Submit your comments on this article |
Great White North |
Help wanted: must not be white, male |
2005-11-20 |
![]() Able-bodied white men seeking a career in Canada's Department of Public Works had best wait awhile before submitting their resumes – the deputy minister of the federal agency has instructed managers to temporarily hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled. David Marshall yesterday ordered that his edict banning hiring of Caucasian males be distributed throughout the agency by e-mail. The new policy, introduced in response to the department's failure to meet targeted employment-equity goals, will be in place for the next five months, at which time it will be reviewed. Canada's federal benchmark for hiring visible minorities is one-in-five. Public Works' proportion of female, disabled, aboriginal and non-white new hires fell from one in eight in March to one in twenty in September of this year. "As executives and managers, our role includes ensuring that the public service is representative," Marshall wrote in his memo. "This involves providing direction and leadership by example, and demonstrating a firm commitment to an inclusive workplace Robb Macpherson, a labor attorney with the firm McCarthy Tetrault, agrees Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms permits some discrimination to assist groups identified by the government as disadvantaged, but the form it usually takes is through programs that promote recruitment and hiring of qualified people from those groups – not by banning members of a non-minority class. "They are in effect cutting off a significant portion of the workforce from these opportunities," Macpherson tells the National Post. "It sounds like a pretty extreme measure that they're contemplating." |
Posted by:Theth Grolutle3150 |
#19 What's all this about "VISIBLE minorities"???!! This is discrimanatory against the Invisible-Canadian community. Invisible men and women deserve the same rights and respect that all others enjoy. It is unconstitutional, not to mention immoral, to deprive someone of rights base on the non-color or their skin, the transparancy of their bones and other tissues. |
Posted by: Monsieur Moonbat 2005-11-20 22:30 |
#18 Maybe Canada's preparing for war ags ALAN ALDA vv WEST WING - as ole' Hawkeye did play a POTUS character whom declared war on Canada!? |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2005-11-20 21:46 |
#17 :> Hear ya Frank. I spent a good part of Sunday Skool at Google Image.... Hawaiann shurt engineers was kinda skimpy. |
Posted by: Shipman 2005-11-20 17:15 |
#16 Ima mental gimp. Do I qualify? |
Posted by: Onehunglow 2005-11-20 15:28 |
#15 Ima mental gimp. Do I qualify? |
Posted by: Onehunglo 2005-11-20 15:28 |
#14 Darrell: You betcha intermittent priapism, lower-posterior comedones, and leukonychia are disabling. You wouldn't believe how disablingly embarassing it is to get unpredictable erections around pretty girls, having to hire an expensive therapist to give you butt blackhead cleansings, and enormous pedicure bills. If that's not a reason to give someone employment in Canada's Department of Public Works, I don't know what is. |
Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-20 13:38 |
#13 Apply but promise to dress like a black and White minstrel. |
Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2005-11-20 13:20 |
#12 On the other hand, if the force is made up of women and gimps, this could be a good time for able-bodied males to take up a life of crime. |
Posted by: BH 2005-11-20 11:22 |
#11 This involves providing direction and leadership by example, and demonstrating a firm commitment to an inclusive workplace "Who's been assigned to road striping?" "Natasha, Clement, and Pikuni." "But they're all blind!" "Um, then you won't want to hear who's doing the highway signs..." |
Posted by: Pappy 2005-11-20 11:15 |
#10 in response to the department's failure to meet targeted employment-equity goals The simple answer is for the government to assign people to jobs as needed to insure 'proper' representation. No more relying on competence or personal choice. No more dithering over what to be when you grow up. Like they say on Futurama, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. |
Posted by: SteveS 2005-11-20 11:03 |
#9 You sure this isn't just a smart Canadian ploy to rebuff all those white male American lefties who promised to move north if their grasp on power continued to slip? Opps, sorry lad, but there's no work here for you, have to meet our PC quotas. Heh, cosmic justice. |
Posted by: Glock Thrang2756 2005-11-20 11:00 |
#8 "...demonstrating a firm commitment to an inclusive workplace..." that excludes able-bodied white males. |
Posted by: Darrell 2005-11-20 10:55 |
#7 I don't think intermittent priapism, lower-posterior comedones, and leukonychia constitutes the kind of "visible" they're looking for. On the brighter side, able-bodied white men won't be wasting their stamps sending in resumes. |
Posted by: Darrell 2005-11-20 10:53 |
#6 Ironic that most people fake disabilities to get a disability retirement from work, and now they will have to fake disabilities to get work. "But I am disabled. I have intermittant priapism, some lower-posterior comedones, and leukonychia!" (that would be intermittant erections, some butt blackheads, and those unattractive little white spots you can get on your nails.) |
Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-20 10:35 |
#5 OK, so when will the selection of politicians and bureaucrats also be limited to visiable minorities and woman? We already know you've covered the mentally handicapped. |
Posted by: Glock Thrang2756 2005-11-20 09:18 |
#4 "As executives and managers, our role includes ensuring that the public service is representative," Marshall wrote in his memo. No problem. Make sure to hire criminals next, then mental basket cases, and lastly, children. |
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-11-20 05:24 |
#3 The logical end of affirmative action arrives in Canada. Hopefully we're paying attention. |
Posted by: AzCat 2005-11-20 05:01 |
#2 Go ahead. I just hope when these women and disabled start ending up in caskets you remember who helped put them there. Stupidity. |
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-11-20 02:10 |
#1 good thing most engineers are hawaiian - you can tell by their shirts, right, Ship? |
Posted by: Frank G 2005-11-20 02:01 |