The Employment Equity Act Explained

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What is the Employment Equity Act?

The Employment Equity Act (EEA) is a law in Canada that makes employment equity a legal requirement for medium and large federally regulated employers, such as the federal public service, banks, telecommunications services providers, airlines, interprovincial trucking, and federal Crown corporations.

The goal is to remove employment barriers and correct the effects of past barriers on four designated groups (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities).

By law, it is mandatory for these federally regulated employers to actively check their employment practices and proactively fix them if they are found to be discriminatory.

Meeting the requirements of the EEA is an ongoing task; employers have duties to fulfil on a regular basis. For example, they are responsible for preparing and implementing an employment equity plan that identifies corrective measures, sets goals, and ensures progress.

The EEA is not about giving people preferential treatment. It is about removing barriers to equality in the workplace that hold certain individuals back and correcting the disadvantages that past barriers may have created. For example, a research study found that job applicants with non-English-sounding names were 39% less likely to receive callbacks for interviews compared to applicants with English-sounding names, even when their education and work experience were identical.

What is employment equity?

Employment equity is about substantive equality in the workplace. It means making sure everyone has an equal chance of

• getting a job
• keeping it
• getting well paid
• getting promoted

While progress has been made, employment barriers and gaps remain, and continued efforts are needed.

Where can I check how my workplace is doing?

You can request a copy of your employer's annual employment equity report from your employer.

Anyone can see the employment equity data of any private-sector employer by accessing Equi'Vision, an easy-to-use online data tool (consult the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) document How to Use Equi'Vision for Employment Equity for additional guidance).

Copies of private-sector employment equity statistical reports are also available from the Labour Program: ee-eme@servicecanada.gc.ca.

What are employment barriers?

An employment barrier is any rule or practice at work that ends up holding back certain groups of people more than others - even if that was not the intention. It counts as a barrier if it:

• breaks the law (for example, goes against human rights laws)
• is not applied in the same way for everyone
• is not actually needed to do the job safely or well
• could be changed or adjusted to make things more equal for everyone

How is the Employment Equity Act different from other acts?

The EEA sits alongside other human rights laws, but each serves a different purpose in advancing equality:

• The Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), which protects individuals from discrimination through complaints and investigations (consult the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) website on human rights).
• The Pay Equity Act, which ensures that men and women receive equal pay for work of equal value (consult the CHRC website on pay equity).
• The Accessible Canada Act, which ensures that persons with disabilities do not face barriers in society (consult the CHRC website on accessibility).

Together, these acts advance equality from different angles, working in complementary ways. The role of the EEA, compared to these other laws, is to focus specifically on proactive actions to address system-level barriers in the workplace that affect how people are hired and paid, keep a job, and are promoted.

What are my employer's obligations?

Employers are responsible for complying with the EEA. This involves seven key steps:

1. Collecting information on their workforce, including women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities
2. Finding in which occupations the representation of these groups is smaller than in the labour market
3. Reviewing their practices to see if there are employment barriers in these areas of underrepresentation
4. Acting to remove these barriers and correct the underrepresentation
5. Informing their employees about employment equity
6. Reporting on employment equity each year
7. Monitoring the implementation of employment equity

Human resources (HR) often lead this work, but it must also involve employees' representatives, individuals designated to reflect employee perspectives in the process. The employer must engage these representatives to support transparency and collaboration (employees' representatives may consult the ESDC document A Guide for Employees' Representatives: Playing your part in employment equity for guidance). If your workplace has a union, the union must also participate in employer consultations.

How is employment equity enforced?

EDSC makes sure that private-sector employers report annually to the government (consult the ESDC website about the workplace equity program). If not, they can issue monetary penalties. The CHRC conducts audits to make sure that employers meet their non-reporting obligations under the EEA (consult the CHRC website on employment equity).

What employment equity really means

Employment equity and the EEA are sometimes misunderstood. Employment equity does not mean lowering standards or giving one group privileged treatment. It means making sure everyone has a fair chance to succeed by removing barriers that hold some people back.

Facts about Employment Equity

Employment equity is not discrimination. Employment equity does not require hiring unqualified candidates or penalizing others. It requires employers to ensure fair processes, proactively eliminate barriers, and broaden access to opportunities.

Employment equity and merit go together. Qualified candidates are still selected on merit. Employment equity removes systemic barriers so merit can actually be assessed fairly.

Employment equity is not meant to address discrimination experienced by individual employees, but to improve the workplace and its employment system. The focus is on changing practices (hiring, promotion, workplace culture) that exclude groups of people. If employees are discriminated against on an individual basis, these matters should be reported (consult the CHRC website to make a complaint).

Employment equity is ongoing, systematic work, based on evidence. Employers must analyze workforce data, review employment systems, plan measures, set time-bound goals, and report annually. Plans are monitored and revised to reflect results.

You can view your organization's employment equity data using Equi'Vision, an easy-to-use online tool.

Understanding workforce data.

The focus of the data analysis carried out by employers is barriers and underrepresentation at the occupational level (for example, all senior managers), not at the level of the workplace overall.

Underrepresentation is assessed in comparison to the pool from which the employer can reasonably be expected to draw employees, not necessarily the whole Canadian population. This matters because it helps us tell whether a gap is caused by a barrier or simply by who is actually available and qualified for the job.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives are great to foster inclusion in the workplace but having them doesn't mean an employer has met the EEA's legal requirements. Specific work is required to meet the obligations under the EEA.

For additional help, consult our Tools and Resources page or contact us by email.