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"Our committee has a longstanding commitment to equity issues in the public service," says Senator Janis Johnson, Chair of the committee. "Our latest report shows that while the public service appears to be meeting its hiring objectives for women, Aboriginal Peoples and persons with disabilities, but it is still not meeting its objectives for visible minorities, based on 2006 census data. Outdated workforce availability numbers make it difficult to ensure the federal government's hiring performance is meeting the objectives of the Employment Equity Act." As immigration to Canada makes visible minorities one of the fastest growing segments of Canadian society, the report recommends the latest workforce availability statistics from the most recent census be made available to the public and to federal departments as soon as they are published. Ensuring the availability of timely data is necessary for assessing if federal departments and agencies are meeting equity targets and for determining accurate and realistic goals in the future. Increased cooperation between Statistics Canada, the Public Service Commission, the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer is necessary to facilitate improved employment equity outcomes in the federal public service. "Our committee study discovered there are significant discrepancies between recruitment rates and representation rates for visible minorities in the public service. The representations rate for visible minorities remains well below the workforce availability numbers available for this group, based on 2006 Census data. These low representation rates for visible minorities appear to indicate that visible minorities continue to be under-represented in the federal public service," says Senator Mobina Jaffer, Deputy Chair of the committee. "More investigation is needed to understand what is happening and whether steps need to be taken to improve the work culture in order to increase retention rates for visible minorities." To increase transparency around employment equity hiring practices, the committee calls on the Public Service Commission to continue to publish recruitment rates for employment equity groups in its Annual Report says the committee. The report recommends the Public Service Commission provide statistics on recruitment rates for equity groups for jobs that are not publicly advertised, publish statistics on executive advancement rates and make information on recruitment trends for advertised and non-advertised jobs available. Additionally, the report calls on the federal government to undertake a systemic, government-wide study in 2010 as to reasons why federal government employees choose not to self-identify as members of employment equity groups. The results should also be made available as soon as the study is concluded. The committee also recommends the Public Service Commission undertake a further study of the appointment rates of employment equity groups in 2010-2011 and table a report in Parliament, outlining both the results of the study and a proposed strategy designed to address and eliminate the causes of visible minority "drop-off" – the elimination of visible minorities from public service job competitions at a higher rate than from any other designated equity group. To read the full report, please visit the committee website: http://senate-senat.ca/rights-droits-e.asp For more information, please contact:
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