Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good evening, Minister. It's great to see you. I harken back to our days when we sat together on HUMA.
I am obviously coming to you from the beautiful riding of Saint John—Rothesay, located on the unceded territory of the Wolastoqey peoples.
Minister, you know my riding and you know the strong labour component to the riding. I wanted to touch base, talk to you a little bit about pay equity and ask you some questions on that. We've seen over the last nine months the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's been more severe, obviously, for some Canadians than others. In fact, the pandemic has highlighted a variety of systemic inequalities that need to be addressed.
Minister, you know my riding and the wonderful labour leaders in it, like Darlene Bembridge, Ciara Vanderbeck, Angela Campbell and Maureen O'Hearon-Lang, from the Public Service Alliance; Erin Howell Sharpe, whom you've met, from Unifor; and Tammy Nadeau and Sharon Teare from CUPE. Obviously we work with them daily and hand in hand, but when it comes to equal pay for equal value, according to recent data, women earn 89 cents for every dollar earned by men. In 2018, our government put forward and Parliament adopted a revised Pay Equity Act. Recently the draft regulations were released and consultations will run until January 13, 2021.
Minister, can you tell the committee what these regulations will mean for Canadians when they come into force?