Rob Breakenridge: Danielle Smith bans DEI hiring in the public sector, daring the NDP to oppose

CALGARY — In the current political climate, it’s not likely a coincidence that the Alberta government is prioritizing the fight against woke, progressive politics — specifically, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

As we’ve observed through previous policy initiatives, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is no fan of DEI ideology. Tuesday’s announcement that the government has tabled Bill 33, the justice statutes amendment act, is the latest — and most significant — step to rid the public sector and other government agencies of woke policies.

Among other things, it mandates merit-based hiring within the public sector and other regulated provincial bodies — including post-secondary institutions, municipalities and, potentially, organizations that receive government funding.

The Alberta Human Rights Act will be amended to remove Section 10.1, which currently allows for hiring practices aimed at “the amelioration of the conditions of disadvantaged persons or classes of disadvantaged persons.”

Instead, hiring and promotion decisions will be based on merit and job requirements, with certain, limited exceptions — basically a situation where a specific characteristic is deemed to be a bona fide occupational requirement.

Subsequent regulations and exemption requests will add further clarity to this exemption. Furthermore, any mandatory workplace training or education must be “ideologically neutral.” The government insists that existing human rights protections and the duty to accommodate will still apply.

As noted, we’ve seen previous government moves to counter DEI policies. Last year, for example, the government passed the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, which prevents professional regulatory bodies from mandating DEI or unconscious bias training. Also last year, Smith’s municipal affairs minister warned cities and other local governments to steer clear of wokeness and DEI policies.

The timing of Bill 33 is noteworthy, as it comes as the premier is attempting to put the separation issue to rest in the aftermath of last week’s referendum.

Smith is urging United Conservative Party members to respect the vote result and unite around the cause of defeating the NDP in next year’s provincial election. In a video message to UCP supporters last week, Smith painted a bleak picture of what an NDP return to government could look like and the litany of radical progressive policies that could be unleashed upon the province.

The New Democrats, Smith warned, want to take the “province backwards, to 2015, to tens of thousands fleeing our province from radical NDP policies, woke cancel culture, big government, eco-extremism.… Make no mistake, my friends: if the UCP movement is divided, that is the Alberta we will wake up to in October of 2027.”

And behold, here we have an escalation in the government’s fight against wokeness.

While Bill 33 technically applies to a broad range of organizations, it’s almost certainly aimed squarely at universities and other post-secondary institutions.

Government officials acknowledged that there currently are no DEI hiring practices in place within the public sector, and they were unsure about the extent to which they existed in any of the bodies covered by the bill. The adoption of such policies at universities, however, has been much more visible and controversial.

Perhaps in anticipation of such a government directive, the University of Alberta earlier this year approved a new hiring policy that eliminates diversity, equity and inclusion considerations. The previous policy required that if two candidates were equally qualified for a position, the candidate from a historically under-represented group would be favoured. Similar policies still exist elsewhere, though.

As noted by UBC political science Prof. Geoffrey Sigalet, who’s quoted in the government’s press release, “merit-based hiring is essential to maintaining public confidence in our universities and trust in the research they produce.”

This is about more than the basic principle of fair and equal opportunity, though. A study published last month by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute found that DEI policies in academia constitutes a significant expense.

The report looked at the millions of dollars spent through the Canada Research Chairs program and the ambitious diversity targets implemented since 2017, and concluded that the end result was a weakening of Canadian research and a reduction in overall academic performance. That reduction works out to a loss of approximately $36 million a year.

And while all of this might seem like red meat for conservatives, opinion polls indicate that there is a much wider public backlash against DEI. A recent Leger poll for the Association for Canadian Studies found that 57 per cent of Canadians oppose the idea that equity should be incorporated into hiring practices, compared to just 28 per cent who support it — lower, in fact, than what a similar poll found in the United States.

The United Conservatives are more than happy to engage on this political turf, and they’re almost daring the NDP to oppose this bill and to publicly align themselves with DEI policies. It remains to be seen whether the Opposition will take the bait, but it could put New Democrats on the defensive if their aim is to restore such hiring policies and mandates.

Again, the government would seem to have public opinion on its side, and the pendulum is already swinging away from the more aggressive implementation of these policies in recent years.

In fact, that backlash may be so pronounced that the push-back against Bill 33 could turn out to be relatively muted. That would mean a smoother implementation of what the government sees as better policy, but it would also defuse the potency of this issue as a culture war rallying cry for Smith and the UCP.

National Post