The emotional tax of being Indigenous in Canada

OTTAWA—Catalyst is a global non-profit with a Canadian arm which supports companies to help build workplaces that work for women. Catalyst recently released a report about emotional tax defined as “being on guard to protect against bias due to race, ethnicity, and gender." The report found it’s a serious issue in Canada as well as other countries (Emotional Tax and Work Teams: A View from 5 Countries). When I was young in my career, I thought everybody put on their armour before coming to work. I didn’t realize that non-Indigenous people don’t. It was a lightbulb moment. It’s the assumptions based in racism that puts pressures on Indigenous people. The pervasive stereotype is that Indigenous peoples have less and are less than. It’s the assumption of deficit. It shows up in the assumption that Indigenous people are the employee, not the employer. It shows up in assumptions that at night Indigenous men are the criminals, not the police. It shows up in assumptions that we take government funding, not contribute to the economy. Emotional tax is this sense of always having to defend your presence in groups or defend your contribution in work discussions. It takes more energy than one might think, and it takes away from the potential of reconciliation. Given that workplaces are where Indigenous peoples access health services from health providers, safety from police forces, citizen services from governments, and products from retail, then workplaces are the engine that can drive reconciliation. Workplaces need to ensure the safety of Indigenous peoples, so we can get to the reconciliation. It starts with the role-modelling of senior leadership and boards. It starts with leaders. If senior leadership can’t acknowledge their own biases and assumptions against First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, reconciliation has no change in the organization. If senior leaders can’t be vulnerable to role-model their own learning journey, it won’t happen in the organization. Andrew Magnan has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical sector and is a certified coach. He’s a white man who is a strong ally for reconciliation. In a recent conversation, he shared details about his own learning journey. His story was striking in his openness to share in coaching moments with others. There’s nothing like humility and a willingness to share your own learning journey, to overcome another person’s resistance to having compassion for Indigenous peoples. Based on his leadership and support to his team, his company made some significant steps in reconciliation in the first 16 months, and now that sense of compassion for Indigenous peoples, along with resolve to contribute to reconciliation, is baked into the company. Here's a short story of how to start reconciliation: organizational leaders need to be okay with saying, “I didn’t know, and here’s how I chose to learn more to do better.” That refusal to be open about learning is holding reconciliation back. It’s holding back organizational readiness to do reconciliation. Here’s the second secret of leading reconciliation: it’s not a tweak to your company or organization; reconciliation is a strategic priority or it’s really nothing. The quickest way to ensure reconciliation is a failure in your company is to not prioritize it as a strategic priority. This isn’t some small project that gets a quick drop of money from surplussed funds from the past fiscal. Just like any other strategic approach in a company or organization, you put your money towards what you prioritize. There are reconciliation expectations on governments, Crown corporations and all citizen-serving entities. Some are actually legal requirements—ensure the safety of Indigenous workers and leaders. Some are moral—do your part for reconciliation now. Delaying reconciliation just seems so res-school-era. Rose LeMay is Tlingit from the West Coast and the CEO of the Indigenous Reconciliation Group. She writes twice a month about Indigenous inclusion and reconciliation. In Tlingit worldview, the stories are the knowledge system, sometimes told through myth and sometimes contradicting the myths told by others. But always with at least some truth. The Hill Times

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The emotional tax of being Indigenous in Canada

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