Thank you so much for that question, Monsieur, because it's a very important one.
While universities and post-secondary institutions come under provincial governments and that is where a lot of the rulings, policies and so on happen, the federal government's programs have also been very helpful. Federal programs like the federal contractors program are huge because, as I'm sure this committee has heard already, the collection of data is one of the key pieces that we need assistance with in order to know where the gaps are and how we can go ahead and fill those gaps and take care of them.
The federal contractors program is good. My advice would be that this program needs to be expanded. It needs to be expanded in a number of ways. For example, right now we're looking at four designated groups. One group that's not included in the collection of numbers is the LGBTQ2SIA+ community. That might be something we may want to add when we're taking a look at the federal contractors program.
When we reach out and collect more data, there are racialized community members in those four designated groups, but for the racialized group it's an all-encompassing number. It doesn't tell you what's happening with the Black community and what's happening with, let's say, the Asian community and so on. This became very important during the Black Lives Matter movement, when universities and large organizations were struggling with trying to work out what was happening within their communities with these particular groups.
Those are two ways, perhaps, that it could be improved.
The other piece is intersectionality. When we look at data collection, we have to understand that it's not just whether you're a woman or, like me, someone who also belongs to a racialized group. Identifying those members of our communities who fall into both of those groups gives us a much more fulsome idea of what the challenges are and a better sense, perhaps, of where some folks are being left behind in our institutions.
I would commend the federal contractors program. It has been very important for us in terms of data collection. The dimensions program is also good, and some of the work that's going on with the tri-agencies in terms of EDI and even the Canada research chairs requirements. The federal government is insisting more and more on EDI—“What are you doing in these areas?” and “What are your policies?”—and that is very helpful.