Evidence of meeting #189 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Lori Straznicky Executive Director, Pay Equity Task Team, Strategic Policy, Analysis and Workplace Information, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development
In terms of the Crown corporations that it would impact, it would be any of those who would be within the jurisdiction of the federally regulated private sector.
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Executive Director, Pay Equity Task Team, Strategic Policy, Analysis and Workplace Information, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development
For example, it would include the Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
How many employees in total would this be? Do you have rough estimates? How many people are being excluded from the provisions?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Pay Equity Task Team, Strategic Policy, Analysis and Workplace Information, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development
I'm not following your question on how many people are being excluded from....
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
All these Crown corporations will be excluded, so it removes individuals employed by corporations listed in schedule IV or V of the Financial Administration Act as being employees in the definition of the pay equity legislation.
How many people is that in total? I'm just wondering on the balance of things, departments versus Crown corporations, how many employees are we talking about in a rough estimate.
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Executive Director, Pay Equity Task Team, Strategic Policy, Analysis and Workplace Information, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development
With the amendment as drafted, everybody would be covered.
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Liberal
9:35 a.m.
NDP
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
All right, we'll have a recorded vote, Mr. Clerk.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
On NDP-17, we have Ms. Malcolmson.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair.
The requirement to file a pay equity plan was discussed in detail by the partners of the coalition. Their argument was that to ensure pay equity is fully tracked and enforced in the federal jurisdiction, the current legislation requires an amendment that the employers file their pay equity plan with the commissioner. Without the pay equity plan being filed with the commissioner, there is no meaningful baseline from which to monitor or audit an employer, and the lack of the obligation to file a plan with the commission they called a serious gap in the legislation.
Posting a draft pay equity plan is a good thing, but posting in the workplace is not a substitute for filing a plan with the key enforcement agency. They described one of the acknowledged weaknesses of both the Quebec and the Ontario pay equity acts is that they do not require employers to file pay equity plans with the pay equity commissions, and as a result, there is no systemic way to identify the organizations that did not comply with the act.
Particularly in the private sectors, widespread non-compliance was acknowledged, which once again depends on individual employees or unions filing complaints to activate compliance. The Ontario and Quebec acts did not enable periodic audits. As the 2004 task force stated, the very existence of such provisions would have been an effective incentive for organizations to comply with the act.
That is the rationale. This is again an opportunity. The only upside for the federal government having waited so long—42 years—to legislate pay equity is that we have the opportunity to learn from the experience of provinces that legislated this decades ago.
Both of these amendments are supported by the labour witnesses, and particularly by the detailed testimony of the coalition that I've just described. I urge the members to vote yes.
9:35 a.m.
Peter Fragiskatos London North Centre, Lib.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
Forty-two years indeed, it's an honour to work on historic legislation such as this.
I would rebut only by following the track that Mr. Sorbara set out when speaking about the previous amendment raised by the NDP. First, the motion ought to be rejected because the pay equity commissioner already has the power to order an employer or group of employers to produce its pay equity plan and can indeed issue administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance with such an order.
Furthermore, the act establishes a broad suite of monitoring and compliance tools, including requiring employers to submit an annual statement to the pay equity commissioner, and other measures to ensure that the pay equity commissioner can adequately target compliance activities.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
I'll flag again for the government members that this is not what the witnesses said—all of them. They said the requirement to file an annual report will not provide the necessary pay transparency to rigorously enforce pay equity. The lack of the obligation to file a plan with the commission is a serious gap in the legislation.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
I would like a recorded vote, please, Chair.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair.
This is an amendment that was proposed by CUPE, again, a union with extensive experience in litigating failures of pay equity in the absence of federal pay equity legislation.
The fact that we have not had proactive federal pay equity legislation means that it has had to be fought by one employee at a time, by one union at a time, until the Conservatives legislated against the ability for unions to bring pay equity complaints on their own, putting an even further burden on the individual worker. No wonder we have such a pay gap in Canada still.
This was the testimony that the committee received from CUPE. They said proactive pay equity legislation needs to include an overall standard of non-discrimination for all of the elements of a pay equity plan and its application. There should be an obligation on the employer to ensure that no element of a pay equity plan is discriminatory on the basis of gender and that all elements are applied on a gender-neutral basis.
They recommended that proposed section 12, which sets out a general obligation on the employer to establish a pay equity plan in accordance with the act, should be amended to provide for an overall standard of non-discrimination for pay equity plans. This is the remedy that was recommended, that there be a subsection and that the subsection should read:
Every employer must ensure that the pay equity plan does not discriminate on the basis of gender and that it is applied in a gender neutral way.
Thank you, Chair.
9:40 a.m.
London North Centre, Lib.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have respect for the member, I have respect for the work that she's done on these issues, but on this amendment I have to disagree, namely because it creates a problem of duplication. Indeed the legislation already requires employers to act in a gender-neutral and non-discriminatory manner when fulfilling their pay equity obligations.
For instance, proposed section 43 requires that whatever method an employer uses to determine the value of work of a job class, it must not discriminate on the basis of gender.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I'll suggest again that the testimony that this committee heard, from the lawyers and the women and men who have been adjudicating this all this time, says no. I promise there's a great deal of good faith on the part of pay equity activists. They're glad to see legislation tabled. They are glad that this government of all governments has brought it forward. I'm very pleased to have been at the front of the NDP's opposition day—three years ago now, almost—that got this on the table, that got the government to amend its approach and to add this into its mandate for this term. We're very glad to have had that happen.
I promise you, we're not making amendments trying to throw a spanner in the works here. These are recommendations that came from your partners, and they are asking you to get this legislation right now. So far, every single amendment.... These are not NDP amendments, even though they have our party name on them. They're coming from your labour partners. They're the people who have been working on this for decades. That you would say your opinion overrides the testimony that you heard from all these labour organizations is, I think, extremely discouraging. I can only imagine the conversations that will happen among the people who are watching you vote all of these amendments down.
We want this to be effective. We want to get it right. I promise you, all of these amendments are made in good faith as they were proposed by your labour partners.
