Department of Justice
Letter on Implementation of the Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion

Summer 2021 update

Dear Ms. Charette:

I am writing in response to correspondence of January 22, 2021, sent by Mr. Ian Shugart, Clerk of the Privy Council, concerning the Call to Action on Anti-racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service.

We are pleased to share our progress on the Call to Action. As you know, on January 22, 2021, the Clerk of the Privy Council released the Call to Action, challenging senior leaders and employees to take swift action to remedy anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, as well as racism and discrimination against other racialized groups.

The historic moment

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the emergence of the historic Black Lives Matter movement, the Calls to Action established through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and the adoption of the Accessible Canada Act, the Department of Justice Canada was seized by an urgent need to accelerate action and address systemic racism and discrimination.

We must collectively have the courage, intention, and skill to identify, address and eradicate all forms of racism and continually strive, through our policies, processes, and practices, to provide equitable outcomes for all. We must embody the kind of leadership that ushers us into a future public service where the aspirations of diversity and inclusion can be measured and realized. We must do this through concrete commitments that are grounded in the principles of anti-oppression, equity, and justice.

This sense of urgency is also driven by past and present Indigenous, Black, and racialized employees who have brought issues of racial discrimination to the attention of our senior management through various fora. For example, on September 17, 2020, a “Let’s Talk Racism” session was held where our senior leadership heard first hand from equity seeking groups (ESG) who spoke honestly and boldly about the racism and discrimination they face within the Department. Our most recent Public Service Employee Survey results also demonstrated that the impacts of racism and discrimination continue to be felt by members of ESGs. The impetus to act has never before been so clear. 

Departmental response

To respond to the need for change, our senior leadership established an Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Secretariat (the Secretariat) in November 2020. Its vision is to compel the Department of Justice Canada to be a representative, diverse, and inclusive organization that enables access to justice for all Canadians. The Secretariat is responsible for providing strategic advice on anti-racism, equity, diversity and inclusion approaches, employee well being, staffing, career progression, training, and leadership accountability. It is also responsible for delivering the Department’s Employment Equity Plan, coordinating the efforts of the Department’s equity-seeking advisory committees, and educating employees on issues related to racism, equity, diversity, inclusion, and other interrelated issues.

In under six months (November 2020 to April 2021), the Secretariat collaborated with stakeholders across the Department to develop an Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Results Framework (Results Framework) for Justice Canada. The Results Framework was approved for implementation by our Executive Committee, the Department’s senior governance and decision-making body, on April 15, 2021. This framework is a comprehensive multi-year action plan developed specifically to enable fundamental changes to the behaviours, processes, policies, and culture that perpetuate systemic racism and inhibit the full participation of Indigenous Peoples, Black Canadians, and other racialized groups. The Framework also addresses systemic discrimination against persons with disabilities and the sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) community within the Department.

At its foundation are four pillars: representation, career development, anti-racism training and culture change, and measurement and leadership accountability. Each pillar is linked to specific results-driven initiatives.

Stakeholders include our equity-seeking group advisory committees, Human Resources, Internal Audit and Evaluation, Corporate Planning, Reporting and Risk, Policy, the Reconciliation Secretariat, the Ombud’s Office, and Change Management, as well as departmental diversity champions, unions, and similar secretariats across the federal public service.

Results and achievements to date

In our first year of implementing the Results Framework, we have focused on five key initiatives that will result in greater representation and inclusion of Canada’s diverse populations at all levels of the Department. They are:

1. Implementation of a Disaggregated Data Initiative to ensure the Department has the demographic data required to make informed decisions for representation and set targets based on demographic workforce projections.
2. Initiate targeted staffing processes to fill key gaps (e.g., Black Canadians, Indigenous people and persons with disabilities) at EX/LC and feeder group levels.
3. Support for a mentorship and sponsorship program focused on Indigenous people, Black Canadians, other racialized groups, and persons with disabilities.
4. Training: 1) Advocate for the establishment of a centralized Official Languages Training Program to support Black Canadians and other racialized groups, Indigenous communities, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ2+ persons, and other equity-seeking groups. 2) Require all departmental employees to take unconscious bias training, departmental anti-racism/anti-oppression training and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) Indigenous learning series. Facilitate a centralized official languages training program.
5. All Department EX/LC PMAs (2021-2022 and beyond) include specific targeted actions.

More details on the initiatives being undertaken by the Department to support the Call to Action can be found in Annex A.

Interdepartmental engagement

The Secretariat has also driven and co-led interdepartmental efforts to support results on the Call to Action. The Department of Justice Canada collaborates closely with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces (DND), and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) to develop joint initiatives and approaches that are similar in intent and impact within our respective departments. The Deputy Heads of these four departments met on June 21, 2021, for the first of a series of quarterly Deputy Minister Huddles to seek out common approaches, discuss challenges, and rally each other to continue to drive results-based approaches within our organizations.

Although we have a responsibility to realize equity, diversity, and inclusion within our respective departments, we recognize this historic moment requires that progress be shared and promoted across the federal enterprise. Our secretariats have also convened, participated in, and supported engagements of communities of practice and other federal departments and agencies that are building their anti-racism secretariat capacity. The Secretariat has also been part of consultative meetings with the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer and Privy Council Office to share best practices and inform the development of government-wide efforts to achieve results on the Call to Action.

Data, measurement, and results

At the Department of Justice Canada, we believe the achievement of results is predicated on the development, tracking, and review of performance metrics for each of the initiatives found in the Results Framework. In partnership with the Department’s Corporate Planning, Reporting and Risk team within the Management Sector and the Internal Audit and Evaluation Sector, the Secretariat has developed a results map and indicator list consisting of 26 result statements that will support the monitoring and evaluation of initiatives. Each result is tied to an initiative and work is now underway to define measures, at least 2 per result that will assist in assessing and communicating progress.

The measures being developed are clear and can be easily reported on. The intent is to ensure that they are enduring and can be tracked over the long term. Examples of metrics include:

• Result: Justice employee demographic is representative of the Labour Market Availability (LMA) at all levels
  Indicator: % of Justice employees that are visible minorities (by subcategories) / total # of Justice employees; by group and level
• Result: Targeted recruitment fills key gaps at EX/LC and feeder groups
  Indicators: % of staffing actions that have used EE targeted recruitment to close key gaps over total number of staffing actions (EX/LC and feeder groups)

We are also aiming to ensure that the data used to underpin all of the initiatives in our Results Framework is accurate and current. Based on Canadian census data, Workforce Availability (WFA) numbers traditionally used by the federal public service to measure gaps in equity group representation are over five years out of date. For this reason, we have established a data initiative that uses LMA to project the demographic workforce representation numbers to the current year levels and beyond. The Department has been working with Statistics Canada to benefit from the Demosim predictive modelling tool to identify current LMA and determine what our staffing needs will be over the next few decades. Demosim is a population projection tool capable of capturing Canada’s diversity by visible minority status and Indigenous identity in terms of projected labour force participation in 2021 and 2036. Using both WFA and LMA data allows us to better anticipate gaps, as well as to establish more realistic baselines and future-oriented targets for initiatives within the Results Framework.

Developed in consultation with colleagues from central agencies as well as our privacy and legal experts, we have also started a self-declaration initiative for employees within the Department. We will use this data to supplement existing demographic information that informs our measurement, reporting, representation, and career development strategies.

Once collected, we will use the data and analysis to develop progress reports that will be tabled at various executive level committees within the Department, including the Performance Measurement and Evaluation Committee, Executive Committee, and National Labour Management Consultation Committee.

To continue to assist hiring managers in obtaining up-to-date employee data, the HR Analytics and Reporting unit, in collaboration with the Business Analytics Centre, have made employment equity (EE) data accessible through Explore, which is a departmental integrated platform bringing together various data sources to support business and people analytics. Through self-service dashboards in Explore, managers and planners will soon have access to annual EE data updated daily, rather than through semi-annual reports (see Annex A). In the context of the Call to Action, Explore can be used to provide disaggregated data on the number of hires, terminations, and appointments, including executive cadre (see Annex B).

We are also working with the Internal Audit and Evaluation Sector to conduct mini reviews of our human resources processes and practices to determine whether barriers exist to equity-seeking group participation, representation, and career advancement. This is in advance of a larger employment systems review that will be undertaken in years two and three of our Results Framework.

Key challenges and barriers

Although a lot of work has been done and some progress made towards increasing representativeness in the Department, challenges and barriers to change have been identified and will be proactively addressed to ensure that they do not limit advancements in this and other areas. We face six main challenges:

• Fear: Some colleagues fear that the current focus on promoting equity groups will result in reduced opportunities for them. Similarly, some non-Black racialized employees fear being left behind because of the focus on Black representation. Rather than play “Oppression Olympics,” which pits groups against each other, we use an anti-oppression lens to determine who is facing the most historical disadvantage as well as universal design principles to develop actions and strategies that benefit all. The Department is working to alleviate the fear that some employees may have regarding the current focus on promoting certain equity groups. This is most effective when the Department’s leadership actively demonstrates its commitment to actions and results related to equity and inclusion.
• Resistance to innovation: There is resistance to the use of new and innovative strategies to respond to the Call to Action due to concerns of compliance with public service regulations. For this reason, we have been working with Human Resources communities within the Department and across government to address these concerns and demonstrate the adherence of these strategies to the principles of the Public Service Employment Act, and that current legislation, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), has provisions that support the principles of the Call to Action.
• Resistance to targeted recruitment: There has been some resistance towards targeted actions to recruit, sponsor, and appoint employees at the EE sub-group level as required by the Call to Action. This is based on the mistaken belief that the Employment Equity Act only allows positive measures to be directed to the four designated EE groups (women, Indigenous people, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities). However, there is legislative authority, jurisprudence, and policy directives for using targeted initiatives to address CHRA prohibited grounds, which includes racial discrimination. In addition, the recent amendments to the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) and the definition of ESGs expressly provide for targeted actions for Black employees and other ESGs. Furthermore, we believe that the Call to Action serves as a directive from the Clerk, and in itself should provide a sufficient rationale for departments to undertake actions related to equity which complies with EE Act principles.
• Lack of Trust: There has been a history of unequal outcomes for ESGs in the Department, which has resulted in the lack of representation of, lack of career opportunities for, and the feeling disenfranchisement among equity groups. It will take sustained and intentional action, over time, for equity group employees to have confidence in the efforts being made to resolve these longstanding issues. We must ensure that those who are the most impacted by systemic racism are part of the design and implementation of our efforts to correct it. It is important for employees to see the results of those efforts in their day-to-day work, which could reassure them that they can trust the process, systems, and institution.
• Legal advice to departments within the public service: The legal advice provided by the Department informs the laws, policies, directives, and processes that impact the work of departments and agencies. There have been discussions across departments around the legal advice being provided in support of targeted processes to support the Call to Action. It is of the utmost importance that this advice be informed by an anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion lens to address issues being raised by employees and communities by seeking out the legal grounds to support them, and support the principle of equity through universal design. We need advice that balances the risks of “doing” and “not doing.”
• Slow pace of cultural change: It is challenging to move organizations from a state of awareness (that systemic racism is inherent in all institutions in society) to action (that sustained efforts are required to dismantle it). This is why collaboration is critical. Collaboration with other anti-racism secretariats and taskforces within the federal public service to share tools, resources, and strategies to drive change is essential to creating the conditions necessary for cultural transformation.

Senior management commitment and engagement to achieve results

Our management has demonstrated a high level of leadership in this area. Our Human Resources professionals have made adjustments to better address barriers to ESGs within staffing, career progression, and development processes. Assistant Deputy Ministers have issued directives to delegated managers to justify decisions where EE candidates are not selected for positions at the EX minus two and higher levels. Our senior management team have participated in a process to identify and select ESG leaders for sponsorship within the organization. We are bringing in third-party service providers to offer training to our leaders to create the conditions for success in our sponsorship initiative. Along with Indigenous awareness and unconscious bias training being offered by the CSPS, we are also expanding leadership sessions to encompass anti-racism and anti-oppression training to provide a more transformative experience that leads to action. As well, we are exploring a partnership with Ryerson University’s Critical Race Theory Centre in order to expand training and research capacity for our legal professionals. To address systemic racism within the organization, our Policy unit is in the process of developing guidance in applying an anti-racist lens and is conducting an anti-racist review of the Department’s policy and program cycles. All of this leads to creating a strong knowledge base from which informed decisions and actions can be made. 

Sonia Kang, the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the University of Toronto, states that equity occurs when we are intentional about creating custom tools that address inequality. By using universal design and anti-oppression principles to address the systemic inequalities, we can enable equitable access to resources and opportunities within the Department of Justice.

We embed a culture of inclusion by default throughout the organization, whereby the needs and identities of all people are considered in the development of resources, programs, and policies and in the decision-making processes that result in recruitment, promotion, sponsorship, training, and leadership accountability. We fulfil our raison d’être to ensure an accessible, efficient, and fair system of justice and promote respect for rights and freedoms, the law, and the Constitution of Canada.

The Call to Action compels us to do the work we should have been doing all along. We are committed to realizing the necessary changes that will make diversity and inclusion a reality for all groups within the Department of Justice Canada.

Sincerely,

A. François Daigle (he/him)
Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General of Canada

Annex A - Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Results Framework

Our Results Framework touches on each of the nine actions highlighted in the Clerk’s Call to Action, and focuses on five priority initiatives. With the assistance of stakeholders, progress has already been made.

1. Implement a Disaggregated Data Initiative to ensure Justice Canada has the demographic data required to make informed decisions for representation and set future oriented targets

The Workforce Availability (WFA) numbers used to measure gaps in the representation of ESGs, based on Census data, are at least five years out of date. For this reason, we are investigating methods to project the demographic workforce representation numbers to the current year levels and beyond. Justice has been working with Statistics Canada to benefit from the Demosim predictive modelling tool to identify current labour market availability and determine what our staffing needs will be over the next few decades into the future. Demosim is a population projection tool capable of capturing Canada’s diversity by visible minority status and Indigenous identity in terms of projected labour force participation in 2021 and 2036. This data will allow us to better anticipate gaps, as well as establish more realistic baselines, and future-oriented targets for initiatives within the Results Framework. This approach will also be referenced in the Departmental EE Plan.

To continue to assist hiring managers in obtaining up-to-date employee data, the HR Analytics and Reporting unit in collaboration with the Business Analytics Centre have made EE data accessible through Explore, an integrated departmental platform that bringing together various data sources to support business and people analytics. Through self-service dashboards, managers and planners will soon have access to annual EE data updated daily, rather than through semi-annual reports. The data can be broken-down to provide a clear picture of EE representation within the department and where gaps might exist. We are investigating how best to present the disaggregated sub EE group information, some of which will be available in the initial launch of the dashboard. This tool aims to provide the data needed to inform staffing decisions and support staffing choices aimed at addressing gaps in representation. In addition, in the context of the Call to Action, Explore can be used to provide disaggregated data on the number of hires, terminations and appointments, including appointments to the executive cadre.

Bridging the data from Explore with the future-oriented data provided by Statistics Canada, Justice Canada will be positioned to analyze where Indigenous Peoples, Black and other racialized groups and persons with disabilities are situated within the Department and establish targets to address gaps where they exist now and into the future. Furthermore, the Department is also implementing a self declaration process that will enable the collection of this kind of data for the sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) communities at Justice.

2. Support Targeted recruitment processes to fill key gaps

To support Targeted recruitment, the EX/LC Centre of Expertise (COE) ran a national collective LC 02 Director process with an expanded area of selection for members of targeted EE groups (Racialized Group Members, Indigenous Peoples and Persons with a disability). There are also several targeted recruitment processes underway for the LC feeder group levels (LP 2 and LP 3) across several sectors. The Tax Law Services Portfolio in partnership with the National Litigation Sector (NLS) will be launching several targeted external processes as part of the Tax Law Strategy to hire approximately 200 employees at various levels over a three-year period. The NLS is also conducting several separate targeted recruitment processes for litigators across all areas of law. The Business and Regulatory Portfolio (BRLP) and the Public Safety, Defence and Immigration (PSDI) Portfolio will be launching a targeted continuous intake inventory for LP 1 and LP 2 advisory lawyers in the Fall.

In addition, Human Resources, in consultation with the Secretariat, have implemented, in some instances, several notable practices to identify and remove barriers in staffing processes, such as: monitoring drop off rates of candidates who self-declared as a member of an EE group to assess areas for improvement; using new promotional messages in advertisements targeting EE groups; updating options for the EE organizational needs statement to justify selection decisions; promoting the importance of candidate self-declaration during the application process; increasing the review of assessment tools and eliminating content that could pose barriers to test-takers by conducting a fairness review (using the Public Service Commission (PSC) Fairness Checklist); engaging the Secretariat for review with an EDI lens and testing assessment questions via a representative collective focus group. For EX/LC processes, we have also introduced a self-declaration process for interview board members to support the establishment of representative selection boards, requiring board members to complete bias –free training prior to participating as a board member, used an interview scheduling application, leveraged the self-declaration process to identify those interview boards that are representative and enabled candidates to select their preferred board based on representativeness; and, promoted EE considerations to hiring managers through both staffing and talent management processes. Though these efforts have shown successes in bridging some gaps for members of racialized groups, challenges remain, most notably in the representation of Indigenous Peoples in the LC group. To increase representativeness in this area, a targeted collective LC 01 Manager process is being planned for fall/winter 2021.

With the commitment to achieve a representative workforce, an administrative process has been established whereby sub-delegated managers in Management Sector must have their Director General’s (DG) approval to proceed with the staffing at the EX minus 1 and 2 groups and levels in circumstances where the proposed appointee/individual has not self-declared as being part of a designated employment equity (EE) group, for selection purposes. To facilitate the tracking and approval of staffing actions of persons who did not identify as a designated EE group member, a reporting tool for each Branch has been put in place for sub-delegated managers and their respective DGs to capture the necessary information prior to finalizing the HR request.

The Department is also looking at the legal and regulatory foundations that support targeted processes for EE sub-groups. The Department believes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act support the use of targeted processes to address unequal access to opportunities experienced by any ESG within the federal public service.

3. Support a mentorship and sponsorship program for Indigenous Peoples, Black and other racialized groups and persons with disabilities

With regard to sponsorship, there is already a process underway for the sponsorship of executives at the EX 1 to EX 3 and LC 1 to LC 3 levels with sponsors holding EX 4 level and equivalent positions.  Consideration on expanding sponsorship to senior cadre feeder groups will be done in a phased approach as other initiatives unfold, such as the self-declaration process, talent management process for employees, and once the senior cadre initiative is further advanced.  To support the sponsorship program, and an array of other HR programs, the Employment Equity (EE) Team within the Secretariat has developed a self-declaration process that will afford employees the opportunity to declare whether or not they belong to an equity seeking group, provide additional data on the sub-group they fall within and opt-in to targeted programs and processes. This data, which will be captured in PeopleSoft, will not only make it easier for managers to identify potential candidates for career development opportunities, but also allow the Department to capture data on those equity-seeking groups that are not currently part of the employment equity categories (i.e. EE Sub-groups and SOGIE) as well as enable reporting on intersectionality.

4. Training: 1 - Establish a centralized Official Languages Training Program to support Black and other racialized groups, Indigenous communities, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ2+ and other equity-seeking groups. 2 - Require all Justice Canada employees to take unconscious bias training, departmental anti-racism/anti-oppression training and Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) Indigenous learning series and facilitate a centralized official languages training program

In line with the call to action to support the participation of Indigenous employees and Black and other racialized employees in career development services, the Department is committed to enhancing access to official languages training for all employees, and specifically Indigenous Peoples, Black and other racialized groups and persons with disabilities. The Centre of Expertise for Learning and Professional Development (LPD) in the Human Resources Branch is working on options to identify the best approach for the delivery of centralized language training, for example scholarships, targeted training, assessment grids or the current training offers with more teachers to accommodate an increased number of learners.

When it comes to training, a generally high percentage of the executive and employee population at Justice Canada have taken the mandatory CSPS unconscious bias training (W005 Understand Unconscious Bias W006 Overcoming Your Own Unconscious Bias, and W007 Overcoming Unconscious Bias in the Workplace) with completion rates for Managers and Supervisors at Justice averaging at 82%, and for all other Justice employees the completion rates are roughly 43%. Executives were to complete this training by March 31, 2021, while all other employees have until December 31, 2021.

Training, over and above unconscious bias, has also been offered to employees, with great success throughout the first half of 2021 with topics such as: conversations on racism, Critical Legal Race theory and neurodiversity. In the fall 2021, additional sessions on anti-oppression will be provided. The additional training goes beyond promoting awareness to give participants a more transformative learning experience with tools that will enable concrete actions to support equity and inclusion initiatives in the Department.

5. All Justice Canada EX/LC PMAs (2021-2022 and beyond) include specific targeted actions

The inclusion of specific targeted actions within executive performance management agreements is an important piece to promoting results and elevating accountability in the area of equity, diversity and inclusion. The process of defining commitments for the current year will begin once the 2021-22 Deputy Minister Commitments on Diversity and Inclusion are released.

Each of the abovementioned initiatives are intended to result in greater recruitment, appointment and career development opportunities for Indigenous, Black and other racialized employees by influencing managers in seats of decision-making power and empowering employees with access to opportunities. Equipping managers with the training, resources and data required to make decisions using an EDI lens will lead to greater equity. Understanding that alleviating these barriers and challenges may reveal new challenges and barriers, we believe that taking risks and leaving room for failure, while informing our processes with comprehensive metrics and transparent communication, are the keys to creating lasting and sustainable change.

Other Departmental Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

Beyond the five priority initiatives within the Results Framework, sectors and portfolios across the Department are contributing to building a better Justice Canada for employees and, consequently, for those who access the services provided by the Department.

The Corporate Staffing Unit within Human Resources Branch is developing a Guidance Series on Employment Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Staffing Process. This technical guidance document is an eight part series to support HR Advisors in the application of their client’s chosen employment equity and diversity and inclusion staffing strategies. It provides an overview of the legislative foundations, as well as the staffing options, discusses how HR Advisors can guide their managers to support their staffing decisions with departmental objectives and empirical data and outlines each step in the staffing process. The final document will be made available in the fall.

Justice Canada’s Policy Sector is working on developing a document that provides guidance on applying an anti-racism framework to policy and program work for Justice employees. The guidance will focus on key questions and actions required from employees to take an anti-racism approach to their work and it is aligned with the Results Framework and the GBA+ approach.  In addition, the Policy Sector has engaged its policy and program practitioners in an anti-racist exercise aimed at reflecting on the way in which policy and program work is undertaken and at developing actionable, sustainable solutions where challenges are or have the potential to arise. This exercise aims to ensure that practitioners across the Department have a good understanding of what systemic racism is, what tools exist to support them in ensuring that their own work contributes to anti-racist practices, and how they can use them.

In March of 2021, the National Accommodations Division completed the construction of a safe, welcoming enclosed room for employees to perform a traditional sacred Smudge ceremony, either individually or with other employees. Following extensive consultations, the room was designed to be accessible and inclusive, while ensuring Indigenous cultures/traditions were respected.

The Safety, Security and Emergency Management Division is amending the Department’s Threat and Risk Assessment (TRA) Standard so that application of the Framework set out in the Standard (ask, gather, analyze, document) includes seeking feedback from stakeholders to ensure that physical security recommendations take anti-racism, equity and inclusion into consideration.

In May 2020, recognizing the current and future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees, the Department established the Departmental Recovery Committee (DRC) with the explicit objective of “ensuring that Justice Canada’s employees, individually and collectively, have the support, information and tools they need to successfully adjust to the phased resumption of normal operations in the Department as the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control.” ESG Champions comprise a significant part of the DRC membership, which is determined by role not sector affiliation. By ensuring employees, particularly those who may be members of ESGs, are centered in Justice Canada’s discussions about its pandemic response, DRC has served as a unique and valuable consultation body that has helped to shape Justice Canada’s responses to the pandemic, from how it approaches COVID-19 measures to how messages are conveyed.

In an effort to enable a strong cultural shift on gender inclusivity, the EE team and SOGIE, with the help of the Legal Practices Branch, have embarked on an exercise to amend the 1000+ templates in LEX to review pronouns and genders to ensure that documents received by Canadians from Justice Canada, is gender inclusive.  

Annex B - Representation of Indigenous Employees and Black and Other Racialized Employees

The number of appointments to the Executive cadre (EX or LC) is very poor for Indigenous employees (i.e., zero for 2020-21). The numbers for Black and other racialized employees is low with no improvement in 2020-21 compared to the previous year (see Table 1). In accordance with the direction provided in the Call to Action, the appointments to the EX Cadre could be facilitated through targeted career development, talent management, sponsorship and leadership development programs for the Indigenous, Black and other racialized employees in 2021-22 and beyond.  

Table 1 –Appointments to the Executive Cadre

	2020-2021		2019-2020
	Appointed EX/LC	%	Appointed EX/LC	%
Departmental Total	24	100%	36	100%
Indigenous Peoples	0	0%	1	2.7%
Black People	1	4.2%	1	2.7%
Racialized Groups other than Black	3	13%	3	8.3%

Notes

• Appointed EX/LC refers to staffing actions that changed the employee’s prior substantive position from a non-executive group to an executive group.
• Percentages are based on the departmental total of the respective fiscal year.

The table below provides data on the number of Indigenous employees and Black and other racialized employees who joined or left the Department in 2020-21 in comparison to 2019-20.

Table 2 – Recruitment and Departures

	2020-2021				2019-2020
	Joined	%	Left	%	Joined	%	Left	%
Departmental Total	368	100%	321	100%	532	100%	469	100%
Indigenous Peoples	18	4.9%	15	4.7%	24	4.5%	20	4.3%
Black People	9	2.4%	13	4.0%	24	4.5%	20	4.3%
Racialized Groups other than Black	76	21 %	52	16%	98	18%	70	15%

Notes

• Joined refers to those hired or rehired into the Department of Justice as indeterminate or term for more than three months.
• Left refers to retirements, departures, and various other termination types of indeterminate or term for more than three month employees.
• Percentages are based on the departmental total of the respective fiscal year.

For Indigenous employees, the number recruited was only marginally higher than the departures in both 2020-21 and the previous fiscal year. The number of Black employees recruited in 2020-21 was low and significantly less than 2019-20. The departures for Black employees was around 4% for both years. Racialized group employees other than Blacks fared better with an increase in the percentage hired in 2020-21.  Still, we would need to determine whether the majority of these hires of racialized employees were at the entry or junior levels.

Annex C - Employee Involvement

There are several employee communities and networks at Justice Canada:

• Advisory Committee for Indigenous Peoples (ACIP)
• Advisory Committee for Visible Minorities (ACVM)
• Advisory Committee for Persons with Disabilities (ACPD)
• Advisory Committee for Women at Justice (ACWJ )
• Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE)
• Black Employee Network (BEN)

We also have one overarching Employment Equity Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee (EEDISC) that guides the work of the committees which is led by the EE team and is comprised of the five advisory committee champions and co-chairs. While each of the advisory committees have their own terms of reference, mandates and policy advising capacity, the committees play a significant role in providing strategic advice on issues, such as the return to work policy, future of the workplace, development programs, and departmental communications approaches, that directly impact the employees they represent.

During the development of the Results Framework, committees were given the opportunity to review the draft document and provide their input which informed the final version of the document. The Secretariat will work with employee groups to assess progress made against the initiatives in the Results Framework, through a variety of methods such as focus groups, and collaborations to devise appropriate course correction where needed. Advisory committees are also consulted on the Department’s Employment Equity Plan to provide recommendations for consideration.

The advisory committees are also supported to engage senior managers on matters of particular importance to their members. For example, the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Peoples presented recommendations to the Deputy Minister to address long-standing issues faced by Indigenous peoples at Justice, including employment and recruitment opportunities, cultural needs for Elder guidance and advice, and mandatory training on the impacts of colonialism for all employees. Some of the recommendations were incorporated into the Results Framework as initiatives with timelines and expected results. Employee communities and networks are also consulted in the development of external facing consultations, programs and initiatives, which impact large employee groups such as counsel, on topics such as law society practices and articling student requirements and participation.