International Trade committee  Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Hassan Yussuff. I'm the President of the Canadian Labour Congress. My colleague Chris Roberts is the director of our social policy department. The CLC speaks on behalf of three million unionized workers, men and women across the country.

Finance committee  I don't want to elaborate except to say that you can't exempt employers from their human rights responsibility. It would be a fundamental breach of human rights commitments. I hope that excusing employers from applying their responsibility in a way that is equitable for the people who are affected by the decisions they make is not what is intended.

Finance committee  As you know, there are three jurisdictions now that will have proactive pay equity legislation—Ontario, Quebec and now the federal jurisdiction. In the federal jurisdiction, a little over a million workers will be covered by the code, because the federal government is also going to broaden the coverage to ensure that the federal contractors' program will also have to comply with proactive pay equity legislation.

Finance committee  Yes, the section that would need to be amended is in the Canada Labour Code, part I. Certainly, our communication with the minister would mean that she would have to table a regulatory change to plug that hole that we have identified.

Finance committee  Sure.

Finance committee  First I want to applaud Minister Hajdu for the work she did on the part III provisions of the Canada Labour Code. As you know, it's almost been 15 years since Harry Arthurs first tabled his report when he looked comprehensively at what could be done to improve part III of the Canada Labour Code and to see these provisions brought forward.

Finance committee  We're not saying that the bill itself is unconstitutional; we're saying that a specific section of the bill would need to be amended because the court has just recently ruled on a similar provision in the Quebec legislation. It's identical. I think it has problematic application if it's not changed.

Finance committee  First, let me say that yes, there are many provisions in this bill that have some complexities, and we have examined almost every aspect of it. That does not faze us in terms of what the bill is trying to do overall. We've been waiting for decades for proactive pay equity legislation.

Finance committee  Let me start. I think the pay equity legislation, as it is contained in the bill, addresses many of the things we've been advocating for decades. Are there some areas for improvement? Absolutely, and we stated them very categorically before this committee. If they are not addressed in the way we have recommended, I think it could erode the principle of pay equity for women in the federal jurisdiction, and that would be unfortunate.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair and committee members. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Of course, Bill C-86 contains many provisions that are important to working people. I welcome any questions you may have in any aspect of the bill. However, I will confine my opening remarks to pay equity provisions and the amendments to the federal labour standards, the pay equity bill.

Finance committee  We can do much to help folks on disability to ensure that they're not living in poverty in this country. A large part of it is to get them to participate in the workforce in the first place. Most of the time they're not getting hired. Anything we can do to enhance their participation in the workforce is a positive, because they then become less dependent on society.

Finance committee  The reality is that women represent 50% of the workforce today.

Finance committee  The reality is that if we're not going to address some of the systemic issues that have always plagued women's participation in the economy, we're not going to change the economy. Addressing systemic issues does take time. We're changing attitudes, changing approach as to how we do things.

Finance committee  Well, it's for many reasons. First, we want an equal society for all, not just for our members. Our members also include a lot of aboriginal first nation members across this country. They are part of our labour movement—and, equally so, whatever issues they bring to us. You would be surprised at the debate we had on all these issues at our most recent convention a year ago.

Finance committee  There are some differences in our movement on this. It's not uniform.