OTTAWA — The Harper government says race and ethnicity need not apply when it comes to landing a job in the public service.

The Conservatives have ordered a review of government hiring practices, which currently give priority to qualified applicants from minority groups.

The Tories say favouring applicants from one group or another isn't fair.

"To say that you cannot apply for a job in your government, which is funded by your tax dollars, because you're not from an approved racial or ethnic category, it just seems inappropriate on so many levels," Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said in an interview Thursday.

But the union that represents government workers says only a fraction of jobs are restricted to certain groups. The Public Service Alliance of Canada's numbers show that of 5,000 jobs posted in 2008, only 91 jobs were designated for one group.

"I think the statistics speak for themselves," said Patty Ducharme, the union's executive vice-president.

"In the federal public sector, if you're not a member of the dominant population, it's hard to get hired, it's hard to get promoted, and it's hard to actually have a career."

Before affirmative hiring policies were brought in, visible minorities, including aboriginals, were underrepresented in the public service.

The federal government relies on data from Statistics Canada to determine how many people from each group are in the country's workforce. That data tells the government how well each group is represented within the federal bureaucracy.

The government's latest figures show more women, aboriginals and visible minorities worked in the public service last year than the year before. The number of people with disabilities stayed the same.

The numbers also show three of the four groups are over-represented in federal government compared with the overall Canadian workforce.

As of March 2009, women made up 54.7 per cent of the public service. That's slightly more than the 52.3 per cent share women hold in the total workforce.

Aboriginals made up 4.5 per cent of government workers, but were only three per cent of the national workforce in the last census.

People with disabilities filled 5.9 per cent of government jobs. The percentage of people with disabilities in the overall workforce was four per cent.

Visible minorities were the only group with less representation in the federal government than in the workforce generally. They made up 9.8 per cent of federal employees and accounted for 12.4 per cent of the national workforce.

The announcement of the hiring policy review came a day after the country's chief statistician, Munir Sheikh, resigned over the government's decision to axe the mandatory long census form.

The census issue has dogged the Conservatives over the summer. Groups ranging from business executives to doctors have taken the Tories to task for axing the mandatory long form in favour of a voluntary survey.

But Kenney said he doesn't expect the same blow-back over any changes to federal hiring practices.

"I think most Canadians have a fundamental sense of fairness," he said.

"And they would bristle at the notion that their government would not allow some people to apply for government jobs on the basis of race or ethnicity."

New Democrat MP Pat Martin called the move a "full-frontal attack on affirmative action."

"It is paranoia on their part, though, because we are nowhere near achieving equity in the face of the public-service workforce," he said.

"I don't think they can make a case that white, middle-class people are being denied access to public service jobs, or that there's any preference shown."

A spokesman for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff accused the Tories of meddling with the public service to pander to their conservative base.

"They don't understand why having a representative public service is important," Michael O'Shaughnessy said in an email.

"But most important, they are trying to change the channel. They are throwing some red meat at their most right-wing supporters."