In the sector, women share the frustration of the pay equity task force, which dates back to 2004. The recommendations made in 2004 were then remade in 2016 by the Special Committee on Pay Equity. Right now we are really glad to see proactive legislation, but at the same time we are worried because it will be part of the budget implementation act. It should really be stand-alone legislation that specialists can look at and comment on.
In our budget, we ask for $80 million for an enforcement mechanism, which would be a pay equity commission, and for 50 enforcement officers. This estimate was done by Fay Faraday and Jan Borowy from the Ontario Equal Pay Coalition. It's based on estimates from the Ontario pay equity office's budget when it was a full-fledged budget in 1992, and it's also based on the need that we see from this legislation, which is high.
Women have been making complaints about pay equity. It's complaints-based, and now we want to see this be proactive. It's not only up to women to deal with that; it's up to society. We hope that this can be addressed in the next piece of legislation and that it can be adequately financed.