Introduction

In this report, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights charts the progress that has been made by the federal government in meeting the key objective of the Employment Equity Act: achieving representation rates in the federal public service for women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and visible minorities (the four groups classified as designated groups under the Act) that are at least equivalent to their workforce availability numbers. The committee last reported on this issue in February 2007 with the release of its report, Employment Equity in the Federal Public Service – Not There Yet.

The Committee's Findings

The committee concluded, based on the workforce availability numbers from the 2006 Canadian census, that while the federal public service appeared to be meeting this key objective for women, Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities, it still was not doing so for visible minorities. Based on the new numbers available for the core public service in 2008 – 2009:

• women are represented at a rate of 54.7% (their workforce availability rate based on the 2006 census is 52.3%);
• Aboriginal people are represented at a rate of 4.5% (their workforce availability rate based on the 2006 census is 3.0%);
• persons with disabilities are represented at a rate of 5.9% (their workforce availability rate based on the 2006 Participation and Limitation Activity Survey (PALS) is 4.0%; and
• visible minorities are represented at a rate of 9.8% (their workforce availability rate based on the 2006 census is 12.4%).¹

However, it also became clear to the committee during the course of its hearings that these numbers may not tell the entire story or present as accurate a picture as one might wish. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, although workforce availability numbers from the 2006 census finally became available for all four of these groups in 2009, and finally started being used by the core agencies responsible for assessing the federal government's performance in meeting the Acts objectives (the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, the Public Service Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Commission) during that year, these numbers are already becoming obsolete. Outdated workforce availability numbers present the greatest challenge with respect to assessing the government's performance in the category of visible minority representation, as immigration to Canada makes this group one of the fastest growing segments of Canadian society.

Secondly, the representation rates used by key agencies to evaluate government performance with respect to employment equity are derived from self-identification surveys that individual federal government departments and agencies ask their employees to complete on a periodic basis. Based on large discrepancies between the recruitment rates and representation rates for visible minorities revealed by the Public Service Commission's new methodology for calculating recruitment rates, as described in its 2008 – 2009 Annual Report,² it appears possible that individual government departments may not be administering the self-identification process as effectively as they could be or that members of designated groups are choosing not to self-identify for a variety of reasons.

Further investigation into the root causes of failure to self-identify and as to how to best calculate representation rates is required for all designated groups, but particularly for visible minorities. As various witnesses pointed out to the committee during the course of its hearings, the Public Service Commission's new methodology for calculating recruitment or hiring rates does not necessarily provide a more accurate picture of representation rates for visible minorities, Aboriginal persons or persons with disabilities in the public service,³ since the new method only provides information regarding numbers of individuals from these designated groups that are appointed to positions in the federal public service. In other words, a higher recruitment rate does necessarily guarantee that individuals from designated groups continue long-term careers with the public service once hired. More information is needed to see whether or not the large discrepancies between recruitment and representation rates, for visible minorities in particular, are indicative of a retention problem with respect to this designated group. Another possible explanation for the large discrepancy between recruitment and representation rates for visible minorities (and smaller discrepancies in the case of Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities) could be that members of designated groups feel less comfortable self-identifying once hired than they do when they first apply for positions in the public service. This possibility should also be investigated in order to see whether or not there are problems with work culture in the public service or, alternatively, with the administration of the self-identification process.

In addition, it is important to note that the recruitment rates calculated using the Public Service Commission's new methodology only account for those hired through advertised job postings and not those hired thorough non-advertised postings. According to the most recent data available, only 74% of people hired to positions in the federal public service are hired through advertised processes.

Information provided to the committee also revealed other challenges the government must grapple with in order to achieve full and equitable representation for the four designated groups across the public service. Some of the issues brought to the committee's attention included:

• the fact that there is a drop-off⁴ rate for visible minority applicants, but no appreciable drop-off rate for Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities, a phenomenon which requires further investigation to ensure that selection biases are not informing the appointment process;
• women are still lagging behind men in terms of being appointed to executive positions, are still largely clustered in certain occupations and departments;
• women still generally hold lower paying jobs than men, are over-represented in term appointments;
• Aboriginal peoples, while represented in the public service at levels above their workforce availability numbers, are predominantly working for three government departments (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Correctional Service of Canada, and Human Resources and Social Development Canada), and thus are not equitably represented throughout the federal public service; and
• persons with disabilities are not being recruited at their workforce availability level, which suggests the federal departments and agencies may be reaching its employment equity targets for persons with disabilities through reliance on the demographics of aging, rather than seeking to actively recruit persons from this designated group, rather than being actively recruited.

The committee noted that the core agencies, as well as the federal public service generally, are all taking steps to address some of the challenges noted above. The Public Service Commission is, for example, working with agencies like the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer to develop a common methodology for calculating representation and recruitment rates; deliberate efforts have been made to create visible minority hiring pools at the executive level; and a new program led by Citizenship and Immigration Canada has been instituted to attempt to reduce biases in hiring by facilitating diversity on selection boards. However, the committee is of the view that more needs to be done.

To complicate matters, there has recently been a shift towards giving deputy ministers and deputy heads of federal departments and agencies more control over hiring and staffing in the human resources arena. This change was signaled first by the enactment of the Public Service Modernization Act in 2005, and was re-emphasized with the creation of the new Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat in March 2009. When the former Chief Human Resources Officer appeared before the committee in April 2009, she stated that "the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer should only undertake those roles that must be carried out on a corporate- or government-wide basis — for example, define the broad framework for people management. ..." This presumably gives deputy ministers or deputy heads of federal government departments and agencies wider discretion over how they choose to handle human resources matters within their departments. However, despite the fact that deputy ministers and deputy heads have been given more control over hiring and staffing than ever before, the committee was advised that meeting employment equity objectives is only one part of their performance evaluation, and that their performance pay is not contingent on meeting those objectives. This may prove problematic, particularly if the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer will play less of a role in monitoring human resources managers that the Canada Public Service Agency (CPSA) or the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada (PSHRMAC) did.

_____________________

¹ Treasury Board Secretariat, Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada: 2008 - 2009, 31 March 2010, Chapter 3, available on-line at: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/reports-rapports/ee/2008-2009/eepr-eng.asp?format=print.

² There were also small discrepancies between recruitment and representation rates for Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities, when recruitment rates were calculated using the Public Service Commission's new methodology for calculating such rates. See Public Service Commission of Canada, 2008 – 2009 Annual Report, 2009, available at http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/arp-rpa/2009/rpt-eng.pdf, para. 3.76.

³ The Public Service Commission's new methodology for calculating recruitment rates is not used to calculate recruitment rates for women. The Public Service Commission continues to gather data on recruitment rates for women using pay data. Ibid. at para. 3.73.

⁴ The "drop-off" rate reflects the rate at which applicants for positions in the federal public service are eliminated from the competitive process, between the time they apply for an externally advertised job and the time that someone is hired to fill the job.