The federal government offers its employees a variety of Indigenous cultural awareness and sensitivity programs through the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS), but participation in the optional sessions is relatively low.
The CSPS offers 15 different training sessions on Indigenous issues known as the Indigenous Training Series, but fewer than a fifth of public servants have attended any one session, according to the numbers from CSPS, which were included in a response to an order paper question submitted by NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo.
The most-attended session, called Reflecting on Cultural Bias: Indigenous Perspectives, has seen 51,430 public servants participate as of June this year.
According to the Treasury Board of Canada, the federal government employed as many as 319,601 people in 2021, meaning the training session with the highest attendance had roughly 16 per cent of public servants take part.
