Canada is the first country to offer a transparent view to pay equity
As part of the Employment Equity Act to give every Canadian a chance at success, the ministry of labour has launched Equi’Vision, An Employer Equity Tool, a website that looks at barriers to equity experienced by women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minorities in federally regulated private sector industries.
Equi'Vision data is submitted by employers with 100 or more employees as part of their annual reporting to the Labour Program under the Employment Equity Act. It provides data on workforce representation rates and the pay gaps experienced by members of the four designated groups recognized under the Employment Equity Act. This site makes Canada the first country in the world to make this level of information publicly available.
By making this information publicly available, the government aims to draw attention to the persistent issues in Canadian workplaces that are maintaining pay gaps and preventing representation, so that businesses are encouraged to act upon them.
Data on pay gap released
Since 2021, federally regulated private sector employers (with 100 or more employees) covered by the Act have been required to report their salary data in a way that shows aggregated wage gap information. On August 16, 2023, Seamus O'Regan Jr., the minister of labour, tabled the Employment Equity Act: Annual Report 2022, which provides the 2021 data on employment equity in these workplaces and, for the first time, pay gap information.
The Pay Equity Act, which came into force on August 31, 2021, creates a complementary proactive pay equity regime that will ensure that women and men working in federally regulated workplaces receive equal pay for work of equal value.
On December 11, 2023, the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force released its final report: A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity. In response, the government announced a number of initial commitments to modernize the Act, including the creation of two new designated groups under the Act: Black people and 2SLGBTQI+ people; and replacing the term ‘Aboriginal Peoples’ with ‘Indigenous Peoples.’
“There is tremendous commitment from a range of constituencies across Canada to support employment equity,” says Adelle Blackett, professor of law and the Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. Blackett chaired the task force conducting the review into Canada’s workplace equity laws. She says Canadians want action toward achieving and sustaining employment equity in Canadian workplaces. “We offer a framework that is designed to transform employment equity and helps workplaces to identify and eradicate barriers to employment equity. This will ensure meaningful participation in employment equity and allow regulatory support in the form of an employment equity commissioner to ensure that we achieve and sustain substantive equality.”
To further support improving equity in the workplace, employers are encouraged to:
- consult the online guide: How to improve workplace equity: Evidence-based actions for employers;
- consult our webpage on pay gap reporting in federally regulated private-sector workplaces; or
- reach out to the Labour Program if they need assistance understanding the pay gap reporting measures.
