In December 2020, Minister Bains launched the 50-30 Challenge as part of our government’s work to
advance diversity and inclusion in corporate Canada. This voluntary initiative challenges participating organizations to work towards gender parity (“50”) and significant representation (“30”) of other under-represented groups, including racialized persons, Indigenous Peoples, people living with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ2 community, on their Board of Directors and Senior Management (typically VP and above ). In the past six months, over 1200 organizations have committed to achieving these targets.
Yesterday, Minister Champagne launched two initiatives, including a Request for Proposals for resources to assist participating organizations, as part of the $33M committed to support the Challenge in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement. This invites organizations to respond to the RFP for the development of the What Works Toolkit, which will include, amongst other things, resources to support recruitment and mentorship of diverse employees and tools to support the development of inclusive workplace strategies. The Toolkit will be released in 2022.
The second initiative is a CFP for the 50-30 Challenge Ecosystem Fund. The Government of Canada will be providing funding to select diversity-serving organizations who directly support Challenge participants as they work to meet their goals.
The Government of Canada believes that corporate Canada should look like Canada.
If we want to continue building successful and innovative businesses, we must invite all people and voices in Canada to the decision-making table.
Companies that embrace diversity at the board and executive levels are twice as likely to meet or exceed their financial targets and more likely to outperform their peers.
Our government has been working with private sector partners, businesses and diversity advocates on the best ways and tools to support diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Ensuring that decision-making tables are as diverse as Canada isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do.
Please feel free to direct any of your members, who you think might be interested or are doing work in this space, to these RFP and CFP opportunities.
Best,
Larry Bagnell
Yukon MP
Government Of Canada