
subgroups that are the most underrepresented in the workplace, while retaining responsibility for
achieving and sustaining employment equity for all employment equity groups.
Chapter 3: Rethinking Equity Groups under the
Employment Equity Act
Framework
Chapter 3 emphasizes the importance of deepening the understanding of the barriers faced by
employment equity groups. There is a need to modernize terminology and broaden the employment
equity group categories. It was heartening to hear employers, governmental actors, workers and a
range of concerned communities make the case for broad Employment Equity Act inclusion.
History matters. It helps to explain the choice of employment equity groups and guide decisions on
groups that should be added. This report is anchored in the specific histories of all employment equity
groups. The historical discussion is particularly pronounced for three:
• First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples because of the significant change in
understanding of Canada’s nation-to-nation or government-to-government relationship
with Indigenous peoples and the responsibility for truth and reconciliation;
• Black workers because of the specific request in our mandate to consider whether this
sub-group of the current ‘visible minority’ category should be considered a separate
employment equity group; and
• 2SLGBTQI+ workers, because of the specific request in our mandate to consider
whether to include them within the Employment Equity Act framework.
Our task force recommends creating a separate employment equity group representing Black workers.
We also recommend adding 2SLGBTQI+ workers as an employment equity group.
Names matter and virtually everyone who came before our task force agreed that much of the
terminology in the Employment Equity Act needed to be modernized. To reflect a holistic understanding
of what it means to be a worker, we recommend that members of employment equity groups should
be referred to as “workers,” aligning with the International Labour Organization’s Violence and
Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190). We recommend that the term “designated groups” should
become “employment equity groups.” We propose to replace the term “Aboriginal” with “Indigenous
worker” through a distinctions-based approach of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. We propose
replacing “visible minority” with “racialized worker”. We have deliberately used the language of Black
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 9
workers and workers of African descent interchangeably in this report, out of respect for the ways in
which Black communities in Canada have self-identified and organized. It is in a similar spirit that the
task force report alternates between a person-first language of “persons with disabilities” that is
internationally recognized, and the contemporary, identity-based approach of “disabled workers,”
which was strongly encouraged by some of the concerned communities who met with us and task
force members with relevant lived experience. We were challenged to “say the word disability”,
embrace it, and normalize it.
As concerned First Nations, Métis and Inuit: Redefining Relationships in the Wake of Truth and Reconciliation,
a cardinal concern is Indigenous self-determination, which flows from Canada’s commitment to truth
and reconciliation and is central to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. First
Nations, Métis and Inuit nations do not only comprise an employment equity group for the purpose
of the Employment Equity Act framework. They have collective rights under Section 35 of the Constitution
Act, 1982. The Crown has obligations to both collectives and individuals under Section 91(24) of the
Constitution Act, 1867.
The Task Force addressed the particular challenge that arises in the context of self-identification for
Indigenous peoples, considering that self-identification under the Employment Equity Act framework
needs to be understood in the context of the Government of Canada’s responsibility for dismantling
internal colonization through an evolving process of reconciliation. The task force acknowledges the
gravity with which we currently witness the combination of instances of identity fraud by non-
Indigenous individuals who claim preferential treatment, alongside First Nations, Métis or Inuit
workers who hesitate to self-identify for fear of facing further discrimination. Our report offers a
detailed discussion of the issues, drawing notably on the individual and collective rights recognized
under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as the approach adopted by
the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to determine eligibility for services under Jordan’s Principles
without purporting to determine citizenship in a First Nations. It also raises potential risks of some
alternative approaches: notably, the scope of the Employment Equity Act framework, including with the
proposed enlargement to cover more workplaces with smaller size and lowered federal contractors
program coverage, creates the risk of a multiplicity of employers having the ability to make
determinations on Indigenous inclusion.
Whatever the approach, our task force urges that we not repeat the colonial harms of the past. To
determine the most appropriate approach to avoid fraudulent claims and address Indigenous status
under the Employment Equity Act framework, there is no circumventing meaningful consultations with
First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. It is hoped that the discussion in the report will offer modest
support to the meaningful consultations.
Recognizing that is about time for the Employment Equity Act framework to be drawn upon to support
this more transformative thinking about changing the relationships, the task force report recognizes
that Section 7 of the current Employment Equity Act does not come close to the necessary government-
to-government constitutional relationship. The report recommends that Section 7 of the Employment
Equity Act be supplemented by a framework fostering Indigenous self-determination that is
constructed with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples through meaningful consultations. The
transformative framework should include special measures that ensure continuing improvement of
First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples’ economic and social conditions.
Executive Summary
Page | 10
Our task force addresses disabled workers and accessibility in the wake of the International Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We conclude that a significant part of the challenge of achieving
employment equity lies in transforming how we understand disability. Progress is long overdue. The
employment equity group for persons with disabilities needs to be redefined. The current definition
adopts a medical model, which looks at disability as impairment, and does not link disability to societal
barriers.
Self-definition is important. The challenge is that currently under the Employment Equity Act
framework, self-definition concerns whether the worker considers themselves to be “disadvantaged
in employment by reason of that impairment” or whether they believe an employer will consider them
to be disadvantaged. We heard repeatedly that these were the wrong questions. Instead, self-definition
should be based on a definition that persons with disabilities recognize as affirming them, in the terms
of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), as “a valued aspect of human
diversity and dignity”and their disability. Laws and policies are expected to take into account the
diversity of persons with disabilities. In light of the value of harmonization, the recent extensive
consultations on the definition under the Accessible Canada Act, its embrace of a social model of
disabilities, its important focus on barrier removal that is consistent with the focus of the Employment
Equity Act framework, our task force recommends that the Accessible Canada Act definition of disability
be adopted in the Employment Equity Act, replacing the current definition. With special attention to
ensure that psychosocial and intellectual disabilities are considered in a disaggregated and
intersectional manner, we recommend that the Employment Equity Act framework should also draw
inspiration from the Accessible Canada Act and the Canadian Survey on Disability to identify appropriate
subgroups.
We recommend that the Employment Equity Data Steering Committee prioritize developing
quantitative and qualitative data on persons with disabilities that are disaggregated and intersectional,
including through commissioned research, and in meaningful consultation with employers’ and
workers’ representatives and representative organizations of disabled workers.
Gender Equality is UN Global Sustainable Development Goal 5, which Canada has committed to
attaining by 2030, yet our task force concludes that there is still A Long Way to Go: Persisting Challenges
for Women Workers. The challenges are intersectional and require close attention to providing
disaggregated data. Substantive equality has not been achieved. The gains that have been made over
time, moreover, have been shown to be all too fragile during the pandemic.
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. Aggregate data on
women tell an incomplete story about substantive equality in employment on the basis of gender. 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. An intersectional
approach to gender is also consistent with Canada’s international obligations and has been
underscored by several UN Committees. Our task force concludes that women workers should remain
an employment equity group in Canada, and that we should intensify efforts to achieve substantive
equality for all women.
For Black Workers in the Wake of the International Decade for People of African Descent, history matters. Many
Canadians may only recently have learned that slavery existed in Canada. The case for a distinct
Employment Equity Act category specifically for people of African descent is rooted in part in the
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 11
legacies of slavery. The history of segregation – in service provision, housing, schooling and
employment – is also not well known in Canada, despite the fact that segregation was legally upheld
by our Supreme Court of Canada in 1939. Slavery and segregation are at the root of often unstated
and unchallenged assumptions about Black peoples’ ‘proper place’ in the labour market.
The pandemic revealed for Canadian society a portrait of Black workers that was rarely portrayed in
the media, and that countered anti-Black stereotypes – Black health care workers, cleaning personnel,
grocery store workers, bus drivers and other workers who made immense personal sacrifices through
the depth of the pandemic to enable the majority of the population to shelter in place. The portrait
cemented the importance of statistical data on the differential impact of COVID-19 on Black
populations. The overrepresentation of Black workers in jobs that literally put their lives and health at
risk was a palpable reminder of what employment inequity can look like.
According to the most recent, 2021 Census data, Black workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher
from a Canadian institution have the highest overqualification rate of any Canadian-educated racialized
group. Recent data provided about Black representation in the federal public service was equally
revelatory. In rarely released sub-group data published on the occasion of an audit by the Public
Service Commission of Canada, it was found that Black applicants, who formed the largest sub-group,
experienced the overall largest drop in representation of all visible minority sub-groups.
The United Nations Decade on People of African Descent began in 2014 and was formally recognized
by the Government of Canada in 2018. The United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination had formulated a set of recommendations that call for special measures to be adopted
as part of a comprehensive national strategy and with the participation of people of African descent,
to eliminate discrimination including in employment.
Considering both the distinct history of slavery and segregation in Canada, and the statistical data showing
persisting differential treatment and underrepresentation, our task force recommends that Black workers should
become a separate category under the Employment Equity Act framework.
The importance of history – including disturbingly recent history – is described in detail in a section
entitled Emerging from the PURGE – Full Inclusion of 2SLGBTQI+ workers, comprising an estimated 1
million people representing 4% of the overall Canadian population aged 15 years and older.
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. Many stakeholders
focused on aspects of the history of exclusion and the slow but decided movement toward removing
legal barriers to full representation of 2SLGBTQI+ communities in Canadian society.
What remains, is fear. Consider that Statistics Canada has reported that members of 2SLGBTQI+
communities were “more likely to report being violently victimized in their lifetime and to have
experienced inappropriate behaviours in person and online than non-sexual” minorities in Canada.
Researchers have chronicled the extent of the backlash faced over the recognition of trans human
rights protections, and the importance of legal recognition to building an inclusive climate. While
Canada has been a leader on a number of initiatives on 2SLGBTQI+ inclusion, several other countries
have led on employment equity inclusion.
Executive Summary
Page | 12
The International Convention on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights specifically requires states, as
a minimum core obligation, to “[g]uarantee through law the exercise of the right [to work] without
discrimination of any kind as to ... sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status.”
Our task force closely considered the history and available data on systemic workplace discrimination
faced by members of 2SLGBTQI+ communities in Canada. We listened carefully to the many
stakeholders who came before us, from the communities themselves and across employer and worker
groups. We studied what has already been done, in Canada and in other countries. And we asked what
would be necessary to advance knowledge on the employment situation of 2SLGBTQI+
communities’ employment experiences.
Taken together, we conclude that there is a strong basis to recommend inclusion of 2SLGBTQI+
people as an employment equity group in the Employment Equity Act framework and recommend
inclusion.
We also recommend more comprehensive data collection, guided by meaningful consultations with
2SLGBTQI+ workers and the proposed Data Equity Steering Committee, and transitional measures.
Good data are pivotal for effective policy implementation. We have witnessed what happens when
data are not available: groups get ignored. Qualitative analyses will also remain crucial, notably to
understand some of the barriers and biases that may affect the ability to achieve employment equity.
As concerns Racialized Workers Beyond “Visible Minorities”: Disaggregation and Group Cohesion, our task
force recognizes that when the category “visible minorities” was introduced into the new Employment
Equity Act, it was considered to be progress. It is a composite group, which has comprised 11 sub-
groups, namely:
• Black;
• Chinese;
• Filipino;
• Japanese;
• Korean;
• South Asian-East Indian (including Indian from India; Bangladeshi; Pakistani; East Indian
from Guyana, Trinidad, East Africa; etc.);
• Southeast Asian (including Burmese; Cambodian; Laotian; Thai; Vietnamese; etc.)
• non-white West Asian, North African or Arab (including Egyptian; Libyan;
Lebanese; etc.);
• non-white Latin American (including indigenous persons from Central and South
America, etc.);
• person of mixed origin (with one parent in one of the visible minority groups listed above);
and
• other visible minority group.
Members of this employment equity group want to be acknowledged for their past and ongoing
contributions to Canadian society. For example, the task force was reminded that the Chinese
Canadian community is predominantly an immigrant community for a reason – the 70
th
anniversary
of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act is a reminder of the history of legal exclusion of Chinese
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 13
people from Canada. The Canadian Race Relations Foundations reminded our task force that it was
created as a Crown Corporation in 1996 as part of the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement for the
internment by Canada of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Racialized groups were
concerned to dispel misperceptions, and in particular called attention to the myth that racialized
groups are newcomers to Canada. Racialized groups’ contributions to Canada are longstanding, and
have helped to make Canada the deeply cosmopolitan, pluralist society that it is today.
The existing data confirm persisting disadvantage. For example, unemployment rates of visible
minorities who earned a degree within Canada or abroad were significantly higher than non-visible
minorities. On incomes data, while there were differences between subgroup members, no subgroup
earned averages as high as the full time, full year employment income of nonvisible minorities.
Overall, our task force’s recommended approach is to rely on disaggregating sub-groups within this
employment equity category. We conclude, however, that the term visible minority should be replaced
with the term racialized workers.
To foster inclusion in the Employment Equity Act framework, broadly understood, our task force explained the
relationship with the broader focus of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Our report has taken great care
to define the scope of employment equity, and to identify employment equity groups. We want our
justifications for inclusion to be robust, and our approach to the future to be fluid. In other words,
we want employment equity to be supportive and sustainable. As a complement, we adopt an approach
to barrier removal that acknowledges that barriers are often common across equity groups, and across
protected grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Barrier removal recognizes
that someday, any one of us might find ourselves in a workplace needing it to be as inclusive as
possible, and that we are all better off in a workplace that allows us to be our authentic selves at work.
It fosters equitable inclusion.
Chapter 4: Strengthening Implementation: The Barrier Removal Pillar
The first pillar is the proactive requirement on workplaces to examine their practices to implement
employment equity, including by identifying and eliminating workplace barriers.
Representation numbers are a pivotal part of the exercise of barrier removal. Employers implement
employment equity through barrier identification and removal including taking special measures to
eliminate underrepresentation, with regular reporting. Although special measures through
representation goals have received considerable attention, they are far from the whole exercise.
Decades of experience have shown that if the focus is not broadened to cover the fundamental work
of barrier removal through comprehensive employment systems reviews, improvements will plateau
or worse, be lost.
Section 5 of the Employment Equity Act sets out employers’ duty to “implement employment equity.”
This includes barrier removal. If a practice is affecting certain groups in a disproportionately negative
way, it is a signal that the practices that lead to this adverse impact may be discriminatory. Barriers are
assessed in context. There is no pre-defined list. Barrier identification and elimination requires a careful
process of assessing workplace practices through the analysis required by Section 5 of the Employment
Equity Act.
Executive Summary
Page | 14
But nothing in Section 5 requires an employer to demonstrate that they have implemented their plans,
or at least that they have made reasonable progress on plan implementation. Section 11 of the
Employment Equity Act is read as focusing only on building a plan that “if” implemented, would
constitute reasonable progress toward implementing employment equity. Our consultations suggest
that the French version of the law, which is equally authoritative, does not contain the words “if
implemented”, and specifies that “l’employeur est tenu de veiller à ce que la mise en œuvre de son plan d’équité en
matière d’emploi se traduise par des progrès raisonnables” (“the employer is required to ensure that reasonable
progress is made in implementing its employment equity plan”) has not guided the interpretation.
Instead, those responsible for regulatory oversight stressed that the law does not clarify that reasonable
progress actually needs to be made.
This is understandably exasperating. Many stakeholders – employers themselves, government actors
responsible for oversight, and workers and unions - argued that this needs to change, or employment
equity will not be achieved. Our task force agrees. Employers and their workplaces should be
supported to achieve this reasonable progress, and this report turns attention to the nature and quality
of support – including, crucially, financial support.
Within the workplace, barriers may be found in organizational structures and organizational culture.
Organizational structures include job classification, recruitment, remuneration and other working
conditions, retention, training and promotion policies, and termination of employment policies.
Organizational culture relates to the range of formal and informal norms and practices surrounding
the workplace, and include management approaches, communications, and social interaction. One of
the most recent, thorough examples of what barrier identification looks like emerges from the 2022
Report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian
Armed Forces (the Arbour Report). It offers a close and careful assessment of the systemic challenges
that prevent employment equity from being achieved.
We recommend that the Employment Equity Act be revised to define barriers as practices that affect
equity groups in a disproportionately negative way, specify that barrier removal applies across each
stage of the employment lifecycle, and provide for the Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines
prepared under them to support comprehensive barrier removal and reporting.
Some requests for individual accommodation will always be a necessary part of sustaining workplace
equality. Barrier removal can even support the individual accommodation process, by removing
excessive delays or duplication and streamlining responses so that similar requests are handled in an
expeditious and equitable manner.
The key is that a proactive approach to barrier removal means individual workers may not need to
seek individual accommodations for those structural barriers that workplaces can identify and remove
in advance. The distinctions are important and affect how notions like undue hardship are understood.
We recommend reporting on individual accommodations, and clarity on the notion of undue hardship,
while underscoring that employment equity’s transformative potential is to build accessibility into the
workplace’s design, or redesign. Employment equity shifts the norm.
A holistic view of employment systems is also proposed through recommendations that integrate, for
example, workplace benefits and harassment complaints in the employment systems review and
reporting. Moreover, we find that merit is often invoked but rarely defined. This is a mistake.
Employment equity has been criticized for its perceived narrow focus on redistributing representation,
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 15
that is, the numbers. It has led to the mistaken and invariably offensive perception that employment
equity means promoting people who are not qualified. This perception is harmful to equity deserving
groups, as has been repeatedly expressed, including in the federal public service. The report calls for
close scrutiny into merit, drawing on insights from the Bastarache report into sexual harassment in
the RCMP entitled Broken Dreams, Broken Lives: The Devastating Effects of Sexual Harassment on Women in
the RCMP, Final Report on the Implementation of the Merlo Davidson Settlement Agreement (11 November 2020,
Independent Assessor: The Hon. Michel Bastarache). It urges that merit should be closely scrutinized
in context and not assumed to be neutral or objective. A close look at merit can lead to more rigorous
but also more relevant requirements to redress inequality. Mostly, it is important to stop labelling those
who face barriers to inclusion as unmeritorious. Similarly, they should not be made to feel that they
have to work twice as hard as others to receive respect in the workplace. Part of what is happening
with discussions about employment equity and redressing underrepresentation is that we are moving
beyond deficit thinking to identifying and cultivating talent.
Although it contains some recommendations, notably in relation to the Public Service Employment Act,
the overriding spirit of this chapter is that of guidance. The chapter focuses on framing potential
barriers along the work lifecycle, throughout recruitment, hiring and retention, while recognizing that
barrier removal is context specific. The barrier-removal approach is designed to help employment
equity’s numerical goals to be achieved and sustained. Barrier removal to foster truly inclusive
workplaces starts a process of awareness, mutual learning, and change. Undertaken in a collaborative
manner, through meaningful consultations to produce workplace employment systems reviews and
action plans, it draws workplace actors into making the workplace better for all of us.
To better support employers to undertake this more comprehensive barrier removal, however, one
recommendation is that the reporting be reduced from annual reporting to every three years.
Chapter 4 also considers the use of non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements, offering
an analysis of the evolving law and practice in a number of jurisdictions across Canada, the United
States and abroad. The indiscriminate use of non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality
agreements runs the risk of entrenching rather than removing barriers to achieving substantive equality
at work. Our task force recommends that workplaces be required to report on the number of
harassment and discrimination complaints, identified by category, by whether complainants or
respondents or perpetrators are members of one or more employment equity groups and if so which
ones, and by the number of non-disclosure agreements that were concluded by the workplace as part
of the mandated workplace climate scan. The list must be anonymized. We acknowledge that some
data suppression may be required to respect privacy.
Chapter 4 surveys barriers that intersect with the workplace, such as childcare, transportation and
education. Chapter 4 also offers a discussion of barriers in select federally-regulated employers, and
calls in particular for the Canadian Armed Forces to calculate availability and set goals for all
employment equity groups covered under the Employment Equity Act. Our study of the federal
transportation sector leads us to conclude that some employers are putting a lot of effort into doing
diversity work and even reporting on it. But they need support to tailor their employment equity
initiatives in a manner that actually helps to achieve and sustain results.
Our task force was struck to see that at this stage in the life of the Employment Equity Act framework
we were still raising these concerns about longstanding problems. Thirty-seven years into employment
Executive Summary
Page | 16
equity, we should have covered more mileage. In addition to comprehensive barrier removal, we need
meaningful consultations and regulatory oversight to achieve and sustain employment equity.
Chapter 5: Reactivating the Meaningful Consultation Pillar
The second pillar is meaningful consultations with employers and workers throughout the process of
identifying, eliminating, and reporting on barriers. Meaningful consultations have, in practice, been
the weak pillar in the process of sustaining employment equity in workplaces in Canada. This must
change. The active, structured participation of those most concerned with the outcomes need to be
part of workplace transformations. Otherwise, we can expect no transformation.
Throughout our engagements, task force members heard two things that might seem contradictory.
• First, we heard that workers and employment equity groups felt a certain survey and
interview fatigue.
• Second, we heard that workers and equity groups should be consulted more.
The focus, of course, was on the nature of the consultations: consultations needed to be meaningful,
with a view to enabling change. We heard that formal consultations with workers, including concerned
equity groups, are foundational.
Employment equity should not be thought of as a top-down form of workplace control. Relationships
matter, especially for employment equity groups who have faced disadvantage and trauma. Canada’s
reckoning with truth and reconciliation underscores that self-determination by First Nations, Métis
and Inuit peoples must be part of the human rights-based framework through which equitable
inclusion is understood. Employment equity is part of a process of deliberately undoing systemic
discrimination, while building respectful relationships within inclusive workplaces.
Meaningful consultations also strengthen attempts to correct the reliance on purely quantitative data.
Workers’ participation is necessary to be able to identify and remove barriers. Studies also underscore
the importance of unions to promoting and fostering compliance with employment law, including by
multinational enterprises located in Canada. Mechanisms that enable meaningful consultation should
therefore be at the heart of employment equity.
We came away with a clear insight: employment equity will not be achieved unless we pay attention to
supporting and sustaining the quality of the workplace relationships. Equity groups need to be heard
through fair and equitably inclusive processes. Meaningful participation is grounded in the principle
of “nothing about us without us”.
Our task force recommends that Joint Employment Equity Committees be incorporated into the
Employment Equity Act framework. They should be mandatory for the largest employers and voluntary
for others. Wherever practicable, they should be harmonized with existing models for pay equity and
occupational safety and health. Our recommendations seek to ensure that the joint employment equity
committees’ mandate is clearly defined, and that they play a key role in reporting obligations and
ensuring accountability. We recommend ongoing training, and for the proposed Employment Equity
Commissioner to study the effectiveness of training initiatives.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 17
Employers in particular have been calling for less numbers-crunching and more training and support
for decades. It is not enough simply to legislate. It is crucial to ensure that regulatory oversight agencies
of government have the human resources, financial resources and administrative latitude to be able to
act creatively, immediately and effectively in support of full implementation of employment equity.
This could hardly be more important if we recognize that workplace inclusion is pivotal to building
and sustaining a robust Canadian democracy and offering a distinctive and meaningful reflection of
Canada in and to the world. The Task Force is persuaded that this cannot be more crucial. We also
recommend the establishment of an advice line under the jurisdiction of the Employment Equity
Commissioner to provide effective, efficient support to workplaces – employers and Joint
Employment Equity Committees - on employment equity implementation.
Finding that learning was not shared broadly with those most concerned or interested in a
comprehensive, readily accessible manner in the Workplace Opportunities: Removing Barriers to
Equity (WORBE) program, we recommend that the program be significantly reformed with oversight
to incentivize ongoing learning from emerging workplace issues, including on artificial intelligence,
with a more significant and integrated role for researchers. Its projects and learning outcomes should
be made publicly available.
Chapter 6: Fundamentally Rethinking the Regulatory Oversight Pillar
The third pillar is active support for compliance, accountability and enforcement through sustainably
resourced regulatory oversight.
Workplaces should have significant latitude to promote equitable inclusion, reasonable latitude on
how to implement employment equity, and no latitude to drag their feet on achieving and sustaining
employment equity.
The current Employment Equity Act framework might be incentivizing foot dragging, not providing
enough guidance to implement, and putting a brake on the creativity necessary to exceed unduly rigid
indicators and achieve a barrier free workplace for all.
Without sufficiently robust regulatory oversight, workplaces lose the three key reasons why they might
seek to comply with the Employment Equity Act, namely:
• economic—it costs less to comply than to risk fines and penalties;
• social—they do not want to be unfavorably compared to others in their industry; and
• normative—they believe it is the right thing to do.
Our current approach to regulatory oversight misses all three reasons. The Employment Equity Act
framework offers:
• very little by way of economic incentive,
• limited visibility to employers who are doing well in the industry and little objective basis
for comparison, and
• insufficient guidance to employers who want to do the right thing by fostering equitable
inclusion on how to do so.
Executive Summary
Page | 18
Our task force was informed that only 4 employers have ever received a notice of assessment of a
monetary penalty. We learned that the last penalty was issued in 1991, which is also when the largest
penalty was issued - $3,000.00. Under the Federal Contractors Program, no contractor has been found
to be in non-compliance since the 2013 redesign.
If we knew that employment equity was actually
being achieved and sustained, the limited assessments of penalties would be something to celebrate.
But that is far from the reality.
Remarkably, too, both the Labour Program and the Canadian Human Rights Commission told our
task force that the audits conducted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission are not shared with
the Labour Program that subsequently advises employers. Regrettably, the current practice seems to
reflect the institutional silos that have developed over time. So many years into a process that should
be helping us to achieve employment equity, our task force came away concerned. The bifurcation of
responsibilities seems to be a big part of the problem facing regulatory oversight of the Employment
Equity Act framework.
We accorded the utmost seriousness to the call by the Public Service Commission for accountability
to be increased by focusing on outcomes rather than simply monitoring efforts, that is, for an oversight
body to ensure that progress is actually made to close gaps.
Currently, the Canadian Human Rights Commission monitors compliance by conducting compliance
audits for both the federal public service and federally regulated private sector employers. The
Canadian Human Rights Commission may also apply to the Chairperson of the Canadian Human
Rights Tribunal to request that an Employment Equity Review Tribunal be appointed, with power to
issue decisions enforceable as court orders. This application is made when an employer requests a
review of a decision issued by the Canadian Human Rights Commission or the Canadian Human
Rights Commission requests the confirmation of its decision. The Employment Equity Review
Tribunal itself has barely ever been used.
There is no use putting a gloss on this challenge: the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s tiny
Employment Equity Division does not have anywhere near the capacity necessary to undertake their
crucial oversight work. Not surprisingly, we learned that some employers tend to react to the audits,
rather than undertaking proactive measures in advance. Given the small number of audits conducted,
there is little incentive to do otherwise. The close review of the limited number of audits made available
to the task force chair tended to confirm the reactive character, and the limited guidance on
implementation.
Employment equity is the federal government’s commitment to substantive equality at work. The
federal government is accountable for ensuring that there is proper public oversight. If we persist in
assuming that all we need is more training, the legislative framework that seeks to support one of
Canada’s fundamental values, substantive equality, risks being undermined.
We recommend that an Employment Equity Commissioner be established, replacing the bifurcated
division of labour between the Labour Program and the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The
Employment Equity Commissioner should be independent and should report directly to Parliament,
should have a broad range of legislative responsibility to ensure responsibility for regulatory oversight
including workplace auditing.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 19
Professional auditing requires appropriate resource allocation. Funding levels ultimately tell us what
commitments we mean to keep. Our task force unfortunately heard a fair bit of cynicism on this point.
Attention must be paid to the institutional autonomy of the Employment Equity Commissioner and
the ability to meet the magnitude of the task available. Law does indeed convey commitment. And a
lack of funding undermines law’s commitments.
It is time to break out of the idea that equity work should be done on a nickel and a dime. 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.
Among other more granular recommendations, our task force recommends that the staffing and
funding envelope for the Employment Equity Commissioner be commensurate with the magnitude
of the responsibility, including the auditing responsibilities, and reviewed periodically to provide the
regulatory oversight necessary to achieve and sustain employment equity across federally regulated
employers. In addition, the Employment Equity Commissioner should be legislatively guaranteed a
separate budgetary envelope sufficient to ensure that the purposes of the Employment Equity Act can
be fulfilled through appropriate staffing and mobility, and guided by the funding available to other
independent commissioners that report directly to Parliament, including the Auditor-General of
Canada. In particular,
- the auditing responsibility of the Employment Equity Commissioner should be funded at a level
commensurate with the volume of covered employers in the federally regulated sector for which it
assumes responsibility; and
- the responsibility for statistical analysis should be increased to meet the needs of an expanded
Employment Equity Act and to ensure that the Office of the Employment Equity Commissioner can
participate meaningfully in the Employment Equity Data Steering Committee.
The Employment Equity Commissioner should be able to recommend special programs if an
investigation establishes underrepresentation of an equity group represented by a ground of
discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act that warrants a special program to remedy it. If the
recommendation is not followed, it may take the matter to the Employment Equity Tribunal.
We recommend that an advisory and review panel be established to inform the work of the
Employment Equity Commissioner. The panel should comprise experts in employment equity and
related human rights and labour and employment relations issues. Members should broadly reflect a
composite of Canadian society as a whole, and ensure intersectional representation of each of the
employment equity groups. The panel should be convened at least twice per year. It should have the
responsibility to conduct the reviews that are to be submitted to Parliament by the Employment
Equity Commissioner and rendered public. The advisory and review panel’s budget should include
the resources to undertake the reviews no less than once every 10 years.
As to the institutional architecture, our task force seeks to ensure that the Employment Equity
Commissioner is able to assure the level of regulatory oversight necessary to meet the purpose of the
Employment Equity Act. We canvas three options:
Executive Summary
Page | 20
• Option 1. House an Employment Equity Commissioner within the CHRC, through a
buttressed proactive compliance branch
• Option 2. Create a stand-alone Office of the Employment Equity Commissioner
• Option 3. Build an Office of Equity Commissioners
The Task Force canvassed a number of Commissioners’ offices within the federal system, to gain a
closer understanding of the different structures within and beyond the Canadian Human Rights
Commission that might inform the decision about the appropriate options for an Employment Equity
Commissioner. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada, the Official Languages Commissioner
and the Privacy Commissioner offer particular insights, including on funding levels. There are also
important examples of institutional experimentation with the appropriate mix of human rights and
labour rights bodies across Canada. We also considered the serious concerns expressed by equity
groups about the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and weighed heavily the recent findings of
systemic racism. We also pondered the risks of a stand-alone model and the importance of fostering
harmonization.
Our consultations point toward the value in establishing an Office of Equity Commissioners, through
which the Employment Equity Commissioner, the Pay Equity Commissioner and the Accessibility
Commissioner could be jointly housed. It would be our expectation that like the Office of the Official
Languages Commissioner and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, a recommended Office of
Equity Commissioners should report directly to Parliament. The Office of the Equity Commissioner’s
relationship to the Canadian Human Rights Commission should be a horizontal dotted line, with
initiatives to ensure that there is collaboration with the Chief Human Rights Commissioner including
in its role as Canada’s National Human Rights Institution.
The Office of Equity Commissioners should receive a staff and budgetary envelope that are on par
with the significance of the responsibility that they face. A separate budgetary envelope for the Office
of Equity Commissioners is key; the task force has understood the challenge of holding resources
constant for employment equity when there are competing demands and employment equity is not
clearly prioritized.
The Office of Equity Commissioners should have a dedicated team of auditors, and significantly
increased in number, on par with the extensive responsibility, who are conversant with all three
covered mandates, representative of employment equity groups and highly qualified in understanding
and addressing substantive equality.
The relationship of the Office of Equity Commissioners to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal,
through which the Employment Equity Review Tribunal is linked, should be similar to the relationship
between the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
The establishment of an Office of Equity Commissioners will not be a panacea. The Office of Equity
Commissioners must be fully supported, and there must be support around the Commissioners to
ensure sustainability.
In addition, our report takes the call to foster harmonization to heart. If employment equity is truly
an all of society matter, it must help to lead rather than lag behind the newer equity schemes for pay
equity and accessibility. Both employers and unions told us that they want to foster workplace equity
but they want to do it in a coherent, comprehensive manner. Five areas would make a big difference
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 21
to the effectiveness of regulatory oversight under the Employment Equity Act framework and across
proactive equity mandates:
• harmonize timelines for implementation: The principle is simple: when commitments
are made, they should be respected. In keeping with Canada’s acceptance of the UN
Sustainable Development goals, and commitments in the Pay Equity Act and the Accessible
Canada Act, the Employment Equity Act should be revised to clarify that the Minister is
responsible for achieving employment equity by 1 January 2040.
• harmonize reporting: We recommend that legislative amendments should permit the
Accessibility Commissioner and the Employment Equity Commissioner to streamline
reporting as it relates to barrier removal related to accessibility in employment. They
should have the power to specify and appropriately adapt the requirements through
regulations or guidelines.
• harmonize and update complaints procedures: We have a somewhat opaque process
channeled through a dysfunctional bifurcation between the Labour Program and the
Canadian Human Rights Commission that may mask rather than remove barriers to
representation. However, a complaints-based process should not be allowed to take over
an approach that stimulates compliance through persuasion and incentives and regulatory
support and oversight. What is proposed is a dynamic process that incentivizes agreement
rather than litigation. We recommend that any worker in an employer’s covered workplace
be able to bring a complaint to the Employment Equity Commissioner on the grounds
that an employer’s implementation obligations under the Employment Equity Act are not
being respected. The Employment Equity Commissioner shall dismiss a complaint unless
the presumption that the internal mechanisms to implement employment equity are
functioning appropriately has been dislodged. Should the Employment Equity
Commissioner decide that there is sufficient evidence, an audit by the Employment Equity
Commissioner would be the remedy. With a view to respecting and sustaining the existing
structure of the Employment Equity Act, we further recommend that the Employment
Equity Commissioner have the capacity to attempt to negotiate a written undertaking from
the employer to take specified measures to remedy the failure to make reasonable progress
on achieving employment equity. If unsuccessful, the Employment Equity Commissioner
should be required to issue directions including special measures to remedy the non-
compliance. We provide a number of specific recommendations to ensure that the role,
powers and responsibilities of the former Employment Equity Review Tribunal, to be
renamed the Employment Equity Tribunal, are fully in keeping with the recommendation
to implement an Employment Equity Commissioner.
• harmonize and repurpose penalties: Regulatory oversight needs to be taken seriously
to avoid undermining the objectives of the Employment Equity Act framework. It includes
adapting measures to apply to the Federal Contractors Programs. Stakeholders who came
before our task force recognized that penalties were a last resort. They understood that a
focus on penalties would detract from the collective work needed to build inclusive
practices in the workforce. What bothered many was the sense that the Employment Equity
Act could essentially be ignored, and that employers could start their processes if and when
they were audited by the CHRC. Our task force recommends that to ensure reasonable
progress in the implementation of employment equity, penalties should be updated and
harmonized with comparable penalties under the Pay Equity Act and the Accessible Canada
Act, scaled to the size and nature of the employer and to the level of non-compliance.
Executive Summary
Page | 22
• harmonize sustainable support for employment equity groups: Our task force
wanted to pay careful attention to the request by several employment equity groups to
have someone with regulatory oversight available to foster understanding and support in
a transversal manner. We did not simply want to multiply responsibilities. To foster
integration and harmonization, we would recommend that in addition to vesting
transversal responsibility for women workers in the Pay Equity Commissioner and
transversal responsibility for disabled workers in the Accessibility Commissioner, four
newly created deputy commissioners, or ombudspersons should be created, with
transversal responsibilities for Indigenous reconciliation (First Nations, Métis and Inuit
workers), Black workers, racialized workers and 2SLGBTQI+ workers.
Finally, it is an important principle that employment equity goals should apply internally to the public
oversight bodies that apply the Employment Equity Act framework. Our task force heard particular
concern to sustain leadership on equity within the federal public service. We sought to clarify in
particular that while the role of Deputy Minister Champion is crucial, it should not supplant the second
pillar, meaningful consultations with employees themselves, through their chosen representatives.
While members of equity groups may benefit from the appropriate support, they also require
autonomy. Champions are part of the third pillar, accountability, and along with other deputy
ministers, they need to be assessed on the results that they achieve. Public monitoring agencies should
meet their goals, including those under the Employment Equity Act. We therefore call for deputy heads
in the federal public service to be held directly accountable through their own performance evaluations
for ensuring reasonable progress to achieve employment equity, and to sustain employment equity
once it has been achieved. Other employers covered under the Employment Equity Act framework
should report on how their senior leadership is held accountable in their performance evaluations for
ensuring reasonable progress to achieve employment equity, and to sustain employment equity once
it has been achieved.
Chapter 7: Technical Regulatory Implications of Employment Equity
Coverage
This chapter recognizes that while the broad principle of equitable inclusion is clear, details really
matter. It covers three implications:
• The first is that we need to know what is happening in federal workplaces. Labour law and
human rights, including the Employment Equity Act framework, is intended to apply broadly
and to foster equitable inclusion and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment, and decent work for all.
• The second is that covered employers should report on their entire workforce including
dependent contractors for the purpose of employment equity, consistent with the Pay
Equity Act and the Canada Labour Code.
• The third is that coverage, notably for the Legislated Employment Equity Program, federal
employers abroad and the Federal Contractors Program should be optimized.
We recommend that the Employment Equity Act framework should apply to workplaces with 10 or
more employees. Employers with between 10 and 49 employees should be required to achieve
reasonable progress on attaining representation of employment equity groups consistent with labour
market availability. They should be provided with meaningful access to training and support.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 23
Employers with 50 or more employees and all covered employers in the federal public service should
also be required to assume the existing employer obligations under the current Employment Equity Act,
with an appropriate transition window for reporting. They should be provided with meaningful access
to training and support. We pay special attention to reporting on public sector workers abroad.
Parliamentary employees should be covered by the Employment Equity Act framework.
For the Federal Contractors Program, we recommend equivalency with employer implementation
under the Employment Equity Act and a change to the threshold consistent with the threshold in
Québec, at $100,000. We also recommend a distinct approach to include all colleges and universities
whose researchers apply for federal research grants under the Federal Contractors Program. Finally,
we recommend that some existing exclusions of legal service contracts, grants and contributions,
international cooperation and construction contracts should be rethought.
On a related note, we recommend that the federal government use its policy space to include set-backs
on behalf of employment equity groups under the Employment Equity Act in awarding procurement
contracts to promote the equitable inclusion of entrepreneurs from employment equity groups in the
award of federal contracts, with prior government-to-government consultations to take place as
concerns First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
While this report could not consider everything, we have tried to consider and respond carefully to
quite a lot. There is necessary detail, but we have kept the focus on the big picture – strengthening the
three pillars of implementation through barrier removal, meaningful consultations and regulatory
oversight. Coverage is not for its own sake, but into a supportive and sustainable framework to foster
equitable inclusion for all.
Mostly, we were buoyed by the fact that stakeholders who came before us were not just viewing
employment equity as a constraint but as a competitive advantage, for individual employers, for
economic growth, and for Canadian society as a whole. This includes how we represent ourselves in
the world.
The recommendations offered in this chapter seek to respect those broader societal aspirations. This
report identifies the areas where coverage should and can quite logically be extended. We pay attention
to thresholds and seek to promote communities of learning.
Employment equity is not and cannot be everything to everyone. But it can be true to its own objectives
and must be understood as an important part of the holistic approach to labour law and human rights
law.
Conclusion:
We heard repeatedly that Canada has an opportunity to lead by example. On employment equity, as
we acknowledge our past with humility and work toward an equitably inclusive future, we continue to
show the world that a deeply pluralist, open, democratic and equitable society is possible.
The report contains 187 recommendations, compiled as a comprehensive list in the conclusion. They
are meant to complement each other to build a comprehensive response to achieving and sustaining
employment equity.
Executive Summary
Page | 24
Throughout the report, we say it, and say it again: we must go beyond the symbolic, to focus on
supportive and sustainable approaches that strengthen all three pillars, enabling us to achieve
employment equity.
This report has engaged with the law and legal frameworks, out of the firm conviction that law reform
really matters. But law is not enough. And substantive equality must be understood in context; it is
meant to be lived.
People most need to internalize substantive equality norms. There needs to be deep listening through
meaningful consultations, timely support, sufficient resources, alongside commitment, knowledge and
leadership from the top within workplaces, and from the governmental institutions charged with
oversight. It takes all of us.
Time and time again we were reminded: the failure to achieve employment equity in Canadian
workplaces is a lost opportunity for Canada. We also heard the more positive side: in the Canada of
2023, if we are intentional about achieving employment equity, it can be achieved, and it will enrich
our workplaces, our society, and our world.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 25
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Chapter 1: Equitable inclusion in the changing world of work: Toward supportive and
sustainable coverage
Recommendation 1.1: The purpose of the Employment Equity Act should be updated as follows: “The
purpose of this Act is to achieve and sustain substantive equality in the workplace through effective
employer implementation, meaningful consultations and regulatory oversight of employment equity
and, in the fulfilment of that goal, to:
• correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by employment equity
group members;
• give effect to the principle that employment equity means more than treating persons in
the same way but also requires barrier removal including special measures;
• support the implementation of Canada’s international human rights commitments to
substantive equality and meaningful consultations in the world of work, including in
the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and
• foster equitable inclusion and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all.”
Recommendation 1.2: Employment equity data collection and benchmarks should be systematically
rethought to eliminate barriers and foster data justice.
Chapter 2: Data justice
Recommendation 2.1: An Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should be established
under the Employment Equity Act to support implementation, meaningful consultations, and
regulatory oversight to achieve and sustain employment equity.
Recommendation 2.2: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should have as a clear
mandate to adopt a human rights-based, data justice approach.
Recommendation 2.3: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should comprise high
level representation that includes as titular members Statistics Canada, the Employment Equity
Commissioner, ESDC’s Chief Data Officer, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Labour
Program, the Public Service Commission and TBS-OCHRO.
Recommendation 2.4: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should include sub-
committees with appropriate technical specialists within the federal government that are meaningfully
representative of employment equity group members.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 26
Recommendation 2.5: The mandate of the Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should
include:
• recommending appropriate expansions or merging of databases, sources and surveys that
affect the ability of federally regulated employers and employers subject to the Federal
Contractors Program to report on the representation of employment equity groups and
subgroups;
• prioritizing the identification and removal of barriers in data benchmarks that affect
discouraged and overqualified workers; and
• undertaking research in collaboration with academics and broader communities that are
meaningfully representative of employment equity groups.
Recommendation 2.6: Labour market surveys conducted by Statistics Canada should include a
question, developed in consultation with the Employment Equity Data Steering Committee, asking
how long workers looked for employment in their field of study.
Recommendation 2.7: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should be considered part
of the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 2.8: The Employment Equity Act should specify that the collection of distinctions-
based, disaggregated and intersectional data is authorized to meet the purpose of achieving and
sustaining substantive equality for members of employment equity groups.
Recommendation 2.9: Distinctions-based, disaggregated and intersectional data should be collected
whenever reasonably possible and with due regard to privacy protections, with the purpose of
ameliorating the conditions of all equity groups and with special attention to members of the most
underrepresented employment equity groups.
Recommendation 2.10: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
offer sustainable support to workplaces on how to prioritize employment equity initiatives on those
employment equity groups and subgroups that are the most underrepresented in the workplace, while
retaining responsibility for achieving employment equity for all employment equity groups.
Recommendation 2.11: The Employment Equity Act should specifically clarify that the purpose of data
collection is to support achieving and sustaining employment equity in the workplace, by building
trust in support of implementation, meaningful consultations and regulatory oversight.
Recommendation 2.12: The Privacy Act and PIPEDA should be reviewed and as appropriate
amended to clarify expressly that the data collection frameworks are to be interpreted to support the
human rights purpose of the Employment Equity Act, including in implementation, meaningful
consultations and regulatory oversight.
Recommendation 2.13: Self-identification should remain voluntary under the Employment Equity
Act framework.
Recommendation 2.14: Employers should be required under the Employment Equity Act framework
to ask all workers to complete a self-identification survey on initial hiring, on an annual basis, and on
separation from the employer.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 27
Recommendation 2.15: Completing the self-identification survey should be mandatory, but the
survey should include the option not to self-identify under each question related to membership in an
employment equity group or sub-group.
Recommendation 2.16: The self-identification survey should be available in accessible formats,
include all of the employment equity groups and disaggregated sub-groups, and clarify that a worker
may self-identify as being a member of as many of the employment equity groups and disaggregated
sub-groups as apply.
Recommendation 2.17: Within the federal public service, self-declaration on appointment should be
streamlined with self-identification for the purposes of the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 2.18: Within the federal public service, self-identification survey data should be
centralized and streamlined, making the Treasury Board Secretariat the central record recipient and
recorder to facilitate appropriate employment equity data sharing between units.
Recommendation 2.19: The self-identification survey should be available for workers to update at
any moment in their work lifecycle and resubmitted to employees on an annual basis for any updates.
Recommendation 2.20: Employers should be permitted to remind workers to complete the separate,
confidential and voluntary self-identification survey at the end of the accommodation process, so long
as self-identification for the purpose of employment equity is understood to remain voluntary,
confidentiality can be assured, and the datasets are understood to remain separate.
Recommendation 2.21: The Employment Equity Act should expressly clarify that data collection and
reporting on sub-group members are permitted and permit special measures to be taken to improve
the hiring, promotion and retention of those sub-group members that are relatively less well
represented in the employer’s workplace.
Recommendation 2.22: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
provide detailed guidance on how to collect disaggregated data and report it in a meaningful manner
to understand underrepresentation and where to prioritize.
Recommendation 2.23: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
provide directives to avoid misleading reporting if persons are counted multiple times across a number
of disaggregated or intersecting groups.
Recommendation 2.24: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should be mandated to
consider how best to draw on existing and emerging projections capabilities to redress the time lag in
the calculation of labour market availability.
Recommendation 2.25: The federal public service should cease producing and relying on workforce
availability to meet its responsibilities under the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 2.26: The “Canadian workforce” under Section 5(b)(i) of the Employment Equity
Act should be the default benchmark in the Employment Equity Regulations.
Recommendation 2.27: Requests for derogations from the default benchmark should be addressed
to the Employment Equity Commissioner on a case-by-case basis for a defined time period.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 28
Recommendation 2.28: So long as representation is lower than Census population levels appropriate
to the geographic context, employers should be permitted to continue to work to correct
underrepresentation of employment equity groups, focusing on obtaining critical mass.
Recommendation 2.29: The Employment Equity Commissioner should develop tools that foster
appropriate, accessible public sharing of employer reports. Protocols should be developed to ensure
that proprietary information can be excepted from the information that is shared consistent with
the Employment Equity Act and privacy laws.
Recommendation 2.30: An open government site for employment equity reports should be created
to make all reports filed under the Employment Equity Act framework available through the accessible,
searchable database.
Recommendation 2.31: the Employment Equity Commissioner should be provided with all
reasonable latitude to ensure that employment equity data are made available for employment equity
implementation and oversight as soon as possible after it is prepared.
Chapter 3: Rethinking equity groups under the
Employment Equity Act
framework
Recommendation 3.1: The term “designated groups” in the Employment Equity Act should be
replaced by the term “employment equity groups”.
Recommendation 3.2: Employment equity group members should be referred to as “workers” in
the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 3.3: The Employment Equity Act framework should adopt the term “Indigenous
workers” with a distinctions-based approach to First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
Recommendation 3.4: The Employment Equity Act should clarify that its use of “Indigenous workers”
with a distinctions-based approach to First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples is intended to be
consistent with Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and Section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867.
Recommendation 3.5: The federal government should prioritize meaningful consultations
consistent with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples’ right to self-determination to seek to resolve
data sovereignty issues and redress data gaps in labour market information on reserves.
Recommendation 3.6: The issue of Indigenous self-identification for the purposes of the Employment
Equity Act framework should be made the subject of an urgent process of meaningful consultation
within the meaning of the Canadian constitution and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples Act.
Recommendation 3.7: Section 7 of the Employment Equity Act should be supplemented by a
framework fostering Indigenous self-determination that is co-constructed through meaningful
consultations with a view to free, prior and informed consent with Section 35 of the Constitution Act,
1982 and Articles 18 -21 and 26-32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Recommendation 3.8: The transformative framework should include special measures that ensure
continuing improvement of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples’ economic and social conditions.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 29
Recommendation 3.9: The definition of disability in the Accessible Canada Act should replace the
current definition of persons with disabilities in the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 3.10: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should prioritize
developing quantitative and qualitative data on persons with disabilities that are disaggregated and
intersectional, including through commissioned research, and in meaningful consultation with
employers’ and workers’ representatives and representative organizations of disabled workers.
Recommendation 3.11: Psychosocial or intellectual disabilities should be considered from a
disaggregated and intersectional manner to ensure that the implementation, meaningful consultation
and regulatory oversight in employment equity effectively responds to the specific needs of those with
invisible disabilities.
Recommendation 3.12: The Employment Equity Act framework should draw inspiration from
the Accessible Canada Act and the Canadian Survey on Disability to identify appropriate subgroups.
Recommendation 3.13: The Treasury Board of Canada and the Public Service Commission should
work closely and on a priority basis with the Employment Equity Commissioner to establish targeted
hiring initiatives for persons with disabilities to achieve and sustain the established 2025 hiring goal in
the federal public service.
Recommendation 3.14: Women should remain an employment equity group.
Recommendation 3.15: Employment equity implementation, meaningful consultation, and
regulatory oversight should be approached in a disaggregated and intersectional manner.
Recommendation 3.16: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should study how best
to obtain a suitably representative, disaggregated, and intersectional characterization of the Black
population in Canada, in meaningful consultation with representative organizations of people of
African descent.
Recommendation 3.17: Black workers should constitute a separate employment equity group for the
purposes of the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 3.18: 2SLGBTQI+ workers should comprise a new employment equity group
under the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 3.19: The Employment Equity Act and accompanying regulations should provide for
the language of 2SLGBTQI+ to be updated as appropriate, in meaningful consultation with
2SLGBTQI+ communities concerned.
Recommendation 3.20: In consultation with the Employment Equity Data Steering Committee and
concerned representatives of 2SLGBTQI+ workers, Statistics Canada should develop appropriate
questions for the Census or other suitable surveys to support the implementation of an employment
equity group for 2SLGBTQI+ workers.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 30
Recommendation 3.21: Transitional measures should be adopted under the Employment Equity Act or
accompanying regulations to ensure that employers can commence coverage of 2SLGBTQI+
employment equity group members by conducting employment systems reviews and preparing action
plans drawing on general population data before Labour Market Availability benchmarks become
available.
Recommendation 3.22: The term “visible minority” in the Employment Equity Act framework should
be replaced by the term “racialized workers”.
Recommendation 3.23: The Employment Equity Act framework should continue to cover racialized
workers.
Recommendation 3.24: The federal government should consider ratifying the Global Convention
on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education.
Recommendation 3.25: A principled approach to the issues of exclusion should come from a
comprehensive, proactive approach to barrier removal across protected grounds under the Canadian
Human Rights Act.
Recommendation 3.26: The Employment Equity Commissioner should have the ability to
investigate and recommend special employment equity programs (special temporary measures) for
defined equity groups based on evidence of disadvantage that has resulted in underrepresentation in
employment.
Recommendation 3.27: The Employment Equity Data Steering Committee should be mandated to
advise on whether a question on religion should be present in each Census rather than every 10 years.
Recommendation 3.28: The inclusion of religious minorities under the Employment Equity Act should
be considered for comprehensive study by the newly re-established Law Commission of Canada.
Chapter 4: Strengthening implementation: The barrier removal pillar
Recommendation 4.1: The Employment Equity Act should be clarified to ensure that employers are
understood to have an obligation to make reasonable progress to achieve employment equity, and to
sustain employment equity once it has been achieved.
Recommendation 4.2: The Employment Equity Act should
• define barriers as practices that affect equity groups in a disproportionately negative way;
• specify that barrier removal applies across each stage of the employment lifecycle, and
should be reported upon in the employment systems review; and
• provide for the Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them to support
comprehensive barrier removal and reporting.
Recommendation 4.3: Reporting by employers, including employment systems reviews should be
required by all covered employers on a 3-year reporting cycle.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 31
Recommendation 4.4: A transitional process should be implemented to ensure that report
submission dates by employers are staggered.
Recommendation 4.5: The Employment Equity Regulations should contain schedules to support
employers in preparing an employment equity plan.
Recommendation 4.6: Guidelines should be developed that include promising practices for
identifying and eliminating barriers in the workplace, including how to conduct employment systems
reviews that identify and eliminate barriers across the work lifecycle and incorporate climate surveys.
Recommendation 4.7: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
provide for reporting on individual reasonable accommodations requested and provided in the
workplace to be included in employment systems reviews.
Recommendation 4.8: The notion of “undue hardship” in Section 6(a) of the Employment Equity
Act should be defined to mean that it would be impossible to take the reasonably necessary measure
without “undue hardship”.
Recommendation 4.9: The Employment Equity Act should be amended to clarify that once
employment equity has been achieved for any employment equity group, employers have an ongoing
responsibility to sustain employment equity.
Recommendation 4.10: Sections 34(1) of the Public Service Employment Act should be drawn upon
proactively to support targeted hiring competitions to redress the underrepresentation of employment
equity groups in a proactive and equitable manner.
Recommendation 4.11: Section 31(1) of the Public Service Employment Act should be changed from
permissive to a requirement.
Recommendation 4.12: The qualification standards should be established through meaningful
consultations with the Joint Employment Equity Committee.
Recommendation 4.13: The interpretation of merit in Section 30(4) of the Public Service Employment
Act should be tightened, notably through attentive use of the Public Service Commission’s general
regulatory powers in Section 22(1), to ensure that appointments based on merit occur through
competitions assessed by committees composed in consultation with the relevant Joint Employment
Equity Committee(s).
Recommendation 4.14: The language of “right fit” should be abandoned in the Public Service of
Canada in favour of a concept that communicates an equitably inclusive approach to appointments.
Recommendation 4.15: Section 6(c) of the Employment Equity Act should be abrogated.
Recommendation 4.16: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
ensure that employers report on workplace harassment and violence policies and their preventative
actions.
Recommendation 4.17: The Employment Equity Regulations or guidelines prepared under them should
provide for workplace benefit packages to be considered in the employment systems review process.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 32
Recommendation 4.18: Urgent policy attention should be devoted to assessing the distribution of
official language training opportunities to ensure that they are made available to employment equity
group members in the federal public service, without discrimination.
Recommendation 4.19: Meaningful consultations should be undertaken between the federal
government and First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples with a view to establishing a national
Indigenous languages allowance within the federal public service to acknowledge and compensate
Indigenous language users in positions where Indigenous language capacity is required, recommended
or relied upon.
Recommendation 4.20: The Employment Equity Regulations should provide for the use of artificial
intelligence in recruitment or other forms of worker evaluation or assessment to be reported upon in
employers’ employment systems reviews.
Recommendation 4.21: Guidelines and training should be developed and updated by the
Employment Equity Commissioner, including on artificial intelligence use across the employment
lifecycle with particular attention to recruitment and hiring.
Recommendation 4.22: The federal government should enter into consultations with employers’
and workers’ representatives and concerned communities with a view to amending the Canada Labour
Code to enable religious minorities to avail themselves of one or more annual paid leave days
reasonably available to them to observe religious high holidays.
Recommendation 4.23: The federal government should, in consultations with concerned groups,
consider amending the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code to ensure that NDAs
are not misused for the purpose of silencing human rights complainants or whistleblowers.
Recommendation 4.24: The Employment Equity Regulations should be amended to require employers
to report on the number of NDAs signed with categories regarding the broad subject matter and
potential barriers that they covered. The reporting should include non-nominative information about
the designated employment equity group(s) to which the complainant(s) and the alleged perpetrator(s)
may belong.
Recommendation 4.25: A study should be undertaken of the use of NDAs to resolve employment
matters within federal jurisdiction and its impact on respecting human rights and achieving
employment equity in the workplace.
Recommendation 4.26: The Government of Canada is encouraged to ratify the ILO Domestic
Workers Convention, 2011 (No.189).
Recommendation 4.27: Studies of the feasibility of basic income policies should be encouraged.
They should pay particular attention to the effect of basic income strategies on redressing barriers to
equitable workplace inclusion faced by employment equity groups.
Recommendation 4.28: The Canadian Armed Forces should be required to calculate availability and
set goals for all employment equity groups covered under the Employment Equity Act.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 33
Recommendation 4.29: Dedicated assistance should be provided to the CAF by the Employment
Equity Commissioner to support and enable it to sustain reasonable progress to achieve employment
equity for all employment equity groups.
Recommendation 4.30: The call in the Bastarache report for an independent external review and
genuinely independent and adequately resourced oversight body for the RCMP should be
implemented.
Chapter 5: Reactivating the meaningful consultations pillar
Recommendation 5.1: The Employment Equity Act should clarify that the obligation to make
reasonable progress to achieve employment equity, and to sustain employment equity once it has been
achieved
• is incorporated into collective agreements governing employees of covered employers; and
• encourages, rather than limits, collective bargaining that deepens equitable inclusion,
notably on staffing or classification.
Recommendation 5.2: All covered public service employers, alongside federally regulated private
sector employers with 100+ workers and FCP employers with 100+ workers should be required to
establish a joint employment equity committee, as appropriate with sub-committees notably for
departments or specific trades.
Recommendation 5.3: For federally regulated private sector employers (LEEP and FCP) with 50 –
99 workers, the Employment Equity Act framework should support the voluntary establishment of joint
employment equity committees. If the covered employers with 50 – 99 workers have at least one
bargaining agent, then the joint employment equity committees are required.
Recommendation 5.4: Covered employers should benefit from a reasonable transition window to
establish the joint employment equity committees.
Recommendation 5.5: Wherever practicable, terms of service should be harmonized with terms of
service of workplace health and safety committees.
Recommendation 5.6: The Joint Employment Equity Committee should comprise a minimum of 5
members, at least half of the members should be employees who do not exercise managerial functions.
Recommendation 5.7: The Joint Employment Equity Committee should strive to represent each of
the employment equity groups.
Recommendation 5.8: The Joint Employment Equity Committee should strive to represent workers
from across the work life cycle.
Recommendation 5.9: In unionized workplaces, representation should be proportional to the
number of bargaining agents in the workplace, with sub-committees as appropriate.
Recommendation 5.10: In non-unionized workplaces, elections of worker representatives should be
preferred.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 34
Recommendation 5.11: If a workplace is unable to establish a Joint Employment Equity Committee,
the employer should apply to the Employment Equity Commissioner to resolve the matter using ADR
techniques. The Employment Equity Commissioner should also have the power to authorize
modifications to the legislative requirements.
Recommendation 5.12: Time spent on a Joint Employment Equity Committee should be considered
work time and compensated accordingly.
Recommendation 5.13: Joint Employment Equity Committee members should be provided with
training in order to be able to carry out their responsibilities.
Recommendation 5.14: The Joint Employment Equity Committee should be permitted to collect,
analyze and review relevant data to assist the employer in the implementation of employment equity.
The Joint Employment Equity Committee should have full access to all of the government and
employer reports, studies and tests relating to employment equity or parts of those reports, studies
and tests that relate to employment equity but shall not have access to the medical records of any
person except with the person’s consent.
Recommendation 5.15: Joint Employment Equity Committee s should be permitted to conduct exit
interviews with departing staff to identify workplace barriers that might be addressed in subsequent
employment equity plans.
Recommendation 5.16: Joint Employment Equity Committee members’ liability should be limited
to provide protection for good faith acts or omissions under the authority of the Employment Equity
Act.
Recommendation 5.17: The Employment Equity Act should be revised to include comprehensive,
detailed protection for Joint Employment Equity Committee members and others exercising their
rights under the Employment Equity Act against reprisals by the employer or any person acting on behalf
of the employer, or by the bargaining agent or any person acting on behalf of the bargaining agent.
Recommendation 5.18: The relevant privacy legislation should be revised following meaningful
consultations with representative trade unions to ensure effective trade union participation in the
implementation of employment equity.
Recommendation 5.19: Employment equity training should prioritize Truth and Reconciliation
Commission calls to action on education and support learning about positive initiatives to promote
Indigenous economic prosperity.
Recommendation 5.20: Leadership training in the federal public service should include training on
systemic discrimination including systemic racism, substantive equality and equitable workplace
inclusion.
Recommendation 5.21: An advice line under the jurisdiction of the Employment Equity
Commissioner should be established to provide effective, efficient support to workplaces – employers
and Joint Employment Equity Committees - on employment equity implementation.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 35
Recommendation 5.22: Training support should be geared to different organizational levels in the
covered employers and should be attentive to the needs and expertise of middle managers and first
line supervisors, as well as members of the Joint Employment Equity Committee.
Recommendation 5.23: WORBE projects should be selected with the input of the Employment
Equity Advisory and Review Panel.
Recommendation 5.24: WORBE should be repurposed to
1. support sectors in greatest need of closing the representation gap;
2. integrate researchers in initiatives to assess the impact of workplace policies to achieve equity, including
through links with the federal tri-agency funding councils;
3. build and share practical knowledge on emerging workplace issues that may pose barriers and how to
address them; and
4. ensure that employment equity groups are at the centre of the knowledge development and sharing.
Recommendation 5.25: WORBE-funded projects and learning outcomes should be made publicly
available and readily accessible online.
Chapter 6: Fundamentally rethinking the regulatory oversight pillar
Recommendation 6.1: An Employment Equity Commissioner should be established.
Recommendation 6.2: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be independent and should
report directly to Parliament.
Recommendation 6.3: The Employment Equity Commissioner should have legislative responsibility
and powers that include the powers in Section 42 of the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 6.4: The Employment Equity Commissioner should have the legislative authority
to collect information on the employment practices and policies of all covered employers in the federal
public service and private sector, as well as under the Federal Contractors Program, for the purpose
of ensuring that employment equity is implemented in their workplaces.
Recommendation 6.5: The Employment Equity Commissioner, like other federal commissioners
including the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Commissioner of Official Languages, the
Information Commissioner of Canada, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada and the
Commissioner of Lobbying, should be considered a contracting authority exempted from Section 4
of the Government Contracts Regulations.
Recommendation 6.6: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be responsible for regulatory
oversight including workplace auditing.
Recommendation 6.7: An Employment Equity Advisory and Review Panel should be established
under the Employment Equity Act to inform the work of the Employment Equity Commissioner.
Recommendation 6.8: The Employment Equity Advisory and Review Panel should have the
responsibility to conduct reviews no less frequently than once every 10 years, to be submitted to
Parliament by the Employment Equity Commissioner and rendered public.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 36
Recommendation 6.9: The staffing and funding envelope for the Employment Equity
Commissioner should be commensurate with the magnitude of the responsibility, including the
auditing responsibilities, and reviewed periodically to provide the regulatory oversight necessary to
enable employment equity to achieve and sustain employment equity across federally regulated
employers.
Recommendation 6.10: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be legislatively guaranteed
a separate budgetary envelope sufficient to ensure that the purposes of the Employment Equity Act can
be fulfilled through appropriate staffing and mobility, and guided by the funding available to other
independent commissioners that report directly to Parliament, including the Auditor-General of
Canada. In particular,
• the auditing responsibility of the Employment Equity Commissioner should be funded at
a level commensurate with the volume of covered employers in the federally regulated
sector for which it assumes responsibility, and
• the responsibility for statistical analysis should be increased to meet the needs of an
expanded Employment Equity Act and to ensure that the Office of the Employment Equity
Commissioner can participate meaningfully in the Employment Equity Data Steering
Committee
Recommendation 6.11: The Employment Equity Act should provide that the Employment Equity
Commissioner enjoys sufficient remedial and enforcement powers to ensure that the purposes of the
legislation can be fulfilled.
Recommendation 6.12: The Public Service Employment Act and the Canada Labour Code should be
amended to require them to notify the Employment Equity Commissioner when a matter relates to
the Employment Equity Act and provide the power to refer a matter to the Employment Equity
Commissioner.
Recommendation 6.13: Notice should be given to the Employment Equity Commissioner when a
policy grievance has been referred to adjudication and a party to the grievance raises an issue involving
the interpretation or application of the Employment Equity Act, in accordance with the regulations. The
Employment Equity Commissioner should have standing in order to make submissions on the issues
in the policy grievance.
Recommendation 6.14: The Employment Equity Commissioner should enjoy immunity and be
precluded from giving evidence in civil suits in a manner analogous with Sections 178 & 179 of the Pay
Equity Act.
Recommendation 6.15: Establishing an Office of Equity Commissioners should be closely
considered with a view to harmonizing and appropriately funding and ensuring effective equity
oversight and parliamentary reporting in the federal jurisdiction with consideration given to the
structures and funding of the Office of Auditor General of Canada, the Office of the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada, and the Office of Official Languages.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 37
Recommendation 6.16: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be able to recommend
special programs if an investigation establishes underrepresentation of an equity group represented by
a ground of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act that warrants a special program to remedy
it.
Recommendation 6.17: The Employment Equity Act should be revised to clarify that the Minister is
responsible for achieving employment equity by 1 January 2040, and sustaining it.
Recommendation 6.18: Legislative amendments should permit the Accessibility Commissioner and
the Employment Equity Commissioner to streamline reporting as it relates to barrier removal related
to accessibility in employment. They should have the power to specify and appropriately adapt the
requirements through regulations or guidelines.
Recommendation 6.19: The Employment Equity Act should be amended to permit the Employment
Equity Commissioner to
• attempt to negotiate a written undertaking from the employer to take specified measures
to remedy the failure to make reasonable progress on achieving employment equity, in
keeping with Section 25(1) of the Employment Equity Act; and if unsuccessful; and
• issue directions including special measures to remedy the non-compliance.
Recommendation 6.20: Sections 40(3.1), 40.1(2) and 54.1 Canadian Human Rights Act, which
cumulatively prevent employment equity decisions from being rendered by the Canadian Human
Rights Tribunal, should be repealed.
Recommendation 6.21: The Employment Equity Act should be amended to permit cases arising in the
circumstances currently anticipated under Sections 40(3.1), 40.1(2) and 54.1 Canadian Human Rights
Act to be submitted in the form of a complaint to the Employment Equity Commissioner.
Recommendation 6.22: The discretion in Section 41(2) Canadian Human Rights Act for the Canadian
Human Rights Commission should be transferred to the Employment Equity Commissioner.
Recommendation 6.23: The Employment Equity Act should be amended to enable a complaint to be
brought by any worker in an employer’s covered workplace, on the grounds that an employer’s
implementation obligations under the Employment Equity Act are not being respected.
Recommendation 6.24: The complaints should be brought to the Employment Equity
Commissioner.
Recommendation 6.25: The Employment Equity Commissioner shall dismiss a complaint unless the
Commissioner considers there to be sufficient evidence, brought by the complainant, to dislodge the
presumption that the internal mechanisms to implement employment equity are functioning
appropriately.
Recommendation 6.26: Should the Employment Equity Commissioner decide that there is sufficient
evidence, an audit by the Employment Equity Commissioner would be the remedy.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 38
Recommendation 6.27: The Employment Equity Commissioner should have the legislative
authority and necessary powers to investigate the covered complaints.
Recommendation 6.28: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be legislatively encouraged
to use alternative dispute resolution techniques to resolve disputes.
Recommendation 6.29: The English-language title of the Employment Equity Review Tribunal
should be renamed the Employment Equity Tribunal.
Recommendation 6.30: The Employment Equity Tribunal should have the staff and resources
necessary to be able to hear and decide matters in an expeditious manner.
Recommendation 6.31: The Employment Equity Commissioner should be able to refer to the
Employment Equity Tribunal an important question of law that the Employment Equity
Commissioner might consider to be more appropriate for the Tribunal to determine.
Recommendation 6.32: The role of the Employment Equity Tribunal should be revised to:
1. Provide that it is responsible for responding to an inquiry into a question of law or jurisdiction referred to
the Chairperson of the Tribunal by the Employment Equity Commissioner by rendering a determination;
2. Clarify that it is responsible for rendering a decision on appeal from a decision of the Employment Equity
Commissioner referred to it by an employer, bargaining agent or other member of the mandated
employment equity committee; and
3. Include a strong privative clause consistent with the case law including and subsequent to Canada (Minister
of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, [2019] 4 SCR 653; 2019 SCC 65.
Recommendation 6.33: Section 48.1(2) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be amended to
ensure that appointments of members of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal must be made having
regard to the need for adequate knowledge and experience in employment equity matters among the
members of the Tribunal.
Recommendation 6.34: Section 29(3) Employment Equity Act should be replaced with the equivalent
of Section 166 (1) & (2) of the Pay Equity Act, to clarify that a hearing must be conducted in public,
but the member or panel conducting the inquiry may, on application, take any measures and make any
order that the member or panel considers necessary to ensure the confidentiality of the hearing under
the conditions provided in Section 166 (1)(a) – (d) and Section 166(2).
Recommendation 6.35: The Employment Equity Act should expressly enable the Employment Equity
Tribunal to use methods of alternative dispute resolution, including mediation where appropriate, to
conduct hearings virtually, to provide for contemporary open court principles that include posting
decisions on the appropriate website(s), and to include contemporary approaches of sending a request
to appear before the Employment Equity Tribunal beyond registered mail.
Recommendation 6.36: Orders made under the Employment Equity Act by the Employment Equity
Commissioner or the Employment Equity Tribunal should be made enforceable by the Court.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 39
Recommendation 6.37: The Employment Equity Act should clarify the relationship between the
powers of the Tribunal under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the powers set out in the Employment
Equity Act, with particular attention to the relationship between Section 29(1)(c) of the Employment
Equity Act and the limitation in relation to privileged evidence under Section 50(1)(4) of the Canadian
Human Rights Act.
Recommendation 6.38: To ensure reasonable progress in the implementation of employment equity,
penalties should be updated and harmonized with comparable penalties under the Pay Equity Act and
the Accessible Canada Act, scaled to the size and nature of the employer and to the level of non-
compliance.
Recommendation 6.39: In addition to vesting transversal responsibility for women workers in the
Pay Equity Commissioner and transversal responsibility for disabled workers in the Accessibility
Commissioner, four newly created deputy commissioners, or ombudspersons should be created, with
transversal responsibilities for Indigenous reconciliation (First Nations, Métis and Inuit workers),
Black workers, racialized workers and 2SLGBTQI+ workers.
Recommendation 6.40: Deputy heads in the federal public service should be held directly
accountable through their own performance evaluations for ensuring reasonable progress to achieve
employment equity, and to sustain employment equity once it has been achieved.
Recommendation 6.41: Other employers covered under the Employment Equity Act framework
should report on how their senior leadership is held accountable in their performance evaluations for
ensuring reasonable progress to achieve employment equity, and to sustain employment equity once
it has been achieved.
Chapter 7: Technical regulatory implications of employment equity coverage
Recommendation 7.1: Reporting under the Employment Equity Act should include dependent
contractors, consistent with the Pay Equity Act and the Canada Labour Code.
Recommendation 7.2: The Employment Equity Act should apply to separate employer organizations
in the federal public sector with 10 or more employees, listed in Schedule V of the Financial
Administration Act (separate agencies), and other public-sector employer organizations with 10 or more
employees, including the Canadian Forces (officers and non-commissioned members in the Regular
and Reserve Forces) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (regular and civilian members, excluding
federal public service employees).
Recommendation 7.3: The Employment Equity Act should apply to employers with 10 or more
employees in the federally regulated private sector.
Recommendation 7.4: Employers with between 10 and 49 employees should be required to achieve
reasonable progress on attaining representation of employment equity groups consistent with labour
market availability. They should be provided with meaningful access to training and support.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 40
Recommendation 7.5: Employers with 50 or more employees and all covered employers in the
federal public service should be required to achieve reasonable progress on attaining representation
of employment equity groups consistent with labour market availability. They should also be required
to assume the existing employer obligations under the current Employment Equity Act, with an
appropriate transition window for reporting. They should be provided with meaningful access to
training and support.
Recommendation 7.6: The Employment Equity Regulations should carefully specify the transition
periods for when an employer is considered to become subject to the Employment Equity Act in a
manner that harmonizes them with the Pay Equity Act, and facilitates training and reporting by
employers.
Recommendation 7.7: All covered public service employers and federally regulated private sector
employers should be required to include Canadians or permanent residents of Canada working abroad
in their workplace implementation and reporting responsibilities under the Employment Equity
Act framework.
Recommendation 7.8: Specific Employment Equity Regulations should be adopted as necessary to
ensure the effective inclusion of Canadians or permanent residents of Canada working abroad, with
due regard to operational effectiveness.
Recommendation 7.9: Specific guidance and training should be developed by the Employment
Equity Commissioner to support the effective implementation of the recommendations to covered
workers abroad.
Recommendation 7.10: The implementation requirements for employment equity by contractors to
whom the Federal Contractors Program applies should be equivalent to the implementation
requirements for employers covered under the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 7.11: The monetary threshold for the inclusion of contractors under the Federal
Contractors Program should be established at close to pre-2013 levels, and with a view to broader
harmonization with existing contractors programs across Canada, at $100,000.
Recommendation 7.12: The monetary threshold should be assessed in terms of the cumulative
contract value. No contractor should be able to cumulate contracts that total more than $200,000
without subscribing to the Federal Contractors Program.
Recommendation 7.13: The threshold for the number of workers should be equivalent to the
threshold established for employers under the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 7.14: Colleges and universities should be required to agree to participate in the
Federal Contractors Program to be eligible to apply for federal research grants and other federal
research funding and to participate in federal research granting councils, including the proposed
Canadian Knowledge and Science Foundation.
Recommendation 7.15: Legal services providers eligible to be included in the Open Government
Canada online directory with individual contracts of $100,000 or cumulative contracts that total more
than $200,000 in any given fiscal year should be included in the Federal Contractors Program.
A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity
Page | 41
Recommendation 7.16: An analysis should be undertaken of the aspects of the grants and
contributions program that could appropriately be made subject to the Employment Equity
Act framework, with a threshold comparable to the thresholds proposed for Federal Contractors
Program employers.
Recommendation 7.17: Canada’s international cooperation sector should be expressly included
within the ambit of the Federal Contractors Program.
Recommendation 7.18: Workers in international cooperation organizations recruited in Canada,
whether based in Canada or posted abroad, should be included in the calculation of the applicable
numerical threshold under the Employment Equity Act framework, alongside the total amount of the
contributions agreements with the Government of Canada.
Recommendation 7.19: Construction industry contractors who meet the threshold requirements
should be included under the Federal Contractors Program.
Recommendation 7.20: The threshold number of employees should be assessed by combining the
total number of workers across the main bidding contractor and its subcontractors, with due regard
for anticipated variations over the lifecycle of the contract.
Recommendation 7.21: Specific provisions should be made in future negotiations to ensure policy
space for setbacks on behalf of employment equity groups under the Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation 7.22: The federal government should use its policy space to include setbacks on
behalf of employment equity groups under the Employment Equity Act in awarding procurement
contracts to promote the equitable inclusion of entrepreneurs from employment equity groups in the
award of federal contracts. Prior government-to-government consultations should take place as
concerns First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
Recommendation 7.23: International agreements on procurements negotiated by the Government
of Canada should explicitly clarify that Canada retains the ability to adopt or maintain its commitment
to substantive equality, including through the Employment Equity Act framework.
Recommendation 7.24: Parliamentary employees should be included within the scope of
the Employment Equity Act. This may be accomplished in a manner analogous to the inclusion of
Parliamentary employees under the Pay Equity Act framework, through amendments to
the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act.
Recommendation 7.25: The Employment Equity Act should be amended to provide that successorship
provisions should apply to businesses that move from provincial to federal jurisdiction alongside
transitional provisions in the Employment Equity Regulations to address reporting requirements.
Conclusion and recommendations
Recommendation C.1: An all of government approach should be adopted, recognizing that
employment equity is transversal and affects us all.
Recommendation C.2: The Employment Equity Act should be revised to confirm that it is considered
quasi-constitutional human rights legislation.
Comprehensive list of report recommendations
Page | 42
Recommendation C.3: International human rights treaties ratified or acceded to by Canada that
inform a proactive, systemic approach to the employment equity framework should be specifically
referenced in the revised Employment Equity Act.
Recommendation C.4: The federal government should encourage the harmonization of
employment equity frameworks across jurisdictions in Canada, in keeping with Canada’s international
human rights and international labour standards commitments.
Recommendation C.5: The Government of Canada should encourage the International Labour
Organization to undertake a general survey on special measures, to ensure comprehensive comparative
experiences can effectively be shared.
