Lack Of Diversity In The Canadian Public Sector

Multiculturalism, inclusivity, diversity are primary adjectives to describe the Canadian attitude, but there is a lack of diversity in Canadian public sector. The public sector does not represent many groups because governments do not see it as efficient to hire individuals due to their background over their merit. Canadian history was not very accepting to groups such as women, aboriginal and LGBTQ communities due to systemic discrimination. A job of a public servant is to deliver services ordered by their political superiors from the ruling party. This essay will argue the current standards of representativeness in the federal public service are not adequate. This claim is based on the lack of inclusiveness among the LGBTQ community the lack
Attitudes and practices seem to be at fault” (kernaghan 503). During the 1970’s there was less concern of gender equality in the workplace which was why they did not enjoy equal opportunity to enter and advance in government service. Majority of the time it was Caucasian males who are managers, supervisors, and Chief administrative officers in the public sector. This prevented women to be in a role of power for a long time. This is also further mentioned by Kernaghan as “The widespread attitude that women do not perform as well as men in managerial and supervisory positions helps to explain the under-representation of females at the senior levels of the service.” (kernaghan 504). The workplace in the public service was the views on general ideas that were floating in society during the 1970’s since “women still constitute only 2.9 per cent of the senior executive category” (Kernaghan pg 505). The lack of women in power will undermine issues of that are directly related to women such as reproductive rights, gender wage gap, maternal leave and many more. The need for diversity is
Despite the progress for women/feminist rights have made they still have a long way to go. Employment equity is a great place to start to solve gender and other issues of other social groups which is stated in article Toward Representative Bureaucracy: Predicting Public Service Attraction Among Underrepresented Groups in Canada. The authors, Eddy S. Ng and Greg J. Sears, state “the Canadian Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) mandates a PS that is representative of Canada’s diversity (Public Service Commission of Canada, 2008, 2009). Specifically, the PSEA draws on the Employment Equity Act (EEA) to address the underrepresentation of four designated groups, namely, women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities” (Ng and Sears pg 368). This really provides a firm foundation of assisting disadvantaged groups within the public sector. The purpose of Employment equity is to fill in the gaps in the public sector by employing people who would be often neglected by an employer usually by fulfilling a quota. A quota is an immediate solution at best and it does not solve the