The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat distributed a news release stating that the honorable Stockwell Day, president of the Treasury Board, in consultation with the honorable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism asked for a review of the provisions of the Public Service Employment Act to ensure that while diversity is supported in the public service, that no Canadian is barred from public service opportunities based on race or ethnicity.

“Our government strongly supports the objective of greater diversity in the federal public service. That has been one of my priorities as minister. I’m pleased to say that since coming to office, we have seen a number of visible minority Canadians and Canadians from diverse backgrounds have increased in the federal public service. In my own ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, over 17% of our thousands of employees are from visible minority backgrounds. That exceeds the number of people from visible minority backgrounds in the available workforce. So we have actually exceeded both the government targets and the presence in the overall Canadian workforce of visible minorities.  Also 63% of our employees are female..in promoting greater diversity in the federal public service, we must be sure that we do not exclude people. It must be based on the principle of equality of opportunity, not exclusion on the basis of racial or ethnic grounds.

We can and do advertise government positions in ethnocultural media occasionally  – such as the Canadian Forces and the RCMP and CSIS do in order to draw applications from diverse cultural communities.

If most Canadians get the impression that they are being unfairly discriminated against and not even allowed to apply for jobs in their government, that are funded by their tax dollars, that this will undermine the general positive goal of greater diversity and the reasonable and fair measures that we have undertaken to promote that diversity.

I should also point out that apparently only 1% of the positions offered in the Canadian federal public service have been exclusionary on the basis of race and so in our ministry. There were five such closed exclusive competitions last year and in the broader federal public service, it has been limited to 1% of the – of the job postings that have excluded people on the grounds of race.”

Responding to one question, Minister Kenny said “in my own ministry of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we have piloted a very successful youth – young newcomer internship program. The young newcomer internship program provides internship opportunities in our ministry for refugees who have arrived in Canada and gone to Canadian universities. Many of these people are then able to go on and get full – full-time employment in our ministry. So we are able to do all of those things without using the unfair, unjust tool of telling Canadians from certain backgrounds that they cannot apply.”