Share this Story : National Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

FIRST READING: How race-based hiring is coming to define Canada

Everyone from soldiers to food inspectors to cancer researchers to immigrant screeners are now hired because of their skin colour

You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.

Unlimited online access to National Post.

National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.

Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Support local journalism.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.

Unlimited online access to National Post.

National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.

Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Support local journalism.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Access articles from across Canada with one account.

Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.

Enjoy additional articles per month.

Get email updates from your favourite authors.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Access articles from across Canada with one account

Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments

Enjoy additional articles per month

Get email updates from your favourite authors

Sign In or Create an Account

FIRST READING: How race-based hiring is coming to define Canada Back to video

At the time of writing, the University of Toronto is listing two separate job openings that are explicitly barred for white men. The school is hiring a researcher that must be “Black-identifying.”

And they are hiring an assistant professor of computational biology that must be either non-white, disabled or identifying “at the current time” as one of the following: Women, trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit or gender fluid.

This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)

There was an error, please provide a valid email address.

By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Platformed will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

Interested in more newsletters? Browse here.

Not long ago, it was extremely rare to find anything like this in Canada. Just 13 years ago, in 2013, it became a scandal when a casting agency working for CBC advertised a hosting job for “any race except Caucasian.”

The description would be rescinded and the agency would issue an apology.

But now, postings for government and academic jobs often openly state that straight white men will be sent to the back of the line.

An active job posting for a National Research Council robotics specialist, for instance, states right at the top that priority will be given to “Indigenous Peoples … persons with disabilities and racialized persons.”

The listing for an HR job at Jasper National Park tells applicants that special consideration will be given to applicants who are “Indigenous, visible minorities, people with disabilities, and women.”

This is happening despite the fact that Canadians, when asked, really hate the idea of racially stratified hiring. When the Association of Canadian Studies commissioned a 2024 poll asking Canadians about “equity” hiring policies, 57 per cent opposed it. This was higher than similar polls conducted in the United States.

It’s also happening despite multiple official claims that racial quotas are not a thing in Canada.  

How B.C.'s conflicting Indigenous land claims are a problem 150 years in the making

Jewish leaders demand swift and 'united' action after Toronto synagogue shootings

Advertisement 1Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

Discriminatory hiring quotas are often justified under the terms of Canada’s Employment Equity Act. But according to a 2024 report by the act’s official task force, racial quotas are more of an American thing.

“Let us be clear: the Employment Equity Act framework does not impose quotas, and the notion of “reverse discrimination” is not part of Canadian equality law and is likewise not part of the Canadian Employment Equity Act framework,” it reads.

But regardless, it’s now an entrenched part of the Canadian employment landscape, with knock-on effects as thousands of jobs in everything from research to food inspection to the people who screen Canadian immigrants are prioritized for candidates of a preferred colour or sexual identity.

It would be impossible to list every Canadian workplace now employing some form of explicit discriminatory hiring, but some of the most brazen examples are below.

Canada Research Chairs

Universities are at the sharp end of Canadian race-based hiring. A 2025 survey by the Aristotle Foundation reviewed 489 academic job postings, and found that just 12 of them didn’t contain some element emphasizing that an applicant’s immutable characteristics would be a factor in whether they got the job.

How B.C.'s conflicting Indigenous land claims are a problem 150 years in the making Canada

How B.C.'s conflicting Indigenous land claims are a problem 150 years in the making

NDAs to hush up alleged sexual misconduct are under fire. 'I can't agree to this' News

NDAs to hush up alleged sexual misconduct are under fire. 'I can't agree to this'

Advertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

IED tossed near anti-Islam protesters outside New York City's mayoral residence: police World

IED tossed near anti-Islam protesters outside New York City's mayoral residence: police

J.D. Tuccille: The one book Trump really needs to read NP Comment

J.D. Tuccille: The one book Trump really needs to read

Terry Newman: Consultants for human rights museum's 'Nakba' exhibit are hardened anti-Israel activists NP Comment

Terry Newman: Consultants for human rights museum's 'Nakba' exhibit are hardened anti-Israel activists

The bluntest examples are positions associated with the Canada Research Chair program, a $300-million-per-year federal fund that pays the expenses of more than 2,200 academic posts across the country.

And any university accepting Canada Research Chair money must adhere to strict racial and identity quotas in who they hire, or risk losing their funding. The program’s regularly updated “equity targets” are published online, and the current quota is that 22 per cent of Canada Research Chairs must be “racialized,” 4.9 per cent must be “Indigenous,” 7.9 per cent must be “disabled,” and 50.9 per cent must be “women and gender equity seeking groups.”

Although the intention was that schools could meet these targets organically, it became so hard to pair job openings with the government’s identity requirements that universities across Canada were eventually forced to start publishing job postings explicitly turning away white and non-queer candidates.

Three of the first such postings to receive widespread notice were issued by the University of Waterloo in 2022. A job in the school’s faculty of environment and another in the faculty of engineering were restricted to “those who self-identify as women, transgender, non-binary or two spirit.”  A second engineering position was open only to “First Nations, Métis, Inuit/Inuk and those from other Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.”

In 2020, CBC explicitly said they would be hiring and promoting more non-white people, and ensuring that those same people were shielded from layoffs.

In a statement, the broadcaster’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group announced that “half of all new hires” for senior positions would be either “Indigenous people, visible minorities, or people with disabilities.”

The usual goal with “equity” programs is to ensure that the racial mix of an organization perfectly matches the racial mix of society at large. But in a country where 26.5 per cent of Canadians were recorded as “visible minorities” in the 2021 census, these numbers went well beyond that.

The CBC blew past the quotas, set higher racial quotas, and then blew past those as well. And in just a few years the broadcaster would boast that it had managed to almost completely shut out able-bodied white applicants.

In a corporate plan published last October, CBC trumpeted the fact that an incredible 84.1 per cent of new hires in its last fiscal year had been “Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, and racialized people.” This means that for every 20 new hires, just 3 were white and didn’t report a disability.

The Canada Summer Jobs program

Canada Summer Jobs is a federal program that allows Canadian businesses and non-profits to effectively hire free labour over the summer. You apply for a worker between 15 and 30 years old, and the federal government sends you one and covers their wages.

One of the first major controversies of the Trudeau government was their decision to seal off Canada Summer Jobs from any group that was found to oppose abortion. Or, as the official guidelines put it, “actively work to undermine or restrict a woman’s access to sexual and reproductive health services.”

And in the years since, the Liberals have also used Canada Summer Jobs as a means to mandate “equity” hiring. In 2024, Employment and Social Development Canada said its “national priority” was to ensure that the Canada Summer Jobs was geared towards hiring non-white candidates who were either gay, trans or otherwise gender-diverse.

Employers looking to use Canada Summer Jobs must now state whether they intend to “prioritize the recruitment of a youth facing barriers to employment.” An application form then specifies who those “youth facing barriers” are: “Black youth,” “Racialized youth,” Indigenous youth” and “2SLGBTQI+ youth,” as well as youth in remote or fly-in communities.

Applicants, meanwhile, are told straight out that there are certain summer jobs for which their skin colour or heritage may prove disqualifying. “Some student jobs and programs are only open to people who have self-declared as a member of an employment equity group,” reads an online guide.

The Canadian Armed Forces

The Canadian Armed Forces has been suffering from recruitment shortfalls for more than 20 years, to the point where the military has recently found itself unable to perform basic tasks such as fixing planes or deploying warships simply because there weren’t enough people to do it.

Regardless, starting in 2018, the Department of Defence decided to add to its recruiting complexities by setting a hard target of women and non-white people that were to be put in uniform. Specifically, they wanted 25 per cent women, 3.5 per cent Indigenous, and 11.8 per cent “visible minority.”

In 2024, these hiring quotas emerged as one of the only targets that the military was actually meeting. A Departmental Results Report from that year noted that morale and readiness were all falling short, but that they were meeting their equity targets. The number of visible minorities in the military that year stood at 12.2 per cent – 0.4 per cent higher than the target.

And just like every other employer on this list, the military eventually began sidelining white men from hiring in order to juice their equity targets. In one tranche of 20 Department of Defence jobs advertised in the summer of 2024, 18 of them told white male applicants that they weren’t the priority.

“Please note that preference for hiring will first be given to candidates who are members of the following designated groups: Indigenous Peoples, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and women,” read a disclaimer.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

Share this Story : National Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Is this award-winning mattress and bed frame worth it? I tested both for 60+ nights I put the Endy Hybrid Mattress and Curve Bed through their paces 2 hours ago Sleep

Is this award-winning mattress and bed frame worth it? I tested both for 60+ nights

I put the Endy Hybrid Mattress and Curve Bed through their paces

Our editors tested Reformation's most popular spring shoes: Here's the verdict The Inez comes in several chic styles for the season 22 hours ago Fashion

Our editors tested Reformation's most popular spring shoes: Here's the verdict

The Inez comes in several chic styles for the season

Lose an hour, not your sleep: The products that actually help Tips on maintaining your sleep schedule during time changes 2 days ago Sleep

Lose an hour, not your sleep: The products that actually help

Tips on maintaining your sleep schedule during time changes

Advertisement 3Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

Top carpet cleaners that can handle tough messes Whether you have kids or pets, find options for every use and budget 2 days ago Home Living

Top carpet cleaners that can handle tough messes

Whether you have kids or pets, find options for every use and budget

The best online deals in the Canadian retail space right now Cozy Earth, Saje and Explore Hardware, to name a few 3 days ago Deals

The best online deals in the Canadian retail space right now

Cozy Earth, Saje and Explore Hardware, to name a few

© National Post