Thank you, Chair.
With respect to my Liberal colleague's comments, he is rebutting head-on the advice we got from the Canadian Labour Congress, the pay equity coalition, the Teamsters and CUPE. These are organizations which, since well before 2004, have been working with pay equity legislation. For example, in Ontario, which has legislated this since the eighties, they have extensive experience. In terms of Jan Borowy and Fay Faraday, you won't find human rights lawyers who have worked harder. They have argued the case law that has gotten us to this place.
The fact that postal workers fought the courts for 30 years because of the absence of federal pay equity legislation means we have significant case law. This is what the commitment was of the first Prime Minister Trudeau 42 years ago: to legislate pay equity. The fact that this has not been proactive means that it has been fought in the courts again and again. This is why it is a good initiative of this government to finally legislate proactive pay equity legislation.
To have the member say that he's going to vote down these amendments, which are arguably the most important in this whole finance committee's deliberation.... If you want this legislation to work for women and not have it revert back to the courts again and again, why on earth would you qualify the right of women to receive equal pay for work of equal value?
We have had every one of these labour witnesses say that you need to make this change. The witnesses said that this language “undermines” the intentions of the act, which is to address systemic gender wage discrimination. It undermines the human right of equal pay for equal work of equal value. This was their testimony. They said the task force on pay equity in 2004 recommended that the government “enact new stand-alone, proactive pay equity legislation in order that Canada can more effectively meet its international obligations and domestic commitments, and that such legislation be characterized as human rights legislation”.
If you believe in that recommendation, you cannot qualify the human rights of women to receive equal pay by referring to “the diverse needs of employers”, when the diverse needs of employers are addressed in another section of the legislation that does not undermine the human rights of women.