In 2023, 1.3 per cent of workers at U of T identified as Indigenous, according to the university’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Report. This represents a 0.1 percentage point increase from the previous year. 

56.1 per cent of staff responded to employment survey questions in 2023, compared to 73 per cent of staff in 2022.

The Varsity examined U of T’s Indigenous employment statistics and the school’s role in facilitating the Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee’s (TRSC) calls to action. 

Numbers and what’s beyond

U of T has increased its overall proportion of Indigenous employment by 0.2 per cent since 2018. In 2023, 11 out of 778 substantive new hires in 2023 — people hired to permanent positions — identified as Indigenous. 

However, U of T’s Employment Equity Dashboard indicates that, out of 722 total promotions the same year, the number of promoted workers identifying as Indigenous was “not reportable due to small sample size.” 

The overall nature of Indigenous employment is not simply a story of numbers. Tyler Pennock — associate professor at the Centre for Indigenous Studies at U of T — wrote to The Varsity in an email that treating representation as a single number “has the potential to obscure the reality of Indigenous experience at the University of Toronto.” Pennock is a two-spirit (reconnected) adoptee from a Cree and Métis family around Alberta’s Lesser Slave Lake region, and a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation.

The Employment Equity Dashboard relies on individuals to self-identify, and many people may choose not to self-identify for a variety of reasons. 

Shannon Simpson, senior director at the Office of Indigenous Initiatives at U of T, also wrote in an email to The Varsity that “Rather than setting a specific target, our priorities are Indigenous representation across all three campuses, ensuring that people feel supported, that people have access to mentorship opportunities and see themselves represented.”

U of T does not have any staffing proportion targets based on ethnicity.

Gendered perspective and pay gaps

The gender pay gap affects Indigenous employment. In 2022, the gender pay gap ran at around 13 per cent in Ontario, meaning that for every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 87 cents.

Indigenous women are doubly disadvantaged in relation to their peers. In 2023, the average hourly wage for an Indigenous woman was 90.3 percent of that of a non-Indigenous woman. Indigenous women earn just 78.6 percent compared to non-Indigenous men in Canada, and 88.6 percent compared to Indigenous men.

The 50 – 30 challenge — a federal government-led initiative aiming for gender parity — also seeks to achieve a “significant representation” of 30 per cent of board members or senior management positions being women, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, or visible minorities, including Indigenous individuals. U of T has not signed up for the challenge, unlike 30 other universities including eight in Ontario. 

A spokesperson for the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) President Terezia Zorić wrote to The Varsity in an email that UTFA requested data on demographics and salaries of its members from the university administration in March. Zorić noted that the data was outdated by the time UTFA received it. 

Truth and Reconciliation

The Canadian government established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to facilitate reconciliation among Indigenous communities and all Canadians following the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement of 2007. In 2015, TRC published 94 Calls to Action to the Canadian government to advance reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and Canadians. However, a 2023 report by the Yellowhead Institute — a Toronto Metropolitan University-based research centre — found that the government had yet to address 81 of the calls and that Canada completed zero of the total calls to action. 

“We seem to be forgetting the larger importance of the TRC calls to action,” wrote Pennock. “Have we reached that point?… The work isn’t done, change isn’t an event – it’s a process. We weren’t meant to finish the work of the TRC… within my lifetime. It takes more work.”

In 2017, U of T’s TRSC published a report that built off of Canada’s TRC, and included 34 calls to action. 

Simpson wrote to The Varsity that the number of Indigenous faculty and staff who joined U of T since the school started addressing the TRSC’s 34 calls to action is “amazing,” and that the school has been focusing on Indigenous hiring as a “major priority.” 

“We now have Indigenous staff and faculty across all three campuses, and the opportunities for growth and availability of different roles across different portfolios is really exciting,” she wrote.