CALGARY — The feds, which employ more than 350,000 Canadians, are explicitly telling applicants if they do not meet the feds' "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies," they might not be considered for federal jobs.This is based on a report done by the Aristotle Foundation, which found that, certain federal departments 100% of the job applications "prioritiz[e] or potentially prioritiz[e] applicants based on race ethnicity, or other inherent or group identities."These departments include Fisheries and Oceans Canada and National Research Council Canada, with 100% of their job postings explicitly stating candidates would be prioritized based on race, gender, or ability.Others which have a high percentage of screening based on DEI policies are Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at 93%, and Department of National Defence at 92%. .As reported by the National Post, many of these departments contain critical jobs, including safety inspectors and intelligence agents."These postings go beyond signalling an inclusive workplace culture or encouraging applications from particular communities," stated the report."They explicitly disclose that certain groups may or will receive priority consideration in the selection process."They add that applicants who do not fit into the "specified group[s]" created by the DEI policies are already entering at a competitive disadvantage "for reasons entirely outside their control.".Of all the federal job postings, regardless of the department, 42% "explicitly prioritize[d] or signal[ed]" that they may screen and "prioritize applicants based on race, ethnicity, or other group-identity characteristics."An example of the explicit declaration of prioritizing DEI policies comes in one job posting for the Department of National Defence, for a Defence Intelligence Officer."To achieve a representative workforce, selection may be based on qualified candidates self-declaring as belonging to one or more of the designated groups: indigenous peoples, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and women," the job posting states to potential candidates.Another, a Civil Aviation Safety Inspector role posting with Transport Canada advises applicants that they must "self-declare if you belong to one of the designated employment equity groups when you apply."."The expansion of identity-based selection practices risks undermining both the integrity and perceived legitimacy of the federal staffing system," claimed the report.These DEI policies being used are expressly against what the majority of Canadians prefer when it comes to hiring practices."This opposition likely reflects an intuition about fairness, as most people, regardless of background, prefer to be evaluated on their own merits."Based on a 2024 Leger survey, 57% of Canadians disagree "that employers should consider cultural background or racial identity in hiring decisions.".Only 28% say they support it.Women and men oppose it at the same rates and, "among non-white Canadians, 49 percent oppose it, demonstrating that even within the communities that DEI policies are intended to support, it is unpopular."The feds have been attempting to encourage hiring women and minority candidates since the 1980s, though it wasn't until the past 10 years this has embodied mandatory policies such as hiring quotas based on race, gender and other "identity" characteristics.For instance, the Department of National Defence's internal "equity targets" set in 2018 reveal that 25% of the uniformed personnel should be women, 3.5% Indigenous and 11.8% "visible minorities." .Also starting in 2022, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada began publishing "hiring goals" that specified the precise number of minority candidates that each branch of the department was expected to recruit. That same year, the department's engineering and scientific support division, was given a hiring goal of 28 Indigenous people and 27 "persons with disabilities."Prior research in 2023 by the Aristotle Foundation found that white Canadians lagged behind non-white Canadians in everything from income, to education attainment, to representation within professions such as engineering or medicine.
