HRDC was based at a government office facility at Place du Portage IV in Gatineau (formerly downtown Hull, Quebec).

HRDC was created in 1993 by Prime Minister Kim Campbell's government in an attempt to decrease the size of the federal cabinet by grouping several departments with similar responsibilities.

The new department, however was poorly focused and had a wide range of institutional cultures from the merged bureaucracies; it also had one of the larger departmental budgets and a variety of responsibilities ranging from the unemployment insurance program to the issuance of social insurance numbers and job training and counselling.

Although HRDC was operationally functional since 1993, the Department of Human Resources Development Act was not adopted until 29 May 1996 [1] and officially entered into force on 12 July 1996 when it received Royal Assent and was published in the Canada Gazette.

Other problems relating to several incompatible email systems made HRDC a scapegoat for attacks on the government by opposition parties.