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Bains sees board diversity as encompassing the whole national rainbow of sex, ethnicity, race, disability and Indigenous people. The diversity targets, he told the Senate committee, should ultimately track all forms, including “religion, culture, sexual orientation, economic status or lived experience.” As data are gathered on all these elements of diversity, it will allow for a “richer, more evidence-based discussion between shareholders and the management and directors of corporations.”

Bains was later asked by Sen. Howard Wetston, former head of the Ontario Securities Commission, to elaborate on the meaning of “diversity,” since most discussion to date in corporate circles had focused on gender. In response, Bains said “there’s no common definition of diversity” and that, “Fundamentally, from my point of view, it’s diversity of thought, perspectives and ideas.”

Sen. Pamela Wallin later delivered an astute observation. The minister was making it clear, said Wallin, that through Bill C-25 “they don’t just want to use the gender targets, the racialized targets and disabilities targets; he is looking at something else and trying to work in the realm of ideas. He wants people with diverse views, approaches and thinking, and this will bring us a different kind of board.”

Wallin has a point that should alarm all of corporate Canada. Government-mandated diversity of views and thinking has no place in the boardrooms of the nation. Boardrooms are centres of profit-seeking decision-making aimed at providing returns to investors. With Bill C-25, Bains and Trudeau are launching another subversive attack on the corporate model that would change corporations into socio/political operations. Should boards be required to include members of green groups, carbon-divestment institutions, labour officials, sustainable development advocates and government pension funds — on top of meeting gender, racial, diversity and Indigenous targets?