Black Labour, Public Service, and the Making of Black Canada

About this event

Clearihue (CLE) C305 Critical Humanities Commons. This talk relocates Canada’s Black labour history from the margins of the state to its centre and argues that the federal public service, the nation’s largest employer, has been a primary site where Black belonging was defined, rationed, and refused. It traces key moments of exclusion: the erasure of Black workers during periods of radical social change in the 50s, 60s, and 70s; the 2021 Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion; and the Black Class Action. Together these moments bring into focus a Black diaspora unique to Canada, illuminate the usurpation of the country’s most educated and highly skilled workers, and offer a genealogy of the present, as Canadian politics shifts rightward in response to the United States and equity is recast as excess. The talk then explores how persistent antiblackness, alongside a growing anti-equity sentiment across government, signals an anti-democratic lean that is Canada’s own and not merely an American import. Dr. Rachel Zellars, M.A., J.D., Ph.D., is a Senior Research Fellow, and Associate Professor at Saint Mary’s University (SMU) in the Department of Social Justice & Community Studies. In 2021-2022, she served as the inaugural Jocelyne Bourgon Fellow in the Canada School of Public Service, where she researched the history of merit and Black Canadians in public service. She is currently researching accountability mechanisms available to public servants; their procedural complexities; and systemic inequities embedded within