Visible Minorities and Women in Senior Leadership Positions: London, Hamilton and Ottawa


This study investigated the level of visible minority representation in leadership positions in the municipal public and not-for-profit sectors in the cities of London, Hamilton and Ottawa. In addition, it examined the representation of female visible minorities and of women overall in these positions. Results were analyzed separately for the following sectors: voluntary, municipal public, and education sectors, as well as municipal and provincial agencies, boards and commissions. A team of researchers trained on the Statistics Canada definition of visible minorities independently examined captioned, publicly available photographs and biographical notes of identified sector leaders to assess their visible minority status and gender. In total, 2,415 leaders were analyzed for their visible minority status and 2,500 leaders were analyzed for their gender.