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
of social support of the indigenous community and the lack of empowerment for women to fill leadership roles.

Women in the Public sector For most of history, Canada has been a patriarchal society, this leaves women in a disadvantage for social mobility and prospects of hiring and advancing through their careers. The same goes for women in the public sector as Kenneth Kernaghan, author of the article Representative bureaucracy: the Canadian perspective, states that “Women reported in 1970 that women do not enjoy equal opportunity to ‘enter and advance in Government Service, and that their skills and abilities are not being fully used there.
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
necessary to address issue that target towards women. because “the effects of representative bureaucracy and how the presence of women in government can lead to a greater concern for women’s issues (e.g., jobs, child support, domestic abuse) and even the appointment of women to higher-level positions (e.g., as female judges).” (Ng and Sears pg 369).
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
root problem of female leadership since quotas it does not ensure career mobility or compensation of maternal leave. Another solution to gender prejudice in the public sector is the approach of gender mainstreaming(GM). Francesca Scala and Stephanie Paterson define and analyze gender mainstreaming in a Canadian context as they state that “GM requires public sector organizations to ‘reorganize, improve, develop and evaluate policy processes in order to incorporate a gender equality perspective’ (Council of Europe, 1998, p. 2–3). Countries, including Canada, have expressed a formal commitment to integrating gender equality considerations in their policy work. However, despite the widespread commitment to gender mainstreaming and gender equality more broadly, studies indicate that GM continues to be unevenly implemented, yielding uneven and modest results” (Scala and Stephanie pg 579). Sadly, gender mainstreaming is not applied properly despite its good intentions because gender mainstreaming establishes committees and gender policy analysts to direct where gender neutral and gender equal policies can be fixed and administered. However, Scala and Stephanie state that “Personal contacts proved to be a more effective recruitment strategy than the directory since ‘gender focal point’ and ‘gender analyst’ are not official job titles in the Canadian public service.” (scala and Stephanie pg 583). For women in the public sector, representativeness does not empower women which can discourage potential women in the public sector since there is a lack of mobility in public sector. The perfect explanation for this reason is when Scala and Stephanie quote K.E Ferguson in her piece “Feminist against bureaucracy”, which warns feminists to work in bureaucracies because they reinforce dominance and subordination between men and women and opposing ideas of women empowerment. (Scala and Stephanie pg 581).