Employment Equity and Canada's Aboriginal Peoples

Abstract

Aboriginal Canadians – First Nations peoples, Inuit and Metis – are the most disadvantaged social group in Canada, with significant gaps in their health, education and living standards compared to other Canadians. A 2010 social development index created by the federal government reported that, of the bottom 100 Canadian communities on the index, 96 were First Nations and one was Inuit; only one First Nation community ranked among the top 100 Canadian communities. These social disadvantages are reflected in the Canadian labour market: while the Aboriginal presence in the workplace has steadily improved during the past thirty years, there remain substantial differences in employment rates, job training, advancement to higher-responsibility positions and wage earnings that will not be closed any time soon. A meaningful legislative tool in the federal government’s hands is the Employment Equity Act, enacted in 1986 following the 1984 recommendations of the Commission on Equity in Employment (the “Abella Report”), and revised a decade later. There have been some remarkable employment equity gains for Aboriginal peoples over the past 25 years, but these gains have been too modest and incremental to qualitatively transform their labour force standing, let alone significantly close the social gaps separating them from the rest of the Canadian population. This essay attempts to measure the efficacy of employment equity over the past quarter-century on the working lives of Aboriginals in Canada, set against the landscape of their social well-being.