Embed solutions within the Government

Departments and agencies in the Government of Canada are collaborating to address the priorities of the 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan. Read the progress made by the Government of Canada from August 2022 to March 2023 on the priority area of Embedding 2SLGBTQI+ issues in the work of the Government of Canada.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

• The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) remains committed to advancing 2SLGBTQI+ health and health equity through continued investments in research and knowledge mobilization.
• In December 2022, CIHR began to pilot a revised gender identity question in the federal research funding agencies’ self-identification questionnaire, which applicants for funding and peer reviewers complete on a voluntary basis. This will help CIHR understand where systemic barriers exist, and how to design equitable and inclusive programs that support the full and fair participation of all members of the research community.
• Since October 2022, CIHR, in partnership with Women and Gender Equality Canada, has launched three of four funding opportunities under the National Women’s Health Research Initiative, which will advance a coordinated research program addressing under-researched and high priority areas of women’s and gender-diverse people’s health.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

• Completed one Canada Pride Citation ceremony for Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) claimants and four ceremonies for Federal Public Service claimants under LGBT Purge Class Action Settlement Agreement.

Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces

• The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Department of National Defence (DND) (i.e. the Defence Team) have continued to take strides towards embedding 2SLGBTQI+ issues in its work.

CAF dress instructions

• The CAF dress instructions have been modernized to more accurately reflect the identities of Canadians who choose to serve. The modernized CAF dress instructions were implemented in September 2022. CAF members now have more inclusive options in their presentation while in uniform. These options include:
  • Elimination of gendered dress: Members may now order uniform articles from either existing binary catalogue and these articles may be intermixed.
  • Self Expression: Gender specific regulations have been removed and general expression restrictions amended. All members are now permitted to have longer hairstyles, wear jewellery, grow facial hair, display piercings and tattoos, and dye their hair as desired. Some limitations still exist in specific contexts when operationally required.

Positive Space program

• The Positive Space program is a Defence Team program that aims to foster a positive and safe working environment, generate awareness of 2SLGBTQI topics and communities and assist members of the Defence Team seeking information and support.
• The Program offers training sessions to help create a safe and inclusive workplace for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The Positive Space program was subject to an extensive stakeholder consultation, resulting in the development of new Qualification Standards and Plans and curriculum for Positive Space Ambassadors and Positive Space Facilitators.
• The program recognizes diverse needs and has therefore produced targeted training for Executives and Chaplains, with further training oriented towards Basic Military Qualification candidates, middle-management, and indigenous awareness currently in development. These qualifications have additionally been granted MITE codes and are formally recorded as member’s achievements.
• The Canadian Defence Academy has produced and continues to develop a micro-credential series on the Defence Learning Network. Hundreds of Defence Team members have taken advantage of these learning opportunities since their launch in 2023.

GBA Plus Enterprise Approach

• The Defence Team has developed a GBA Plus Enterprise Approach (GBA Plus EA), a strategic framework that articulates overarching standards and objectives regarding the institutionalization of GBA Plus to inform evidence-based decision making across all levels and ranks.
• The GBA Plus EA comprises five lines of effort with strategic objectives falling under each related to the institutionalization of GBA Plus:
  1. Resourcing
  2. Capacity Building
  3. Enabling Leaders
  4. Governance & Accountability
  5. Monitoring and Evaluation.
• It was co-developed alongside expert staff, signaling the shared responsibility across leaders with regards to breadth, depth, and impact of its application.

Cadets and Junior Canadian Rangers Group’s Interim Guidance on Gender Inclusion

• The Cadets and Junior Canadian Rangers Group (CJCR Gp) has released an Interim Guidance on Gender Inclusion, recognizing the specific importance of an inclusive culture for their youth. While in development of longer-term policy, they have suspended existing policies that carried the potential to be limiting. CJCR Gp O 5516-1, Transgender Cadets, and select sections of CJCR Gp O 5001-0, Supervision of Cadets are no longer in effect.

Network of Culture Evolution Coordinators

• The CAF has begun to establish a network of Culture Evolution Coordinators at various CF Bases and facilities. The allocation of positions, budgets, and training is an important step toward ensuring meaningful and lasting cultural evolution.

Restorative Services

• Restorative Services (RS) is an established program within CPCC that provides an enduring restorative capability that is available to all current serving Defence Team Members including personnel posted outside Canada and on deployed operations. Restorative Services responds to a broad range of harms experienced including sexual harm, sexual violence, discrimination and harassment, toxic workplaces, leadership action/inaction, institutional betrayal, etc. Within RS processes, Defence Team members are supported through a designed voluntary restorative approach. The approach supports the affected participant to share the impact of their experienced harm so that responsibility and accountability can be acknowledged, and capacity built in understanding the impact of behaviours, action, or inaction.
• Within the RS program, the Defence Team member who has experienced harm, has the option to engage in a supported way with the individual who caused them harm or with an institutional representative. Approaches and processes are designed using the tenets of restorative justice. Processes are facilitated by experienced, trained restorative practitioners who are experts in a wide variety of harms and supported by stakeholders and subject matter experts. The Restorative Services Program not only responds to restorative needs, but provides restorative advice on policy and programs, supports overarching restorative capacity building, and has the responsibility to raise institutional awareness of systemic issues and trends on all types of harm.

Treasury Board Secretariat

Support for equity-seeking employees through the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer

• The Centre on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) in the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (OCHRO) continued to implement initiatives to support equity-seeking employees, including from 2SLGBTQI+ groups, in their career. These initiatives were co-developed with equity-seeking groups, and they include the Mentorship Plus and the Mosaic Leadership Development Programs. The first cohort of Mosaic graduated in March 2023, and it included participants from 2SLGBTQI+ groups. The second Mosaic cohort is planned to launch in Fall 2023, and it will also include participants from 2SLGBTQI+ communities.
• OCHRO modernized the self-identification questionnaire, and it now enables public servants to voluntarily identify as 2SLGBTQIA. The centralized self-identification app is slated to launch in October 2023.
• To support measurement and track progress, CDI continues offering the Maturity Model on Diversity and Inclusion. The maturity model is a self-assessment tool that provides federal departments with a maturity rating of the diversity and inclusion in their organization, including 2SLGBTQI+ employees.

Changes to the Public Service Employee Survey

• The Public Service Employee Survey updated its questions and now allows public servants to voluntary identify as 2SLGBTQIA+, as opposed to the previous design where there were separate questions on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Designated Senior Officials on Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Community of Practice

• On May 29, 2023, CDI organized a meeting of the Designated Senior Officials on Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Community of Practice and invited Martine Roy, LGBT Purge survivor and Chair of the LGBT Purge Fund Board of Directors, to present, raise awareness, and answer questions about the LGBT Purge and the Report from the Purge Fund. The session also included opening remarks from the Public Service Pride Network, and a presentation on the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan from Marc-André Millaire, Director General of the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat, which further raised awareness on embedding 2SLGBTQI+ issues in the work of the Government of Canada.

Federal Speakers Forum on Lived Experience

• CDI continues to deliver the Federal Speakers Forum on Lived Experience to support culture change. The Forum amplifies the voices of employees with 2SLGBTQI+ lived experience and other topics related to inclusion, belonging, anti-racism, and mental health.

Inclusion Steward initiative

• As part of efforts to enable inclusive senior leadership and ensure the public service workforce is fully representative of Canada at all levels, OCHRO introduced the innovative Inclusion Steward initiative as part of the Assistant Deputy Minister talent management discussions.
• The Stewards were equipped to mitigate potential biases which may occur during talent discussions, including those involving 2SLGBTQI+ employees.
• This year, OCHRO relaunched the initiative and expanded it by providing departments with bias-mitigation guidance which could be further integrated into talent management and other human resources processes at all levels, such as performance management, staffing and leadership development.

Work to amend the Public Service Employment Act

• Further to OCHRO’s work in collaboration with the Public Service Commission (PSC) in 2021 to amend the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) to strengthen provisions to address potential bias and barriers to equity-seeking groups in staffing processes, including through the addition of a definition of equity-seeking group to mean a group of persons who are disadvantaged on the basis of one or more prohibited grounds of discrimination within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act (thereby covering 2SLGBTQI+ groups), in 2023 OCHRO continued working with the PSC to bring the remaining amendments to the PSEA into force on July 1st.
• Those amendments now provide the PSC and deputy heads with explicit authority to investigate bias and barriers for members of equity-seeking groups and require that the design and application of assessment methods include an evaluation, and mitigation of, such bias and barriers.

Collective staffing processes

• Also, within TBS, a key priority of the Acquired Services and Assets Sector (ASA) in the Office of the Comptroller General (OCG) is to undertake collective staffing processes for its four functional communities in order to positively affect capacity challenges government wide.
• During the last fiscal year, ASAS conducted a detailed GBA Plus analysis of every step of its collective staffing processes, with the goal of making the processes more inclusive, including considerations for the 2SLGBTQI+ communities.
• From this analysis, ASAS implemented important changes in its recruitment process, such as: using plain, gender-neutral language when describing the duties related to the position or communicating with candidates, adding an IDEA dimension into exam questions, and including equity considerations into every stage of the collective process.

Development of pronoun feature in My Profile Self Service and other applications

• The Human Resources Division and the Information Management Technology Directorate at TBS have also partnered to develop a pronoun feature that will give employees the option to voluntarily display their pronouns in My Profile Self Service and other linked applications (including Teams and Outlook).
• This project responds to the need identified by 2SLGBTQIA+ employees to express their pronouns as part of bringing their authentic selves to work in a hybrid environment and supports the Government of Canada’s Policy Direction to Modernize the Government of Canada’s Sex and Gender Information Practices.

Privacy Impact Assessment

• Additionally, TBS’ Privacy Impact Assessment references the 2SLGBTQIA+ Action Plan under alignment with the following priorities:
  • Engage everyone in Canada in fostering a 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusive future; and,
  • Embed 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion in federal workplaces and continue acting on the history of the LGBT Purge.

Support for employee-led Pride initiatives

• TBS supports employee-led Pride initiatives, such as the Positive Space Initiative and Public Service Pride Network, which are key to nurturing a 2SLGBTQI+ inclusive workplace through awareness-raising and learning – and providing sources of peer support and community connections for 2SLGBTQI+ federal employees.
• Finally, in fiscal year 2023-24, TBS allocated a total of $300,000 to its four employee-led equity networks—including the 2SLGBTQIA+ Network – to support programming and in recognition the role they play in achieving equity, diversity, and inclusion goals, as well as the implementation of the Clerk’s forward direction on the Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service.

Women and Gender Equality Canada

• Presentations on the Action Plan to federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, and external stakeholders.
• Held four meetings with the community representatives for new Community and Government of Canada Partnership Committee, as of August 28, 2023.