Treasury Board not tracking impact of public service job cuts on equity groups

OTTAWA — Advocates are raising concerns about how job cuts will affect public servants in equity groups — something the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it’s not tracking.

The federal government has committed to cutting the number of public service jobs by about 40,000 from a 2023-24 peak of 368,000 as it looks to find savings.

Departments and agencies across the public service have started notifying staff of coming job cuts.

Barb Couperus, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat — which oversees government operations — said the office does not collect information centrally on the impact of workforce adjustment on employment equity designated groups.

Equity groups include women, Indigenous people, people with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

Couperus said heads of departments are responsible for managing their workforces.

She said departments will continue to pay “close attention” to maintaining representation and meeting their obligations under the Employment Equity Act.

The act requires federally regulated employers, including the government itself, to take steps to eliminate employment barriers and maintain proportional representation in the workplace for members of equity groups.

During layoff periods, Couperus said, departments can prioritize keeping staff from equity groups if there are gaps in representation.

Nicholas Marcus Thompson, president and CEO of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said he is “disturbed” to learn the Treasury Board isn’t tracking the impacts of job cuts.

“What that suggests is that this is not a priority for this government,” he said.

Over the past five years, the government has hired approximately 5,000 Black workers throughout the entire federal public service, said Thompson. It also has increased the number of Black executives from around 99 in 2020 to more than 220, he said.

“What we’re seeing now is that those gains are being lost as a result of workforce adjustment,” said Thompson, adding his organization has started tracking data on workforce adjustment. “Many folks have reached out to us to find out what their rights are.

“Usually with workforce adjustment, the first to go are folks that were the last to come … So far our data is showing that, despite these equity gains, it’s now turning out to be equity losses.”

Thompson said his organization wants to see the government require equity impact assessments before workforce adjustment decisions are made. It also wants the government to be transparent about the process and publish data on which demographics are being affected.

Rabia Khedr, national director of Disability Without Poverty, said people with disabilities working in the public service will be feeling anxious.

“Generally speaking, a lot of times people with disabilities may be at an entry level position, so that makes them vulnerable,” said Khedr.

The most recent employment equity report for the public service says that as of March 2024, 9.7 per cent of federal executives were people with disabilities, up from 4.6 per cent in March 2019.

Khedr also said she’s unhappy about the lack of central tracking of the impacts of job cuts on equity groups.

“That then leaves it to the individual leadership within departments to make those critical decisions,” she said.

“It really depends on the leadership and their commitment to diversity and inclusion … There’s a risk that equity-denied groups might be more vulnerable in terms of who gets cut and who stays.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2026.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press