Anti-racism, diversity and inclusion at CBC/Radio-Canada

“We are committed to combating racism in all its forms, and to removing structural barriers and practices that result in discrimination at CBC/Radio-Canada,” says Catherine Tait, President and CEO

June 23, 2020 - Recent events have brought the issue of racism, especially anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, to the forefront of much of our work at CBC/Radio-Canada and highlighted the need to accelerate progress on our Diversity and Inclusion Plan, which was launched in 2018. 

Over the past few weeks, many of our employees have been reporting on the issue for our news services or raising it in our programming; others have been sharing their own experiences of how racism has affected them, both personally and professionally. We are sensitive to and deeply troubled by their stories. 

“We recognize that systemic racism exists in Canada and within many of its institutions, including its national public broadcaster. We are committed to combating racism in all its forms, to removing structural barriers and practices that result in discrimination at CBC/Radio-Canada, and to improving our workplace culture in tangible, concrete ways.

“We know these issues aren’t new. People have been raising concerns for a long time and our responses haven’t worked fast enough. So we’re going to tackle things differently and intensify the transformation of our organization so that we are truly inclusive and representative of contemporary Canada.”

 —Catherine Tait, President and CEO, CBC/Radio-Canada

To respond to the current context, the corporation’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group is expanding the scope of its work. Established last December and mandated to accelerate change in the areas of representation and workplace culture, the Working Group recently announced ambitious new hiring, retention and promotion goals to build a more representative and inclusive workforce. Across CBC/Radio-Canada, by 2021–22: 

• Half of all new hires for executive and senior management positions will be Indigenous people, visible minorities, or people with disabilities; and 
• Retention and promotion rates for people from these three groups will be doubled.

These new representation objectives are supported by related diversity and inclusion activities, including: 

• Making unconscious bias training mandatory for people leading people, including senior management, and available on demand to any employee; 
• Committing resources to better identify internal and external candidates from three target groups (Indigenous people, visible minorities, and people with disabilities) for our hiring pool; and
• Continuing to provide training on inclusive newsrooms, the impact of unconscious bias on our content, and reporting in Indigenous communities.

CBC/Radio-Canada is also pressing ahead with its 2018–21 Diversity and Inclusion Plan to achieve the goal of reflecting contemporary Canada, in our staffing, as well as our content choices. This includes targeted professional development initiatives, such as: 

• The Diversity and Inclusion Fund, an initiative to provide internships and development opportunities to employment equity-seeking groups.
• The Developing-Diverse Emerging Leaders program, a 10-month development course for emerging leaders that equips employees with insights, tools and strategies to advance their careers with confidence and purpose. The fourth cohort will graduate in December 2020. 

Over the coming months, the Diversity & Inclusion Working Group will continue its consultations with employees from all of the equity seeking groups to identify other initiatives to improve representation and workplace culture at CBC/Radio-Canada.

Finally, we will continue to push for positive change throughout our industry. Last year CBC/Radio-Canada announced a major new diversity commitment: by 2025, at least one key decision-making creative role in all English- and French-language scripted and factual commissioned programs will be held by a person from a diverse background.

Version française: https://bit.ly/3dwwVpv 

Media contact:

Leon Mar

Director, Media Relations and Issues Management | Corporate Spokesperson

CBC/Radio-Canada

cell. 647 616-5768

leon.mar@cbc.ca