End Liberal Racism · Full documentary · 17:21

DEI: the bigotry of low expectations.

The case for scrapping DEI

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs now shape hiring across Ottawa and corporate Canada. They sort people by race, sex and identity, and rank them accordingly. The evidence says they do not deliver what they promise. It is time to scrap them.

Section 15(1), Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms¹

“Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.”

DEI turns that principle around. It asks which group a person belongs to, then treats the answer as a qualification.

It is now the default in Ottawa

This year the Aristotle Foundation reviewed 301 federal job postings from 59 departments, agencies and Crown corporations, published between February and July 2026.²

42%

of federal job postings told applicants they may be prioritized based on identity characteristics.

Federal job postings, February to July 2026Share of 301 postings reviewed

95% Used DEI language
42% Told applicants they may be prioritized based on identity characteristics
4% Restricted eligibility to specific groups

At Fisheries and Oceans Canada, every posting in the sample told applicants they might be prioritized by identity. Nearly every posting at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada did the same.²

Corporate Canada has followed. The Aristotle Foundation also examined the 25 largest publicly traded companies in the country.³

88%

of Canada’s largest public companies declare demographic hiring or promotion targets.

DEI at Canada’s 25 largest public companiesShare of companies, 2026

96% Run DEI-related training
88% Declare demographic hiring or promotion targets
88% Financially support ideological or political groups
80% Promote DEI in job postings

MP Steven Bonk questions a witness at the Task Force's first study

Some jobs are closed by identity

The federal Canada Research Chairs program sets demographic targets for the chairs it funds. A university that misses its targets can fill new chairs only from four designated groups.⁴

In 2022, Université Laval advertised a research chair in biology on these terms:

Job posting, Université Laval, Canada Research Chair in biology, 2022 (English translation as reported)⁵

“Only candidates with the required qualifications AND having self-identified as a member of at least one of these four under-represented groups will be selected in this process.”

Queen’s posted an engineering chair open only to women. Waterloo, Western and others ran restricted searches of their own.⁴ A qualified scientist can now be ruled out by race and sex before anyone reads their research.

The evidence does not support it

Sociologists Frank Dobbin of Harvard and Alexandra Kalev of Tel Aviv University tracked what happened after U.S. companies made diversity training mandatory for managers. Five years on, the share of Black women in management had fallen by 9% on average. The share of Asian American men and women had fallen by 4% to 5%.⁶

“People often respond to compulsory courses with anger and resistance—and many participants actually report more animosity toward other groups afterward.”Dobbin and Kalev, Harvard Business Review, 2016⁶

Implicit-bias training fares no better. A 2019 review of 492 studies involving more than 87,000 people found that these exercises can shift scores on bias tests. Among the 63 studies that tested whether those shifts changed behaviour, the authors found no evidence that they did.⁷

It teaches people to see prejudice where there is none

In 2024, researchers at Rutgers University and the Network Contagion Research Institute had students read passages from leading anti-racism texts, then read about a scenario in which no discrimination had taken place. Compared with a control group, they saw 21% more discrimination and 35% more microaggressions. They were also more willing to punish the person involved.⁸

A program meant to reduce suspicion between Canadians should not produce more of it.

Others have already changed course

In 2023 the Supreme Court of the United States struck down race-based university admissions.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”Chief Justice John Roberts, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 2023⁹

Since then, Meta, Google, McDonald’s, Target and Walmart have each dropped or scaled back DEI programs and representation targets.¹⁰ Canada’s federal government has not.

MPs Kurt Holman, Aaron Gunn, Jacob Mantle, Jamil Jivani and Michael Guglielmin hear from a witness

Treat Canadians as individuals

Scrapping DEI does not mean giving up on fairness. It means returning to it.

Hire and promote on merit.The best-qualified person gets the job, in the public service and in every program Ottawa funds.
End identity-based eligibility.No federal posting or funding rule should exclude a Canadian because of race or sex.
Enforce the law equally.Discrimination is already illegal. Apply that law to everyone, without exceptions for favoured groups.
Help by need, not by category.Support people facing real disadvantage because of their circumstances, not their ancestry.

The Task Force

Task Force members and witnesses after the first study

On September 22, 2026, the Parliamentary Task Force to End Liberal Racism held its first study, hearing from expert witnesses who shared their research, professional insights and firsthand experiences.

MP Jamil Jivani, Chair
MP Steven Bonk
MP Michael Guglielmin
MP Aaron Gunn
MP Vincent Ho
MP Kurt Holman
MP Andrew Lawton
MP Shuvaloy Majumdar
MP Jacob Mantle
MP Matt Strauss
MP Arnold Viersen

From the Task Force

Witness Bruce Pardy addresses MPs Kurt Holman, Aaron Gunn, Jacob Mantle, Jamil Jivani and Michael Guglielmin

MPs Kurt Holman, Aaron Gunn, Jacob Mantle, Jamil Jivani and Michael Guglielmin listen to testimony

MPs Kurt Holman, Steven Bonk, Shuvaloy Majumdar and Jamil Jivani

Bruce Pardy gives testimony to the Task Force

MPs Steven Bonk, Matt Strauss, Shuvaloy Majumdar and Jamil Jivani at the Task Force table

A witness makes his case to the Task Force

MPs Matt Strauss, Andrew Lawton and Jamil Jivani hear from a witness

The hearing, seen from the public seating

A witness gives testimony to the Task Force

Chui Yang gives testimony to the Task Force

Follow Jamil Jivani

Notes

Government of Canada, Department of Justice, Charterpedia: Section 15, Equality rights. www.justice.gc.ca ↩
Conrad Eder and Ven Venkatachalam, Does the Government Hire for Competence? A survey of DEI hiring practices in the Canadian government, Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, September 2026. aristotlefoundation.org ↩
Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, From equal opportunity to quotas: An index of DEI in hiring and ideological capture in Canadian corporations, 2026. aristotlefoundation.org ↩
University Affairs, “Universities are ramping up targeted hiring to meet CRC equity goals.” universityaffairs.ca ↩
True North, “Quebec university denounced for excluding white men in job posting,” April 12, 2022. tnc.news ↩
Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, “Why Diversity Programs Fail,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2016. hbr.org ↩
Patrick S. Forscher et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2019. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↩
Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab, Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias, research report, November 2024. networkcontagion.us ↩
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), opinion of the Court, p. 15. www.supremecourt.gov ↩
Axios, “Which companies are rolling back DEI and which are standing firm,” January 2025, updated. www.axios.com ↩