Stay connected to Treasury Board Secretariat initiatives and share your impressions.
Recent blog entries
Reflections on this year’s National AccessAbility Week
By Tina Namiesniowski in category Accessibility on
Another amazing National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) is now in the rear-view mirror. While I had hoped to share my reflections earlier, I just came back from attending the Conference of States Parties to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Person’s with Disabilities in New York. Along with civil society representatives, three very impressive young Canadians, committed to youth…
Learning begins by listening: The Federal Speakers’ Forum on Lived Experience is starting conversations about neurodiversity
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Image Neurodivergent people can bring extraordinary talents and skills to the workplace, but they can often be misunderstood by their peers. Let’s assume that you already work with someone who is neurodivergent. Your neurodivergent colleague may interpret or process information differently from what is considered typical. This may lead to…
Driving Change for Persons with Disabilities
By Tina Namiesniowski in category Accessibility on
I recently participated in my first National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) as Deputy Minister Champion for Employees with Disabilities in the Federal Public Service along with over 2,000 public servants. I know many departments across the enterprise had their own events to celebrate the many contributions of public servants with disabilities who work as policy analysts, developers, administrators,…
Leila Bocksch, Director of Regulatory Reviews at TBS, shares her experience as a protégé with the Mentorship Plus program
By Leila Bocksch in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Mentorship Plus is an initiative started in 2020 that has been co‑developed by members of employment equity and equity‑seeking groups to better support leadership development, with specific emphasis on supporting members of underrepresented groups who aspire to leadership and executive positions. The initiative seeks to pair federal public service employees with executive mentors/sponsors. Leila…
Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
On April 20, 2022, Justice Canada and the Canada School of Public Service held a panel discussion with First Nations, Inuit and Métis experts as well as senior federal government officials. Over 2,000 participants attended the event. The discussion focused on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the UN Declaration) and the Government of Canada’s obligations to…
Marie Calixte-McKenzie and Jonathan Gohidé: Being Black in Canada
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
In 2020, George Floyd’s death and other incidents marked a turning point for many individuals and organizations. Anger and frustration were common reactions, and the events opened the eyes of many to the existence and prevalence of systemic racism in North America. For Marie Calixte-McKenzie, Manager of Corporate Applications at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), these events led…
How sharing experiences helps us grow – an interview with Mélanie Bejzyk
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Sharing stories and lived experiences is not a one-sided exercise. The connection and conversation that comes from sharing is extremely powerful, even in a virtual setting. As a speaker with the Federal Speakers’ Forum (FSF), lawyer and diplomat Mélanie Bejzyk feels empowered each time she talks about her journey and that of others. We recently sat down with Mélanie to talk about her lifelong…
Mentorship Plus is taking flight
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Are you familiar with the expression, “building the plane as you fly it”? It’s an analogy used when we are implementing something new while still making improvements and additions. If that sounds bold and brave, that’s because it is. Back in December 2020, The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) launched the Mentorship Plus program. Currently, there are 40 departments and agencies who are…
When the label doesn’t fit – the lived experiences of Les Escobar
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Have you ever been unsure about who you are? Or felt as though you didn’t really belong in any one community? For public servant Les Escobar, growing up with a mixed cultural background involved a lot of racism that has followed him throughout his life. In the past few years, he has generously begun to share his lived experiences as part of the Federal Speakers’ Forum (FSF), and we had the…
Data Visualization Tool
By Diversity+Inclusion in category Diversity+Inclusion on
Think about the last time you went searching for specific information on the public service. Maybe you were writing a report and needed statistics on the make-up of the workforce or the experiences of public servants, for example. Well now you can have the complete picture. Recently, TBS improved access to data in a way that provides richer data and deeper analysis. More specifically,…