Canada Articles
Shawn Atleo appreciates the leg up he received through the federal Employment Equity Act. In the late 1980s, as a young father, he obtained a job with the federal government as an employment counsellor’s assistant.
"It really was my first substantial job," Atleo told the Georgia Straight. "I’m not sure where I would be if that didn’t exist."
Under the Employment Equity Act, the federal government, federal Crown corporations, and federally regulated companies with 100 or more employees must try to accommodate four designated groups—women, aboriginal people, visible minorities, and people with disabilities — through positive measures. Under the act, these employers must also conduct a workforce survey, prepare short-term and long-term goals for achieving equity, and file annual reports to the federal labour minister.
Atleo, now B.C. regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said that when he was hired, there was a “stigma” attached to the act. Since then, he has obtained his master’s degree, raised two children, and become one of the country’s most influential aboriginal leaders.
“Special measures, I believe strongly, are still required and need to be maintained,” he said.
This fall, the Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, and the Status of Persons With Disabilities is conducting a review of the Employment Equity Act. Federal Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn is responsible for the legislation as well as for the Federal Contractors Program. Under the FCP, companies with more than 100 workers must agree to implement employment equity if they win contracts worth more than $200,000 from the federal government. Law firms and construction companies are exempt.
In a speech to Parliament last June, Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies discussed her experiences on the parliamentary committee that conducted the last five-year review. “One thing I learned is that, in actual fact, some of the private-sector employers have done very well, like banks and airlines, because they have actually recognized from a business point of view the importance of having diversity in the workplace,” Davies said. “Having women, visible minorities, aboriginal people, and persons with disabilities in the workplace actually provides them with a better capacity to serve a diverse population, their own clientele.”
Davies added that she also learned that approximately 25 percent of applications to the federal government come from visible minorities, but the appointment rate is only about 10 percent. “We also know that the number of minorities who leave is much higher,” she said.
Jock Finlayson, executive vice president, policy, at the Business Council of British Columbia, told the Straight that there was initially some resistance from large corporations when employment equity was first introduced. However, he said that large companies are now quite accustomed to dealing with the law.
Vancouver lawyer Zool Suleman, cochair of the mayor’s working group on immigration, told the Straight that he hopes that employment- equity legislation can be extended to apply to smaller businesses, perhaps those with 50 employees.
On October 5, the president and CEO of RBC Financial Group, Gordon Nixon, urged his fellow CEOs in a news release to participate in a national survey on the career advancement of visible minorities conducted by Catalyst Canada and the Diversity Institute in Management and Technology at Ryerson University. “Businesses have been dropping the ball when it comes to tapping the potential of visible minorities in our workforce,” Nixon claimed in the release. “Diversity can be Canada’s competitive advantage.”
Atleo said that businesses also shouldn’t overlook the potential of hiring aboriginal people. “Because of the demographics of our community, we are a huge human resource,” he said.
Looking back on employment equity
> Percentage of 2004 work force that is visible minority in federally regulated banking (21.8 percent), communications (12.2 percent), and transportation (8.4 percent) companies
> Percentage of 2004 work force that is aboriginal in federally regulated banking (1.3 percent), communications (1.4 percent), and transportation (2.2 percent) companies
> Percentage of 2004 work force with disabilities working in federally regulated banking (2.8 percent), communications (2.5 percent), and transportation (2.2 percent) companies
> Percentage of 2004 work force that is female in federally regulated banking (69.6), communications (40.8), and transportation (25.3) companies
> Women composed 47.3 percent of the labour force in 2004. From 1987 to 2004, the percentage of women working for federally regulated private- sector companies increased from 40.9 percent to 43.4 percent
> Visible minorities composed 12.6 percent of the labour force in 2004
> Aboriginal people composed 2.6 percent of the labour force in 2004
Sources: Annual Report Employment Equity Act 2005, "Ten Years of Experience: A Background Issues Paper on the Employment Equity Act and Federal Contractors Program in preparation for the Parliamentary Review 2006"
