Purpose and Impact Guide and Resources

‘Aboriginal’ as defined by the Government of Canada in section 35 of the constitution includes First Nations (Status, Non-Status), Métis, and Inuit peoples. The term Aboriginal is used in Canada interchangeably with the term Indigenous in alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Indigenous peoples in Canada are diverse in culture, language, and belief systems and often identify with specific nations, communities and/or traditional languages. Examples of such include, but are not limited to: Cree/Nehiyaw, Ojibway/Anishinaabe, Blackfoot/Niitsitapi (Kainai, Piikani, Siksika), Stoney Nakoda (Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney), Tsuut’ina, Dené, Inuit, Métis, Mi’kmaq, Mohawk, and, etc. Additionally, Aboriginal or Indigenous peoples and nations in Canada have communities, traditional lands, and tribal/kinship affiliations that cross over the 49th parallel, which was established as a colonial border between Canada and the United States of America. Examples of cross border nations include the Iroquois Confederacy and the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Statistics Canada

Equity Deserving Groups (EDGs) refer to those groups who, by virtue of their identity, face discrimination, disadvantage, and institutional barriers to access and opportunity unrelated to ability that require proactive ameliorative measures. They are identified in the federal Employment Equity Act as Federally Designated Groups (FDGs) and include women, Indigenous peoples, visible/racialized minority persons, and persons with disabilities, as well as LGBTQ2S+ persons. These groups may also be referenced as equity groups, equity-seeking groups and equity denied groups.

Wisdom Tettey, “Inspiring Inclusive Excellence” (February 25, 2019)

The language of “designated groups” emerged out of the Royal Commission on Equality and Employment (chaired by Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella) in 1984, The Employment Equity Act, 1986, and the Federal Contractor’s Program, 1986. The Canadian Race Relations Foundations defines “designated groups” as follows: “Social groups whose individual members have been historically denied equal access to employment, education, social services, housing, etc. because of membership in the group.” The four “federally designated groups” include women, Aboriginal peoples (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit), persons with disabilities (visible and invisible), and members of visible/racialized minorities (Arab, Black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Latin American, Korean, South Asian, Southeast Asian, West Asian).

Gender is defined as how a person feels internally (gender identity) and/or how a person expresses their self-identity publicly (gender expression) in their daily life, including at work, while shopping or accessing other services, in their housing environment or in the broader community. A person’s gender may change over time. A person’s current gender may differ from the sex a person was assigned at birth and may differ from what is indicated on current legal documents. Statistics Canada defines gender as inclusive of gender identity and gender expression.

Statistics Canada

Intersectionality means an approach that seeks to understand and recognize the interrelated barriers specific EDGs may face or have faced because of overlapping identities and considers the ways multiple barriers may overlap to create a unique compounding experience of disadvantage for Equity Deserving Groups.

The acronym refers to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Two-Spirit (Indigenous) and “plus” to signify that these letters in the “Queer Alphabet” are inclusive of, but not limited to, the possibilities encompassed by these letters. For example, the letters in the acronym may be differently ordered, for example as 2SLGBTQ+, LGBT, LGBTI and 2SLGBTQIA.

Government of Canada LGBTQ2S Secretariat and Action Plan.

A person with a disability is someone who has a “long-term or recurring physical, mental, sensory, psychiatric or learning impairment(s)” (for the purposes of this questionnaire “long-term” is defined as lasting more than six months). A person considers themselves to be disadvantaged in employment by reasons of that disability, or believes that an employer or potential employer is likely to consider them to be disadvantaged in employment by reason of that disability. This also includes persons with disabilities who have been accommodated in their current job or workplace (e.g., by the use of technical aids, changes to equipment or other working arrangements).

Queer has been reclaimed to refer to identities and a community. It is an umbrella term that encompasses persons across a spectrum of gender and sexual identities and orientations. Some use queer primarily to refer to pangender and pansexual identities, genderqueer, and others to also include persons who are non-monogamous and non-binary. Queer is an expansive term that captures the heterogeneity, complexity, fluidity, and changing dimensions of gender and sexual identities over time and space.

Persons may variously self-identity by religion, religious affiliation, spirituality, or belief system. Religion may include a person's self-identification as belonging to a community of faith, as having a connection or affiliation with any organized religion, denomination or other religiously defined community or system of belief; that person may or may not hold membership in a specific religious body or organization. Persons can also self-identify by belief systems that include, among others, atheist, agnostic, spiritual or humanist. The 2021 Canadian Census identifies various religions, religious groups, and denominations.

Statistics Canada

The sex of a person typically refers to sex assigned at birth (e.g. male, female, intersex) by a medical practitioner based on physiological or biological attributes, and that may appear on current legal documents. 

Refers to a person’s self-identity as a member of a community that shares an enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other persons who may be of the opposite sex or gender (heterosexuality), the same sex or gender (homosexuality), to two sexes or genders (bisexuality), to more than one sex or gender (pansexuality or polysexual), or to no particular sex or gender (asexuality). A person's sexual orientation is not synonymous with their gender identity.

Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to the self-identification of a person whose gender identity and/or gender expression is different from social and cultural expectations based on the sex assigned at birth by a medical practitioner. Being transgender is not synonymous with a specific sexual orientation. Persons who are transgender may identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, straight, polysexual, or another identity.

A visible minority is defined by The Employment Equity Act as a racialized minority who is non-white in colour, and who is not an Aboriginal/Indigenous person, regardless of birthplace or citizenship. The visible minority communities include Arab, Black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Latin American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and West Asian. Members of these communities may also self-identify as a ‘person of colour’, ‘racialized person’ or by an ethnocultural group.