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DEI

Conservative push to end Canada’s ‘anti-merit’ DEI programs receives support

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By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy president Mark Milk criticized government-run DEI programs as discriminatory and detrimental to merit-based hiring.

A Canadian analyst praised Conservative Party efforts to end “illiberal, anti-merit” government-run diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

In an October 13 post on X, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre posted a petition to end government DEI programs, which Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy president Mark Milke revealed has led to a deterioration of the Canadian workforce.

“It goes to the basic question of what kind of society you want and what governments should be doing. Governments should not have bureaucracies whose job it is to discriminate based on skin colour, ethnicity, gender,” Milke told the National Post.

Milke explained that Canadians should be hired based on merit, not skin color or by falling into another “minority” group.

“If people lose jobs who are promoting DEI, so be it,” he declared. “There are better ways to earn a living than by discriminating against people based on their unchangeable characteristics.”

“It’s not the job of the government to create all sorts of jobs for the sake of creating jobs at the taxpayers’ expense,” he continued.

“You would focus on providing equality of opportunity, as opposed to saying to someone, ‘You can’t have this job because, according to today’s criteria, you look the wrong way,” Milke declared.

Earlier this month, Poilievre, a longtime advocate against DEI initiatives, encouraged Canadians to sign a petition to end Liberal DEI programs that have cost taxpayers millions.

Indeed, LifeSiteNews recently reported on Trudeau’s Liberal government spending over $30 million on DEI-affiliated contracts among many federal ministries since January 2019.

That led to an increase in woke ideology creeping into all parts of society. As LifeSiteNews reported recently, the University of British Columbia (UBC) Vancouver campus posted an opening for a research chair position but has essentially barred non-homosexual white men from applying for the job.

Following the lead of the United States, Poilievre has promised if ever elected to power he would scrap government funding of “radical political ideologies” in higher education.

Under U.S. President Donald Trump, public schools and universities were given until the end of February to eliminate their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs or risk losing federal funding.

More than 30 states have introduced legislation that would eliminate DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against woke ideology spearheaded by Republicans such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Conservatives have long criticized DEI and other forms of identity politics for stoking rather than curtailing division. Moreover, many take issue with left-wing ideologies, such as gender ideology, because they contain objective falsehoods such as the denial of biological reality in determining sex.

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DEI

AT&T ditches DE&I

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AT&T’s retreat from the diversity, equity, and inclusion playbook marks one of the most significant corporate course corrections of the year — and it didn’t happen by accident. After months of pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the telecom giant has confirmed it will unwind its DEI programs top to bottom, ending everything from race-based training modules to staff positions dedicated to enforcing ideological compliance.

The move follows years of controversy, much of it fueled by revelations that AT&T’s internal training materials pushed the notion that racism was a “uniquely white trait” and urged white employees to accept blame as part of a broader critical-race-theory framework. Those claims first surfaced in 2021 through documents obtained by researcher Christopher Rufo, who reported that the company’s curriculum told white staffers they “are the problem.” The backlash never fully subsided — and with Carr signaling that companies seeking key FCC licenses would need to demonstrate they are not running discriminatory programs, the pressure point became impossible for AT&T to ignore.

In a letter sent Monday to Carr, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel David McAtee said the company has overhauled its employment and business practices “to ensure compliance with all applicable laws,” emphasizing that the changes would be substantive, not cosmetic. According to AT&T, that means no hiring quotas, no supplier-contract quotas, no race-based training, and no positions devoted to policing identity-based metrics. DEI courses have been stripped from employee requirements, and the company says it will not resurrect them.

AT&T’s announcement mirrors what has become a growing trend in the corporate world as the regulatory environment shifts. In May, Verizon made a similar pledge, informing the FCC that it, too, would dissolve its DEI department and reassign staff to conventional HR roles. Carr praised that decision at the time as “a good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest.”

The broader message coming out of Washington is unmistakable: the days of federally regulated industries running ideological experiments under the guise of “equity” are coming to an end. Companies that want federal approval for major licenses are being told to stick to the law, treat employees equally, and drop programs that sort workers by skin color or political theory. AT&T is the latest to fall in line — and almost certainly not the last.

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Agriculture

Federal cabinet calls for Canadian bank used primarily by white farmers to be more diverse

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By Anthony Murdoch

A finance department review suggested women, youth, Indigenous, LGBTQ, Black and racialized entrepreneurs are underserved by Farm Credit Canada.

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a note that a Canadian Crown bank mostly used by farmers is too “white” and not diverse enough in its lending to “traditionally underrepresented groups” such as LGBT minorities.

Farm Credit Canada Regina, in Saskatchewan, is used by thousands of farmers, yet federal cabinet overseers claim its loan portfolio needs greater diversity.

The finance department note, which aims to make amendments to the Farm Credit Canada Act, claims that agriculture is “predominantly older white men.”

Proposed changes to the Act mean the government will mandate “regular legislative reviews to ensure alignment with the needs of the agriculture and agri-food sector.”

“Farm operators are predominantly older white men and farm families tend to have higher average incomes compared to all Canadians,” the note reads.

“Traditionally underrepresented groups such as women, youth, Indigenous, LGBTQ, and Black and racialized entrepreneurs may particularly benefit from regular legislative reviews to better enable Farm Credit Canada to align its activities with their specific needs.”

The text includes no legal amendment, and the finance department did not say why it was brought forward or who asked for the changes.

Canadian census data shows that there are only 590,710 farmers and their families, a number that keeps going down. The average farmer is a 55-year-old male and predominantly Christian, either Catholic or from the United Church.

Data shows that 6.9 percent of farmers are immigrants, with about 3.7 percent being “from racialized groups.”

Historically, most farmers in Canada are multi-generational descendants of Christian/Catholic Europeans who came to Canada in the mid to late 1800s, mainly from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, and France.

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