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Earlier in this discussion (before I left for the Conference-formerly-known-as-the-Learneds) someone asked what the policy and practice was in Canada with regard to affirmative action. At the time I was too busy to reply but it started a chain of thought. When academic institutions advertise jobs they often have a statement at the end of the posting that goes something like this: "this institution is committed to the principle of employment equity. Qualified men and women, members of visible minorities, aboriginal people, and persons with disibilities are encouraged to apply." Sometimes individuals are invited to identify themselves as members of these designated groups in their applications as if availing oneself of special consideration is voluntary. I would assume that the institutions are constrained to advertise this way and to apply some kind of employment equity process, because the institution is publicly funded. I remember something about institutions being required to have an equity plan for employment. I'm wondering though what has to be contained in the plan. Waht are the acceptable processes? What happens if the plan does not ever result in a change in the make-up of the workforce at this institution? Does anyone ever have to report on how well things are going with the plan? Do individuals who designate themselves as wanting special consideration ever receive any accounting? Can these processes ever be examined or do they have to be taken on faith? When I thought about admission to academic programs in Canada, rather than employment, I realized that there are special processes in place in the service of equity at least with regard to admission to professional schools. This has until recently been the chief place where there is competition for admission in Canadian universities. All degrees confer some advantage in the labour market but professional degrees are the most beneficial therefore the most desirable. For aboriginal persons in particular there are two kinds of special access programs for professional schools in Manitoba. The first kind offers specific intensive preparation in the summer before admission to prepare students for Law, Medicine, or Engineering. The second kind is a separate but parallel program that students attend for several years in modified or specially designed classes. As far as I know this parallel program exists only in Education. In Manitoba enrolment in these programs is relatively low but there are at present 6 of these programs in operation. The other kind of program that used to make it easier for aboriginal people to go to university was the funding that was provided to them by the federal government for post-secondary education. This is still widely resented in Canada as an unfair advantage. It's interesting that when women who had lost their Registered Status through marriage were given it back, this ceased to be a guaranteed right and became a limited fund administered by each Band Council. So we don't have affirmative action programs in Canada. For employment in publicly funded enterprises we have these mysterious equity plans and for admission to professional schools (at least in the western provinces) we have almost case-by-case access programs. One reason for this is that we are not faced with a large disadvantaged group in the population. In the United States about 12% of the population is black. The largest disadvantaged group in Canada is aboriginal persons. In the 1996 census 799,010 people identified themselves as aboriginal (about 2.8% of the Canadian population). Even if we counted all people who have some aboriginal ancestry, the number would be about 1,331,684 or 4.7% of the Canadian population. Of course this population is not evenly distributed in Canada and some western provinces have a much higher percentage of aboriginal persons e.g. 11.7% in Manitoba and 11.4% in Saskatchewan. It seems clear to me that this whole question is about gate-keeping, controlling access to the good things in life, etc. etc. Lives are changed utterly by good jobs or by the credentialling opportunities of education. Insisting on merit isn't about measuring real ability but about measuring the evidence of past access to resources. It assumes that the pie is limited. There are only so many places, so many possibilities. The success of one depends on, has as a necessary condition, the failure of many. Laura Atkinson