With thanks to my colleague, that's not the interpretation of the lawyers who have been adjudicating these matters more than anybody.
It's not the interpretation of CUPE, which has done significant interventions on behalf of their members. They say that the other changes to part III of the labour code regarding equal pay are inconsistent with this provision and that if you want to align them you would vote “yes” to this amendment, that is, by deleting lines 31 to 33 entirely to remove the compensation exemption for precarious workers in this pay equity act in order to align it with the Canadian Labour Code amendments.
I'll just say again that this is based on decades of work. This is not my work. I have the honour of being the voice for these organizations at the committee. The committee has been given this gift of their attempt, at very short notice—a 900-page bill with extremely limited debate in the House, extremely limited time at committee and very limited time for the labour groups—to do these detailed amendments, which they really did hope in good faith would perfect the legislation.
I promise you that there are no politics in this. This is a straight transmission from the people on the ground and their interpretation of the legislation. It's given as a gift to all of us, and I think it's a great disappointment to not have that advice taken up. They want this to work and the NDP wants this to work. That is the context in which these amendments are offered.