Status of Women committee  We have the minimum standards in part II of the Canada Labour Code. In the fact that they seek to add additional guarantees in the collective bargaining process, would one say that therefore occupational health and safety is negotiable?

Status of Women committee  I think you started to ask questions about health and safety.

Status of Women committee  Part II of the Canada Labour Code deals with occupational health and safety. It applies to both the federal private sector and the federal public sector. Canada Post's unions usually negotiate to incorporate all those provisions into the collective agreement so that they can have

Status of Women committee  I think so. All we're saying is, in achieving pay equity, does the fact that you achieve it through the collective bargaining process diminish somehow the principle of pay equity?

Status of Women committee  I'm not certain there's any mechanism in the act itself to monitor progress, but you may want to consider making recommendations or finding some way of monitoring progress once this bill is implemented to ensure it's meeting the objectives generally. Whether the Public Service La

Status of Women committee  We're endorsing the concept that both the employer and the trade union, for all the reasons we've given, are jointly responsible for achieving and implementing equal pay for work of equal value.

Status of Women committee  The legislation requires that both parties address that issue.

Status of Women committee  That board has a lot of expertise. The tribunals under the Human Rights Act are usually ad hoc tribunals with no particular expertise, at least in modern experience.

Status of Women committee  What I'm saying is they're ad hoc--

Status of Women committee  As to the difference in the fine, basically if the two parties are responsible for the outcome, then if complaints are brought, they are to be brought against both parties, right?

Status of Women committee  That's a whole other debate, but the Public Service Labour Relations Board has a lot of expertise--

Status of Women committee  I think they can be reconciled. That's what Weiler's thesis is. They have to be reconciled. With the articulation of the principle in the statute, then the means by which one achieves it.... It makes sense to be in a unionized environment, through the collective bargaining proce

Status of Women committee  I think FETCO would agree. There's no debate. No one is challenging that, as Weiler says, both these principles are sacrosanct: freedom of association or collective bargaining and equal pay for work of equal value.

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

Status of Women committee  Just for clarification, I do know that one of the Treasury Board witnesses, who made an earlier appearance, did say they found support for their position in the FETCO brief before the Bilson task force and presumably in Paul Weiler's testimony, which I referred to here this morni