Status of Women committee  I would like to repeat what was said earlier. Pay equity is a fundamental right which it is taking a long time to give effect to. Thirty-five years ago, we might have been able to experiment with new models. But this is 2009 and the other models have been tried. In Ontario and Q

Status of Women committee  I would like to address the question of the positive impact of pay equity on workplaces and on the market. When I chaired the commission that developed the Quebec Pay Equity Act, the President of the Conseil du patronat du Québec came to meet us during our hearings. He told me t

Status of Women committee  Are you talking about the role that experts play in instituting pay equity, or about the proactive program?

Status of Women committee  The employer has an obligation to introduce it in the workplace. In other words, there will be no need to wait until an immigrant woman lodges a complaint for that to occur. On the other side—in other words, under the proposed legislation, there is no doubt that a non-unionized i

Status of Women committee  It would still be necessary to provide special support to non-unionized workers, immigrant women, and so on. At the Pay Equity Commission in Quebec, a committee is currently reviewing their specific situation. There are matters of language, time, and so on. Theirs is certainly a

Status of Women committee  I find it unfortunate that we are now just comparing the former model, which is costly, to the current Act. The proactive model, as advocated by the federal Task Force, has proven its worth: many women received salary adjustments, and wage discrimination was eliminated. The union

Status of Women committee  I simply wanted to add that the situation is worse for immigrant women. They suffer from even greater wage discrimination. They certainly will not lodge a complaint on their own. They cannot afford to. So, it is doubly prejudicial in their case.

Status of Women committee  As I understand it, you are asking me whether the model proposed in the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act will correct the problems associated with the complaint-based model, since it is considered to be a proactive model. I have two comments. First of all, the starting p

Status of Women committee  Wages are the responsibility of the employer. The person who pays the wages is the employer. Therefore, you cannot say that the union or the workers are responsible for the wages that are paid. In proactive legislation, that work is done jointly. Why is it done jointly? In order

Status of Women committee  You have asked a lot of questions. You are really asking how exactly this model does not jibe with the realities of the labour market. My interpretation of that statement is that the labour market, unfortunately, is still characterized by extensive discrimination against women in

Status of Women committee  That is actually a reflection of the whole problem with this legislation. It is not aimed at eliminating wage discrimination. Indeed, if you read the entire text from cover to cover, you will see that nowhere does it mention wage discrimination and nowhere is there any comparison

Status of Women committee  The model recommended in the Task Force report reflects what was done in both Ontario and Quebec, and the mistakes that were made. So, it goes even further than the system that was implemented in Quebec and Ontario. Another important characteristic of the proactive approach is th

Status of Women committee  I will summarize what I just said. The visibility of the specific characteristics of female work has an effect on the evaluation methods used by employers. These evaluation methods, on which compensation systems are based, will therefore result in wages which are discriminatory a

Status of Women committee  I would like to begin by thanking the Committee for inviting me to share my thoughts on the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. My name is Marie-Thérèse Chicha, and I am a professor at the School of Industrial Relations at the University of Montreal. I chaired the Committe