A group of 20 unions, human rights and advocacy groups and community based organizations launched the National Employment Equity Council on Monday. The council is pushing the federal government to implement the promised amendments to the Employment Equity Act which were first tabled in 2023.
The recommendations on how to modernize the Employment Equity Act date back to a report released three years ago by the Employment Equity Act Task Force. The group presented more than 180 recommendations which the government accepted. The 2024 federal budget announced the government’s commitment to propose legislative amendments to the act. Two years later, the task force recommendations have still not been implemented.
While the council is pushing for all recommendations to be implemented fully, the groups are paying particular attention to the call to add Black people and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community as two more designated groups under the act. In its current form, the Employment Equity Act requires employers to identify and eliminate inequities experienced by women, Indigenous people, people with disabilities and visible minorities. The new council says the two added equity groups are necessary to address the particular barriers Black and 2SLGBTQIA+ people face.
“I’m concerned that a promise has not quite been kept,” said Tyler Boyce, executive director of the Enchanté Network and an inaugural co-chair of the National Employment equity council.
“The Employment Equity Act applies to more than one million workers in sectors including the federal public service, banking, telecommunications and transportation,” he said. “At a time of global economic uncertainty and renewed conversations about Canada’s competitiveness, it is the wise thing to do to utilize our full workforce.”
Nicholas Marcus Thompson, the president of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said it is important that the government prioritize the modernization of the act.
“A lot of the groups that consulted on the act are not aware that it has not been implemented yet,” Thompson said in an interview with rabble.ca. “When the government announced that it was going to happen, people considered it done.”
Two years without modernizing the equity act has meant two more years where certain groups are left vulnerable.
“We continue to see and hear stories about discrimination across this country, from the Privy Council Office to the Canadian Human Rights Commission,” Thompson said. “Right across this country, deeply embedded, is systemic discrimination that causes real harm to people. Not just to them, but to their communities, also to the Canadian public that receives these services.”
While the new council has criticized the slow implementation of the plans to modernize the Employment Equity Act, group members said they have also seen some willingness from Minister of Jobs and Families, Patty Hadju, to advance this issue.
