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

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. CRT originated in the legal studies discipline to examine how the law and government institutions disproportionately impact racialized communities. CRT scholars argue that race is a social construct used to justify the oppression of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities (Delgado & Stefancic, 2023; Riccucci, 2022). Furthermore, racism is not just individual but also a systemic issue—it is embedded in institutional and societal norms, practices, and culture, thus directly influencing the development and implementation of public policies (Blessett & Gaynor, 2021; Riccucci, 2022). Two important tenets of CRT are understanding (i) the lived experience of racialized individuals and (ii) intersectionality (Delgado & Stefancic, 2023; Riccucci, 2022). Many studies employing CRT as a framework seek to foreground racialized individuals' perspectives and highlight the need to incorporate these voices to advance racial justice (Blessett & Gaynor, 2021). Intersectionality calls for simultaneous examination of race and other socio-demographic characteristics—for example, gender, age, sexual orientation, and disability to determine how a combination of these can further disadvantage a racialized individual or community (Christoffersen & Hankivsky, 2021; Delgado & Stefancic, 2023). Therefore, CRT studies predominantly seek to understand and contextualize lived experience of racialized populations while taking into consideration societal and institutional processes resulting in racism (Riccucci, 2022). CRT is now adopted by scholars in many disciplines (e.g., social work, sociology, political science, gender studies) to study how systemic racism impacts society, its institutions, and racialized communities with the goal of advancing social justice. Yet CRT has not been widely adopted by public administration scholars. Blume (2023) notes that research in the field is focused on addressing systemic racism indirectly. Research topics include diversity, equity, and bureaucratic representation, while articles addressing systemic racism directly are rare (Blume, 2023). Althaus and O'Faircheallaigh (2022) and Pandey et al. (2023) underscore that the studies on race in public administration are underpinned by the assumptions from representative bureaucracy theory. According to these assumptions, public servants' socio-demographic characteristics shape their beliefs, attitudes, and values. Therefore, the decisions they make throughout their career are more likely to be aimed at advancing the position of the group (or groups) they associate with (see e.g., Ng & Sears, 2015 for Canadian context). Some of the representative bureaucracy studies, however, go beyond looking at passive representation and explore the extent to which diversity in the public service impacts better policy outcomes for the underrepresented groups (Mau, 2020). However, as Blume (2023) notes, public administration theory assumes “administrative neutrality” and does not account for “baseline racial discrimination” within public service (Blume, 2023, p. 30). In other words, public administration research does not consider existing public service institutions, culture, and processes as “racist by design.” Nevertheless, public administration scholarship that explores anti-racism and its impacts on government has begun to emerge in the United States and Australia. Notably, the study by Althaus and O'Faircheallaigh (2022) explores Indigenous representation in the public services in Queensland, Australia and British Columbia, Canada, and highlights important similarities in barriers faced by Indigenous public servants in both jurisdictions. Therefore, although this emerging literature does not specifically touch upon the federal PSC, it discusses important themes that can shed the light on anti-racism issues and potential research areas in Canadian public administration. Three major themes that come out of the emerging literature include: career barriers, over-representation of racialized public servants in lower-level positions, and lack of CRT considerations in the public administration research. Althaus and O'Faircheallaigh (2022) and Portillo et al. (2020) argue that Indigenous and other racialized public servants face racism throughout their career. This primarily manifests itself in racial inequities in hiring and promotion (Portillo et al., 2020; Riccucci, 2022) and a lack of opportunities to challenge existing policy processes that ultimately leads to disinterest in career advancement or even exit from the public service (Althaus and O'Faircheallaigh, 2022). Furthermore, career opportunities for racialized public servants who identify as women can be further constrained due to caregiving expectations (Portillo & Humphrey, 2018). As barriers in hiring and promotion for Indigenous, Black, and other racialized employees continue to exist within the PSC (TBS, 2023), it is also important to understand if they are less likely to pursue advancement or more likely to terminate their employment. Scholars also note over-representation of racialized public servants in administrative and lower-paid positions (Leon, 2022; Pandey et al., 2023). This issue applies to the PSC as well (TBS, 2023). This presents a serious challenge for racialized public servants to confront public service's institutional processes, practices, and culture as those in administrative positions have limited ability to bring about change within the public service and influence policy outcomes (Blume, 2023). Finally, a growing body of scholarship argues that CRT should be more widely applied in public administration to explore how systemic racism bears upon on racialized public servants, in addition to the impacts of individual racism (Blume, 2023; Pandey et al., 2023). Riccucci (2022) argues that the experiences of racialized public servants are largely missing from the discipline. In Canada, studies applying CRT to Canadian public administration specifically are yet to emerge. Incorporating CRT into Canadian public administration research and practice can also spark the discussion around the need to problematize the principles of “administrative neutrality” and reforming existing public service institutions, structures, and cultures from the perspective of racialized public servants. This can advance anti-racism agenda within the public service and the anti-racism initiatives that touch Canadians more generally. Broadly speaking, existing government anti-racism initiatives can be grouped into three categories. First, there are anti-racism strategies and policies aimed at addressing systemic racism and promoting equity (e.g., Canada's Anti-racism Strategy). The second category includes anti-racism initiatives within specific policy areas or organizations (e.g., race-based data collection in healthcare and policing). Third, there are anti-racism initiatives within a public service (e.g., initiatives to address racism in the workplace within the PSC). A fourth category of initiatives (not yet implemented) is the inclusion of anti-racism considerations into the public service transformation initiatives such as digital government and transition to hybrid work. These transformation initiatives are aimed at creating public value by improving public service delivery and program effectiveness. For the transition to a hybrid workplace in the PSC, emerging research highlights the need to consider the diversity and needs of public servants while determining work arrangements in the public service (Roy, 2022). Nevertheless, the return to office mandate adopted by the Government of Canada lacked any such considerations, making public servants question the discrepancy between government rhetoric on anti-racism, equity, and diversity, and governments' actions (Leedham, 2023). The importance of including anti-racism considerations in any public service transformation initiatives is evident by available public service data, summarized below. The PSC 2020 Public Service Employee Survey (TBS, 2022) included four questions on anti-racism. As the results show, compared to all visible minority and Indigenous public servants, Black public servants were less comfortable speaking up about racism in the workplace (53% for Black public servants compared to 60% for visible minority public servants and 73% for Indigenous public servants) and sharing concerns with racism in the workplace to a person of authority (59% for Black public servants compared to 62% for visible minority public servants and 73% for Indigenous public servants). They were also less satisfied with anti-racism initiatives implementation (58% for Black public servants compared to 64% for visible minority public servants and 70% for Indigenous public servants) and how concerns and complaints about racism were resolved (8% for Black public servants compared to 13% for visible minority public servants and 9% for Indigenous public servants).1 It is important to note that satisfaction with how concerns and complaints about racism were addressed was extremely low among all equity-seeking groups of employees. Existing and emerging anti-racism initiatives are an important recognition of devastating impacts of racism on Canadian public policy and administration. However, their potential to bring about real change to address systemic barriers for racialized populations remains an aspiration. Several avenues of research could further develop scholarly and practitioner knowledge in this area. First, there is a critical need to explore anti-racism initiatives both theoretically and empirically and apply CRT to public service institutions across different levels of government in Canada. For example, for the PSC, CRT provides a crucial starting point by uncovering “baseline racial discrimination” and identifying elements of public administration that are “racist by design.” Specifically, application of CRT across different levels of government can assist with the analysis of the impacts of top-down structures on Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants (e.g., if there are disproportionately negative impacts of hierarchical approvals and delegation on policy proposals brought forward by these employees). CRT can also challenge the “administrative neutrality” embedded in the existing and emerging workforce policies. Furthermore, application of CRT can help to meaningfully incorporate intersectionality in decision-making, thus addressing some of the limitations of the GBA+ framework highlighted by Cameron and Tedds (2023) and Christoffersen and Hankivsky (2021). Understanding barriers that exist is the first concrete step in understanding the root causes of systemic racism in the public service. Listening to the voices of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants, especially with intersecting identities, and learning from their lived experience is paramount for a comprehensive understanding of these barriers. Second, it is crucial to include anti-racism considerations in emerging public service initiatives. Transitioning to hybrid work is undoubtedly the latest profound transformation initiative within the PSC. In the summer of 2022, the Government of Canada stated that individual government departments and agencies could decide on work arrangements that best fit their operational needs. However, in December 2022 this decision was changed to a blanket mandate for all public servants to return to office two to three days a week or 40% to 60% of their regular schedule. The lack of analysis of how the transition to hybrid work may uniquely impact racialized public servants who have to continue to work exclusively from office following the mandate and those with intersecting identities now requiring an accommodation to continue to work remotely can further exacerbate inequities within the workforce. Furthermore, the analysis can explore the potential of remote work for recruiting and promoting talent from racialized communities outside of the National Capital Region. As the transition to hybrid work is in its early implementation, from a CRT perspective it is critical to include voices of racialized public servants with intersecting identities to challenge existing assumptions and limitations. Furthermore, being the lead for the workplace policies, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) ought to conduct an anti-racism analysis of the current hybrid work model and make its results publicly available. By embedding CRT in studies on the future of work, scholars and practitioners can explore how emerging models of hybrid work could reinforce disproportionately negative impacts on careers of racialized public servants. Finally, it is important to develop a future research agenda on anti-racism more generally in Canadian public administration, across levels of government. Most of the CRT research in public administration employs qualitative methods to highlight lived experience of racialized public servants (Riccucci, 2022). Yet the use of quantitative methods can also help to identify the areas where racialized public servants are disproportionately impacted or help to understand existing gaps between racialized and non-racialized public servants (Riccucci, 2022). For example, public sector employee survey results can be disaggregated to examine differences between Black, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and white public servants. Specifically, studies can explore if Indigenous, Black, and other racialized public servants are less satisfied with their jobs, less likely to get a promotion, and less likely to benefit from hybrid work arrangements, and begin to tease out the organizational and policy features that counter those trends. Tackling racism within the public service is an extremely complex issue. It requires solid theoretical foundations and practical operationalization. The time has come to challenge the passive representative bureaucracy approaches in favour of more critical approaches, such as CRT. Moreover, it is crucial that an anti-racism agenda does not end with anti-racism and diversity initiatives, but rather should be embedded in decision-making for any public service transformation initiative.

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