Direction on the use of pronouns in display names

From: Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada

To: Deputy Heads and Departmental Chief Information Officers

Subject: Use of pronouns in email display properties

Message:

Colleagues,

In light of the May 4, 2022, announcement regarding amendments to various policy instruments under the Treasury Board (TB) Policy on Service and Digital suite, I am writing to you to provide further clarification regarding the use of pronouns in email display properties.

Trans, non-binary, two-spirited employees, and their allies have sought guidance from Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) on adding personal gender pronouns to the email display name.

Recognizing that treating all people with respect, dignity and fairness is a core value (as expressed in the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector), TBS supports employees wishing to add their pronouns as part of their emails to foster a more gender inclusive workplace.

Current policy requirements from the Email Management Services Configuration Requirements, under the Standard on Enterprise Information Technology Service Common Configurations, provides the flexibility for employees to add their personal gender pronouns to their email display name, if they wish to do so, where this functionality is available in their departments. These requirements provide key information to identify the sender of the email and the use of pronouns forms part of a person’s identity.

The opportunity to clarify this policy requirement evolved as part of the work from the Public Service Pride Network and Innovation Science and Economic Development’s innovative approach enabling employees to display pronouns in their email display name, a best practice which has been adopted by a number of departments.

I commend the innovation and experimentation in support of the GC Directive on Employment Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and as GC CIO, I continue to encourage innovation and experimentation in service design and delivery, information, data, IT and cyber security.

Please join us in celebrating diversity and inclusion as part of Pride Season! In addition to Pride Season events taking place across the country, the federal public service will also once again celebrate Public Service Pride Week (PSPW), which will take place from August 22 to 26, 2022. This year’s theme is Being your authentic self at work.

I encourage you to share this information with colleagues across your organization.

Should you have any questions, please send your email to: ServiceDigital-ServicesNumerique@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

Catherine Luelo (She/her/elle)
Chief Information Officer of Canada
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat / Government of Canada