Pay Equity committee  I'll start very quickly. I think the title of our presentation says it all: the time for action is now. As a 36-year employee, I am certainly one who did benefit from pay equity. I think it's about the next generation. We need to have a proactive pay equity law so we don't find

Pay Equity committee  I'll start, and Helen will finish. Certainly they do have the expertise, but with all of the tasks at hand, unless there's going to be some assistance to them, I think they're spread far to thin right now.

Pay Equity committee  If I might add, we've just been through a government that has done major downsizing for 10 years within the federal public service, so our members have found that unfortunately equity group members have left the government through no fault of their own. There is a decided under-r

Pay Equity committee  Because I'm at 36 years, and I'm not sure how long Ms. Daviau has been with the government—

Pay Equity committee  —there have been many attempts at a new classification system. Let me be clear. There was UJEP. There was UCS. I think there was La Relève, but there have been many attempts. In 2006 the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada signed a document with Treasury Board tha

Pay Equity committee  I would suggest to you that they were probably all internally run by Treasury Board. The process we have now, Helen....

Pay Equity committee  Well, if you're asking me would the union, if PSECA is in place, assist our members with pay equity, we certainly would, but the fine would be $50,000. For every member we help, it's a $50,000 fine.

Pay Equity committee  Our understanding of PSECA, while it hasn't been enacted yet, is that, if the union were to file any pay equity complaints, it's a $50,000 fine because we're filing it on behalf of our membership. What the task force clearly articulated was that we needed to have proactive pay eq

Pay Equity committee  Yes.

Pay Equity committee  Yes, because my understanding is that this was the recommendation of the task force.

Pay Equity committee  Yes.

Pay Equity committee  Maybe I'll start, since I haven't spoken to any of the questions. I would like to advise the committee that I'm a recipient of pay equity. I've been with the federal government for 36 years, and many of those years were as a CR, which is the clerical regulatory category. When w

Pay Equity committee  Thank you very much. Good evening, and thank you for inviting the Public Service Alliance of Canada to appear before the committee. PSAC represents about 140,000 members who may be affected by the recommendations made by this committee. These are members in the federal public s

Finance committee  I will get you the list.

Finance committee  No, I'm certainly not saying that. What I'm saying is that the government or the Treasury Board has yet to indicate to us what is wrong with it, where the flaws are in it. Certainly, if they were to point out flaws, we would enter into negotiations in good faith. But when you d