OTTAWA– Current and previous Global Affairs Canada staff members who are Black state the department does not take their problems about bigotry seriously.
“I was representing Canada however Canada did not represent me,” stated Madina Iltireh, who invested more than 20 years dealing with the administration of foreign help programs.
She spoke Wednesday on Parliament Hill at a press conference held by the Coalition Against Workplace Discrimination. The union consists of the Black Class Action Secretariat, which is installing legal difficulties declaring systemic bigotry and discrimination in the general public service.
The group is appealing a wider case including the whole civil service. It approximates the Federal Court of Appeal will take a year to rule on the case.
On Wednesday, the union mentioned 3 Global Affairs Canada personnel who state their problems were declined by internal panels before being supported by the courts or outdoors commissions, without settlement.
They consist of Iltireh, who is Black and uses a hijab.
In May, a Global Affairs Canada examination discovered the diplomat managing Canada’s embassy in Kuwait “bullied” Iltireh and “embraced prejudiced practices” versus her.
The examination– which just happened when a court bought the department to stop dismissing her claims– discovered the embassy head “stopped working to guarantee that Madina Iltireh operated in a healthy workplace.”
“The location I was (for 3 years) was poisonous, and it was suffocating,” she stated.
Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, pointed out other cases of GAC workers who relate to a series of minority groups and who submitted problems that were dismissed.
He stated they consist of a staffer who made grievances versus an executive who was later on discovered by the public sector stability commissioner to have actually scolded and slapped team member.
“It is as bad at Global Affairs as we discovered in other departments,” Thompson stated.
“There is a system to report discrimination. That system obstructs it. Employees are silenced … and while those employees are kept back, the leaders advance.”
The foreign service is carrying out modifications focused on more merit-based promo and a much healthier work culture, as part of a more comprehensive reform introduced in 2022. The Future of Diplomacy effort has actually caused public disclosures of cases of misbehavior at GAC, a structured problem system and a wellness ombudsperson.
Thompson stated those modifications do not effectively resolve the requirements of Black workers, who have actually required more powerful anti-discrimination legislation and specialist panels independent of the general public service to examine claims of discrimination.
“We’re not seeing deep-rooted reforms, merely Band-Aid options that pass over rapidly with modification of management,” he stated.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand informed press reporters Wednesday that discrimination in any kind is undesirable.
“We require to have a civil service where inclusivity and variety are more powerful since that makes our federal government more powerful, our companies more powerful and our nation more powerful,” she stated.
Anand stated she is checking out a minimum of among the cases pointed out by the secretariat to resolve systemic concerns within Global Affairs Canada.
“It’s a concern for me as a minister at this time, and it’s a top priority for me as a racialized lady,” she stated in French.
This report by The Canadian Press was very first released Oct. 22, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
