Status of Women committee  I would say there are three features that generally are sort of problematic, although with specific details. The first is its coverage. The second is the process. Thirdly, there's the content. What we might anticipate will actually be recognized as a situation where there is inequitable compensation, I think, is more narrowly defined as well.

Status of Women committee  The short answer is that effectively she probably doesn't make her way through the process. You can compare this to the process in place for other workers under the Canadian Human Rights Act, whereby the Human Rights Commission would be available to some extent, at least in the initial investigation, to give some aid to the framing of the complaint and the informing of it.

Status of Women committee  I just want to say that if you're asking whether I support a collective bargaining regime, I do absolutely. I think it's a key feature of workplace justice in many circumstances, so I think unions have been important and continue to be important in terms of workers having fair, equitable, adequate employment contracts.

Status of Women committee  I think my answer was a yes.

Status of Women committee  Should we hear from LEAF first, because that was an explicit part of their original submission or...?

Status of Women committee  Okay. I'll just say very briefly, so as to give others a chance as well, that I think we'll see a halt to pay equity progress in this sector, straightforwardly. And of course, as you noted, this has implications for the full economic lifespan of these women. I think, as well, an important message is being sent that this is not a government that prioritizes women's equality, and that it's willing to give only lip service to these important key measures.

Status of Women committee  I can start off. I'm not sure that your hypothetical actually captures what's at play here—and I understand hypotheticals are always hard to draw—with the concern with respect to market forces. The issue that led to the recognition of pay equity in the first place was the recognition that women enter the labour force with a vulnerability to gender discrimination, and the characterization of jobs as being considered typically female results in a devaluing of them.

Status of Women committee  I don't want to jump in first again. Would someone else like to?

Status of Women committee  Well, no, I haven't received a response as a signatory, and to my knowledge, none of the other signatories has either. That distresses me, to tell you the truth. To send a letter off to my Prime Minister, and in particular a letter that had so many signatures on it of so many women who have been significant—and I'm not including myself—in key sectors of Canadian society and the struggle for women's equality....

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

Status of Women committee  I'd like to add something to this discussion that I think is an important consideration. I think it is critical that there be a challenge--under particularly section 15 of the charter--to this legislation that raises some really significant issues about women's equality. But I would also say that there are broad equality aspirations in our Constitution, aspirations of substantive equality, that the government should take to heart and implement, regardless of whether or not they think they have a piece of legislation that they can charter-proof.

Status of Women committee  It can absolutely happen. That's the concern. The notion of rights encodes an idea of trumps: an entitlement that you don't trade away and that you get regardless simply by virtue of your status as a human person deserving of dignity and equal respect. To put it as another item with other items on a bargaining table is really to say that it's not a right.

Status of Women committee  I'm going to jump in here because I very strongly disagree with that. I would link it back to your comment about the court challenges program. I see the court challenges program as critical to making the section 15 equality guarantees of the charter available and accessible to the most marginalized groups in our society.

Status of Women committee  Yes, of course. They're the workers' representatives. They have an obligation as the workers' representatives to take those pay equity concerns to the bargaining table. That does not mean, however, that the discrimination that results in an employment context is the union's fault in the same way that it's the employer's responsibility.

Status of Women committee  No, that's not correct. I hear someone else trying to get into this conversation.