Equity is ready for the next step

Throughout my career, I’ve worked on both designing policies and putting them into practice. And one thing has always stood out to me: a policy is never strong at the beginning. It starts as an idea, a moral principle, a fragile intention that depends on the goodwill of institutions. For it to become real, durable, and respected, it needs a solid structure. That structure always relies on the same elements: legislation that sets the rules, mechanisms that make implementation possible, accountability measures that ensure transparency, and teams with the capacity to carry the policy forward. This full architecture is what turns a value into a right.

We can see this clearly in the history of Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy legislation. For years, access to information was only a principle, applied unevenly from one institution to another. Then, in the 1970s, the demand for transparency grew, until the federal government adopted legislation in 1983 that changed everything. From that point on, a strengthening process took shape: the creation of specialized ATIP teams in the 1980s and 1990s, stronger accountability in the 1990s and 2000s, professionalization of practices in the 2000s and 2010s, and a major modernization in 2019. In just a few decades, a simple moral principle became a complete, stable, and durable system.

Today, equity is in the same situation that access to information was in before it became law: widely discussed but structurally fragile; dependent on leaders’ goodwill, without a shared framework; carried by committed individuals, but without the institutional support needed to make it last. An Equity Act would play the same foundational role. It would transform equity from a moral aspiration into an institutional system capable of surviving political cycles and changes in leadership.

Equity does not receive the media attention that other issues do. It doesn’t have the academic traction or institutional visibility of more established fields. Yet it has become essential. Without a legal framework, organizations move at different speeds, creating inconsistency, legal risks, internal tensions, and uneven decision‑making. A law on equity is now necessary to ensure clear governance, coherence across institutions, responsible risk management, and sustainable organizational performance.

And even without public enthusiasm, a policy can still be codified. It can follow the institutional path:

-          First, government recognizes that a structural problem exists. Before access to information became a public issue, it was an administrative irritant. Equity is in the same place today: the absence of a framework creates confusion, risk, and incoherence.

-          Then internal pressure builds. For ATIP, analysts, managers, and legal teams eventually said, “We can’t function without a framework.” Today, HR teams, equity practitioners, legal advisors, and executives are saying the same thing. Expectations are unclear. Legal risks are growing. Practices vary widely between institutions. Teams are exhausted. And without common standards, no one can deliver consistent results.

-          Next comes codification driven by governance needs. Some laws do not emerge from social movements but from the need for order and predictability. This is how Canada adopted the Financial Administration Act, the Privacy Act, the 1988 reform of the Official Languages Act, and the Public Service Modernization Act. These laws were created because the state needed coherence, not because the public demanded them. Equity fits this pattern.

-          After that, risk management pushes the state to act. When a domain becomes legally risky, politically unstable, operationally inconsistent, or costly in litigation, governments legislate—even without public pressure. This is what led to the 2019 ATIP reform, the Accessible Canada Act, and the modernization of occupational health and safety standards. Equity is already in this risk zone.

-          Finally, normalization becomes necessary when organizations advance at different speeds. This is what justified the Employment Equity Act in 1986, national health and safety standards, and proactive disclosure requirements. Today, some organizations invest heavily in equity while others do almost nothing. This asymmetry creates inequities, confusion, and reputational risk. A national standard becomes the only way to ensure fairness and coherence.

For equity to become law, it must go through the same strengthening process as any durable policy: a clear legislative framework, implementation mechanisms, mandatory accountability, dedicated institutional capacity, and a national standard that ensures coherence across organizations.

Equity has reached the same crossroads that transparency once faced: it can no longer rely on goodwill, individual champions, or scattered initiatives. It needs a structure that can hold it. A law that can anchor it. A system that can sustain it. Codifying equity is not about chasing public sentiment – It’s about recognizing that the work has already outgrown its informal foundations. When a principle becomes essential to how institutions function, the next step is not persuasion. It’s maturation. And equity is ready for that step.

References

• Government of Canada. (1986). Employment Equity Act. Ottawa, ON: Department of Justice.
• OECD. (2025). OECD Corporate Governance Factbook. Paris, France: OECD Publishing.
• Plamondon, K., & Shahram, S. (2026). How we define equity drives what we do. Equity Science Lab, University of British Columbia.
• United Nations. (2021). Leaving no one behind: Equality and non‑discrimination in public institutions. New York, NY: United Nations.
• World Health Organization. (2022). Equity in health governance: A policy framework. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.