Anti-racism in the Public Service of Canada: How can critical race theory inform research and practice in Canadian public administration?

Abstract

In 2020, the issue of racism in Canada moved to the forefront of public attention as systemic racial inequities were revealed and exacerbated by the pandemic and prominent deaths of Black individuals at the hands of the police in the United States and Canada. In Canada, much attention was focused on continued harm caused by existing policies and institutions to diverse populations (Cameron & Tedds, 2023). Thus, the conversation on racism in Canadian society, coupled with the exposure of societal inequities, intensified the scrutiny of systemic challenges and barriers faced by racialized Canadians in government and private sector workplaces, in particular public policies and public administration practices.

For example, Sostero et al. (2020) show that high paid white-collar workers were the main beneficiaries of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the pandemic disproportionately affected racialized communities because racialized workers are less likely to be in remote-friendly jobs (Samuel & Robertson, 2021). Governments as employers are no exception. In the federal Public Service of Canada (PSC), Indigenous and Black public servants are over-represented in lower-paying positions (TBS, 2023), and many of them continued going into office during the pandemic. Together with the existing issues in hiring and promotion and a lack of diversity in the public service executive positions, highlighted in the Call to Action on Anti-racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service (Government of Canada, 2021), the impact of the pandemic on Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants in the federal government is yet to be fully understood.

As anti-racism initiatives across governments in Canada are further developed and implemented, it is important to consider a different approach to tackling racism in the PSC. This includes anti-racist considerations in decision-making as well as proactively engaging with Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants on potential solutions that are sensitive to their experience. For example, the most recent transformation initiative in the PSC—the transition to hybrid work—may further exacerbate inequities in access to flexible work arrangements by Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants, especially by those with intersecting identities, unless an anti-racism lens is applied.

What follows presents anti-racism initiatives and considerations in the PSC to demonstrate the value of applying critical race theory (CRT) in Canadian public administration. It starts with an overview of CRT as a framework and then provides a brief summary of the existing anti-racism initiatives in the Government of Canada. Finally, an emerging anti-racism research agenda is set out more generally for the field of Canadian public administration.