Okay. I hope your translators and interpreters can keep up with this.
I want to speak very quickly about the proposed Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, and specifically I want to say that this proposed act introduces the notion that women's work in the public sector should be valued according to prevailing market conditions in the private sector. I would say that's what got us into this problem--the question of market conditions.
It asserts a false equivalence between management and the union by making the union bear responsibility for the results of bargaining equitable compensation without restricting management's rights to hire, control information, determine job classifications, or issue paycheques. An employer may fire a worker who files a complaint and have a $10,000 fine, and yet a union that helps a worker make the complaint will face a $50,000 fine.
I just want to say, finally, in my 60 seconds, that this act really disregards the federal pay equity task force report, which came out in 2004, and which has been endorsed in one way or another by all sorts of parties and individuals. It was a piece of legislation that called for proactive, inclusive, timely legislation. It was well researched. There were many consultations. There were many research papers. We should have had pay equity legislation in the federal sector by now.
Thank you.