Canada’s federal public service has made diversity and inclusion a stated priority — and yet, for many equity-deserving employees, the gap between that commitment and their daily experience remains wide. Many departments have a dedicated office space, an annual report and a set of demographic targets they are working toward. Some have all three and still cannot tell you whether any of it has made a meaningful difference to the people it was designed to help.
That is not a cynical observation. It is a structural one. And it points to something I keep returning to in my research: there is a significant difference between accountability for DEI and accountability through DEI.
Accountability for DEI means an organization can demonstrate it has done the required things: drafted the policy, submitted the report, met the hiring target. It is backward-looking, compliance-oriented and largely satisfied by documentation. It answers the question: did we do what we said we would do?
Accountability through DEI asks something harder: did it work? Are employees from equity-deserving groups advancing, thriving and contributing fully? Is the culture of the organization actually shifting, or is “inclusion” something that appears in the annual report but not in the daily experience of the people who need it most?
The distinction matters because institutions can satisfy the first question entirely while failing the second.
Consider what genuine accountability would require. It would mean tracking not just who gets hired, but who gets promoted, who leaves and why. It would mean collecting disaggregated data — not just “visible minorities” as a single category, but specific experiences across race, national origin, language background and gender. It would mean creating channels through which employees can raise concerns about exclusion without fear of professional consequences. Critically, it would mean tying those outcomes to leadership performance, making inclusion a governance responsibility rather than simply an HR initiative.
This last point tends to be where institutional commitment gets tested. DEI work that lives only in a diversity office is DEI work that can be quietly defunded, restructured or ignored when organizational priorities shift. Genuine accountability requires that the people with the most power in an institution — executives, deputy ministers and board members — are answerable for inclusion outcomes the way they are answerable for financial performance.
Canada has made real commitments to equity in its public institutions. The Federal Employment Equity Act, the GBA Plus framework, and various provincial equity strategies reflect genuine legislative intent. Take the Federal Employment Equity Act as an example. The Act requires federally regulated employers to identify and remove barriers that prevent members of equity-deserving groups from fully participating in the workplace. Organizations are expected to collect workforce data, monitor representation and develop plans to improve equity. These are important accountability measures, but they primarily assess whether organizations are taking action—not whether employees feel included, supported or able to advance in their careers.
But intent and outcome are not the same thing. Closing that gap requires institutions willing to ask not just whether they have a policy, but whether anyone’s experience has changed because of it.
That is what accountability looks like. And it is harder, and more necessary, than any checkbox.
If accountability is the goal, who exactly is responsible for delivering it? In my next post, I examine why DEI cannot remain an HR function—and what it looks like when leaders are truly held to account.
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