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In recent years, American businesses have scaled back their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and there are signs the trend has crossed the border into Canada.
One global study that tracks just gender equity across 19 dimensions – such as parental leave, gender pay gap and workforce representation – found that Canada, like the United States, is lagging global peers.
The Gender Equality Report and Ranking, conducted by gender data and insights provider Equileap, tracks those metrics at about 3,400 public companies with market capitalizations of more than US$2-billion in 24 developed countries.
In its 2026 edition, the National Bank of Canada took the top spot, achieving a gender equality score of 86 per cent; three points higher than the second-place finisher and the highest score ever achieved in the annual report. Canada, however, only had one other top 100 finisher, CIBC, which scored 74 per cent, placing it 48th overall.
The combined score of public Canadian enterprises, meanwhile, slipped to 45 per cent in 2026 from 46 per cent in 2025, making the country one of three where gender equity declined, along with the U.S. and New Zealand. In fact, Canada finished third from last in the annual global ranking of 16 advanced economies, ahead of only the U.S. and Japan.
“Canadian companies have room for improvement when it comes to their gender equality performance,” says Clara Sánchez, the report’s author and the corporate communications and insights manager for Equileap parent company Denominator. “Both the U.S. and Canada have almost the same average score and both had declines in 2026, so we can see a similar trend.”
In some metrics, such as gender representation, the U.S. fared better than Canada, with a workforce that is 32 per cent female, compared with Canada’s 30 per cent. Both countries, however, lag their global peers.
“North America – which in this case is just Canada and the U.S. – is the least transparent region in terms of the gender pay gap,” Ms. Sánchez says. “This reflects weaker regulatory pressure compared to regions like Europe and the Asia Pacific, where pay gap transparency has increased a lot, mainly driven by legislation.”
According to the study, 24 per cent of Canadian companies report gender pay data, compared with 74 per cent of those in Europe, following the European Union’s Pay Transparency Directive in 2023.
Canada fares better on diversity
Declining transparency wasn’t just limited to gender ratios, with recent reports suggesting fewer Canadian companies are disclosing other diversity measures.
For example, a study published last fall by national law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP found that fewer TSX-listed companies are voluntarily disclosing diversity metrics.
Despite some signs of pullback, however, Canada is still a leader in diversity overall.
“If you isolate gender, we’re definitely not at the top, but if you take into account gender, race, disability, indigenous peoples and 2SLGBTQ+ in combination, we fare quite well [by global standards] on the issue of representation,” says Wendy Cukier, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University and founder of TMU’s Diversity Institute.
Though Canada is still a global leader in DEI, Dr. Cukier says the country’s exposure to American media and close cultural ties with its southern neighbour have brought some backlash over the border.
“We saw a dramatic shift in public opinion and then a shift in government policy with respect to immigration in a very short span of time,” she says. “I attribute much of that to spillover effects from the United States, as well as deliberate disinformation that tried to blame immigrants for the housing crisis and other things that have been proven untrue.”
A 2024 study co-authored by Dr. Cukier found immigration has historically had little to no impact on home prices, while suggesting immigrant workers are needed to fill critical labour gaps that constrain supply.
In a survey conducted by TMU’s Diversity Institute in October, 54 per cent of Canadians said efforts to increase DEI at work were a good thing overall, while 16 per cent viewed such policies negatively.
“That is very out of whack with what you would think if you listened to the media, where it’s positioned as a controversy about talent and excellence versus equity, diversity and inclusion, and that simply is not reflected in polling,” Dr. Cukier says. “There’s evidence of a loss of momentum, but I would argue there’s still not a lot of evidence of backsliding.”
The movement against DEI in the U.S. has made such issues feel more polarizing than they really are on this side of the border, Dr. Cukier says.
Dr. Cukier argues that Canada is more dependent on the integration of diverse populations than its American neighbours, especially as its relationship with the U.S. frays and it seeks new trading partnerships around the world.
“We’re focused on equipping Canada to be globally competitive, innovative, sustainable, self-sufficient, and we need all hands on deck,” Dr. Cukier says. “We have a great opportunity as a country, not just to attract the best and brightest, but the brand of Canada gets stronger the more we’re differentiated from the United States in the current environment.”