Evidence of meeting #50 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Your approach versus the difference that's taking place here is well known, but what have other countries done? Has that been consistent with what you're advocating for here?
9:20 a.m.
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Everyone's corporate law is very different, so it's very difficult to be able to map. People have come at bearer shares in different ways. The consistent approach is to require that shares be in registered form, which we believe our act does.
9:20 a.m.
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Our act does.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
There we go; that's better.
I still think there are some loopholes here, but I do appreciate the counsel.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I'd like to address Mr. Masse's and Ms. May's concern, just to explain the situation. I believe it would have been better to have something written in another section that's not open, but unfortunately that's not doable. Maybe we could take away any ambiguity whatsoever; however, that's not doable.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Seeing no further debate, shall amendment PV-4 carry?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
That means automatically amendment NDP-7 is also defeated.
(Clause 7 agreed to on division)
(Clause 8 agreed to on division)
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I suspect your ruling on this will be that it's not in scope and is therefore out of order.
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Then we'll continue on from there.
(Clauses 9 to 11 inclusive agreed to on division)
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I suspect this is going to be ruled out of order and not in scope. However, I think it is important to consider. If the chair would hopefully look at this as a potential...it goes with regard to the annual meetings of the shareholders and what constitutes the makeup of a corporation, whether female or male. It requires a 70% mix within a five-year period.
By the way, Mr. Chair, we did receive excellent support from legal on this to make sure this was in order. It's something that deals potentially with some charter issues and so forth. At the end of the day, it is compliant with all those things.
Basically it calls for us to have a minimum of 30% women on a board of directors, which I think is very modest, to say the least, in a country that's split around 50%. That's basically the minimum of where progressive countries are going. It's important to note the slide that has taken place in Canada for women on boards of directors. This would prescribe some flexibility. Again, with the penalties removed from this bill, it was only going to provide advice to the minister. It's not going to make significant threats to the corporations, but it's going to be a powerful statement of what we expect.
I would hope that we would consider this. It's obvious that corporate Canada is not compliant with the rest of the population with regard to gender equality. We've heard through testimony, as well, about the difficulty that Canada has. We have others who have moved to a quota system. We heard testimony that maybe a hybrid system—and this is what this is—is something we could look at and have very good results with. Some have moved towards that.
This is again a modest step forward to guaranteeing at least some focus and lens on the issue of gender equality in the boardrooms, and hopefully breaking some ground here with expectations.
With that, I propose the motion to amend.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We talked about the quotas and targets, and I remember there was a pivot point for me when we were talking about the difference between things being in the regulations versus in the legislation. I was won over, I would say, that the comply or explain section would make people show they were trying to approach diversity, gender diversity, and other diversity as well.
I see this as something that should be in the regulations. That's something the government said they were committed to doing, and hopefully after royal assent we would see that moving forward into the regulations section.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I appreciate that at least there's a conversation happening here with regard to it.
The reason I don't think it belongs in the regulation, to be quite frank, is that Parliament should be making a statement on this. We shouldn't be leaving it to the regulators. I appreciate the logic that Mr. Longfield has applied here, and that is a reasonable approach for many things. However, I think here is where we need to take a stand, and Parliament needs to be the voice. If we are not doing it, then I'm afraid the regulatory body, or a minister that administers a regulatory aspect, doesn't get the parliamentary oversight that is necessary. If, say, a government changes and the regulations don't have to come to committee or Parliament, they could easily be altered at that time. It leaves a gaping hole for that possibility.
I had hoped we were beyond that, but I suppose the evidence is there in our society. Women still make around 70% of what men do in a job that's doing the same thing. Women are under-represented in many aspects of the employment field. Politically, we have a problem with this.
We have a Prime Minister who is a self-declared feminist and who now has policy. This is ironic, in the sense that the minister, once again, is looking at a review that's seven or eight years out the window. If it's a priority for the government, this is a statement that Parliament can make about balance.
I would hope that this could get passed, because then at least we're making a statement that is quite clear. That gives the minister a little more power when we have comply or explain come forward later. I think the value here is for Parliament to make a statement. Again, the penalty to this is nothing more than the minister reviewing what's annually submitted to him or her.
Lastly, the regulatory aspect for this could be included, but again, that's a voice without Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Lloyd had mentioned leaving this to regulation and seeing where it's going to go. We do have one of the clauses talking about a fine not to exceed $10 million based on how the vote went in a director's meeting.
Perhaps Mr. Schaan could fill us in a little bit on, if that was to go into regulation versus being in the legislation, how that would be affected, and what his views are on the specific clauses from his perspective as far as the acts are concerned.
March 7th, 2017 / 9:30 a.m.
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
The specifics in NDP-9...?
9:30 a.m.
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
This essentially institutes hard gender quotas, if I'm reading this correctly, which would apply to all corporations, small and large, distributing and non-distributing.
I won't speak to the politics of it. I would simply say that the proposed approach is to require gender and diversity reporting through the regulations but no quotas in a comply or explain model to facilitate the conversation between shareholders and their companies.
The view from our perspective is that the regulations allow for flexibility for evolving language and evolving considerations in a modern marketplace, and the choice of non-quotas was an explicit one.