Industry Committee on March 9th, 2017

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will have copies distributed in both English and French. It's very much a modest change to what's been proposed by the Green Party in some respects, but once again it uses language that was specifically passed under Bill C-16, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. It says that Bill C-25, in clause 24, be amended by replacing lines 5 to 7 on page 9 with the following:

information respecting gender representation and diversity—including in regard to colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability— among the directors and among members of senior management as defined by regulation as well as any prescribed information respecting diversity.

Let's be clear on this motion. This was passed in the House of Commons as part of amending the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, and it still includes the regulations that will have the oversight of this.

This gives a good window, not only so Parliament can have something on the record for this but also for the regulatory oversight part of this so it is still fluid within that jurisdiction.

The big difference on this is that it makes it consistent with previous legislation passed through this particular House of Commons so we will not be inconsistent with what we have previously done. Following this path is obviously important for consistency, not just for this country, related to race and ethnic divisions and representation as well as regarding the gender issues we've raised in the past. In fact, if you didn't catch it, Mr. Bains had a good statement on promoting diversity and inclusion on International Women's Day. He said that Canada benefits when more women reach the highest levels of achievement. He said, regarding diversity and openness on International Women's Day, that Canada needs more women to reach the highest levels of achievement because an open society that values a diversity of ideas and perspectives is good for business, and that it is also good for innovation, which is Canada's path to economic growth.

I thought that was put well. This will help reinforce that for all members of Parliament.

Again, it would be odd for us to have a leading piece of legislation regarding the description of diversity and gender and then for us to divert away from that legislation, especially given that it's in the Canadian human rights code. I think it would be very alarming for us to divert from what the House of Commons has already passed as a definition. Again, for those who are concerned about any changes, there is the regulatory aspect part of it.

I'll leave it at that for now. Hopefully, we can dispense of this and move forward with a good vote and have this completed, because, again, it provides an open door for both. It's a win-win for everybody. It's also consistent with the government agenda. Again, I think it would be really odd for us as a committee to basically say the human rights code and the Canadian Human Rights Act are inconsistent with our legislation here. It would be quite telling for us to push back against Senate legislation that we have already passed in the House of Commons.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

I will just remind members that if the NDP-13 amendment is adopted, then CPC-1 will no longer be in play.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

I have just a couple of points, Brian. In the last part, it talks about “prescribed information respecting diversity”. I'm just curious to know what “prescribed information” with respect to diversity actually means.

Second, if we were to do this, I'd like to perhaps change it from “or mental or physical disability” to just “or disability”. I understand where it's coming from, but we are speaking about members of a board of directors and so on. I think perhaps we could simply look at “disability” versus the other part.

The third thing is that I think we talked about aboriginal and indigenous heritage specifically and whether or not that is captured when you speak of “national or ethnic origin”. I just think that's an addition to it.

Perhaps you could flesh out whether or not “prescribed information” actually deals with some of those things, and then give your thoughts on the other two points with regard to disability and aboriginal or indigenous heritage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

With regard to the first point, at the end of the day it says, “among the directors and among the members of senior management as defined by regulation”, which makes it not inclusive to what we just talked about here. This was used as a kind of footprint of what it could be.

That also answers a little bit some of your questions about our adding other different groups or descriptions. I think that's why mental and physical disability were identified a little bit differently. There's quite a debate about what that really is and consists of. Most recently there have been a lot of issues around mental illness. That's where the regulatory aspect of the change is still part of this. This is kind of like a “will of Parliament” for that.

With regard to the second part, “as well as by prescribed information respecting diversity”, my understanding is that the regulations include that change. They would actually have to provide that information. The regulations actually call for that. That's my understanding of it.

Perhaps we could have Mr. Schaan clarify, if that's appropriate, whether or not I'm correct on that. He'll be able to set me straight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Schaan, go ahead.

[Mark Schaan, Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry]

Thank you.

With respect to the way the bill is laid out in terms of “prescribed information” respecting gender representation and diversity, the regulation would be guided by the legislation as passed. In this particular case, the regulations would have to indicate the prescribed information that the prescribed corporations—in this case, distributing corporations of the CBCA—would need to provide to their shareholders, in the proxy circular, on an annual basis.

The regulations would need to define and lay out, for each one of these categories, what prescribed information they would need to provide—i.e., prescribed information on the senior management and their board makeup related to age, colour, race, religion, and national or ethnic origin. Each one of those would need to be spelled out in the regulations, and the proxy circular would be required for the corporation to be able to fill out each one of those.

I hope that clarifies it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes. Thank you. I think it was very helpful.

This is consistent with your amendment, too, with regard to the ending paragraph there.

To me, since it's already been vetted through the House of Commons, I would prefer to keep to this. If there are any suggestions for changes, I'm open to them. I would just keep the notation of it, that's all.

I appreciate those suggestions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much.

During the time that we discussed the amendments to this bill, at our discussions on Tuesday, countries around the world were moving ahead of us already. Iceland has had legislation on equal pay come before their government. Also, there's an organization called the Shareholder Association for Research and Education, and what they're doing is shaming corporations that don't have any diversity on their boards. It's being spearheaded by teachers' unions and federations and other labour-led organizations.

While we're discussing all these things and all the reasons why we can do it behind the scenes through regulation, there are organizations that are doing the job that we're not prepared to do, or that some members of this committee aren't prepared to do. It's like we're standing still, in my opinion. Legislatures around the world.... Even in the United States, on equal pay, Minnesota has legislation for this, and corporations that have over 25 employees have to provide certification of their pay and their pay grids, etc.

I am still baffled, even after Mr. Lametti's comments. No disrespect to him, but they really didn't tell me anything more than what I heard from his Liberal colleagues on Tuesday. I was thinking that there would be some actual wording put towards a regulation or at least a framework behind it.

Again, I think that what Mr. Masse is presenting, and what our party has presented, is about legislators trying to legislate something in the law that makes a difference for people, and specifically the people Mr. Masse and Mr. Dreeshen have mentioned.

Yesterday was a pretty impressive day on Parliament Hill, which you would think would empower members of Parliament to consider putting language into law that would empower those people, those women who were on the Hill yesterday. Days like today, when I sit here and listen to all the reasons and excuses why we can't put words like this into law, make me feel that if in four years they hold a day like they had yesterday, they should do it not in the House of Commons but in the office buildings at Industry Canada, because those are the people, apparently, who are prepared to do something to make a difference. It's not the legislators who are; it's the public servants who work down the street. That's probably where we should have our celebrations next time we do that, because those are the people who are bold enough or brave enough to do something about it.

We can discuss this all day long. We can talk about other examples of how the government is going to be left in the dust. Teachers' federations, teachers' labour unions, and other labour associations and organized labour are going to do the heavy lifting for this Parliament, because this Parliament doesn't want to do it and isn't interested in doing it. From what I can see, the best offer we have is “have faith in us”. They're saying, “We don't have anything to present today, but have faith in us.”

We've had two months to put something before this committee as an act of good faith and we don't see it. It's disappointing. I'm not saying that it's hypocritical, but it is disappointing. We'll see what happens.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

My question is for Mr. Schaan on the wording that has been presented by the NDP in the subamendment. Are the terms expressed there in line with the Employment Equity Act? Do we have a dovetailing of that?

I know that we're speaking about what was presented in Bill C-16, but I'm just curious as to whether or not that is enhanced by or related to the same terminology we have for the Employment Equity Act.

[Mark Schaan]

This would be a significant expansion of the Employment Equity Act's four groups. The four groups under the Employment Equity Act are women, visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and aboriginal peoples. Adding “colour”, “religion”, and “national origin” would be quite substantively expansive.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

If I may, Mr. Chair, the Employment Equity Act speaks specifically about aboriginals, yet we wouldn't be using that here.

Do you see a rationale for adding that to the subamendment? I'll leave that part to Mr. Masse to expand upon. I'm curious as to whether or not there would be an enhancement in going that way.

[Mark Schaan]

I couldn't speak to the rationale or not. I would just say that the employment equity groups were put in because they're easily defined and allow people to comply with a self-identification process.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

Perhaps Mr. Masse could weigh in on that, if you wouldn't mind, on the aboriginal part. I don't think we had gotten back to it, or else I missed it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's up to the committee to decide how it wants to proceed. The criticism we received prior to this, without any solution being proposed, was that it was too expansive or there were problems with the wording. I did research and found the human rights code adjusted in the.... There's more than just this. I'm okay with that. I think part of the debate about that is through.... If you want to have specifics related to national identity, some of that even takes in some of our aboriginal considerations there as nations.

There are several aspects of it that could also be amended in the regulations later on, too, but this makes it consistent with what has been recently passed. Again, at the end of the day, I think regulations will do that. The question is that they'll do it to some degree, but it's more enforceable if it's a law of Parliament. It's as simple as that: this is the law, this is a statement, and this is an act, a will. It's about whether taking a pass on race, on gender, and on all those things is good enough for you. I think that's what it really comes down to.

I looked for something that would be more consistent with what has been passed in the House of Commons. That's why I stuck with that formula, especially with it being the human rights code. I'm open to amendments, but again, that's where it comes from. I don't think it's a bad amendment. It's just that I was trying to come to committee here today to present a viable solution to the problem that seems to be here. Obviously, it was raised by the Green Party, by the NDP and by the Conservative Party. I think there are members here from the Liberal Party who actually questioned witnesses and spoke during witness testimony about this issue. The quotes are there. The testimony is there for people to review. They were active at that time in this debate.

I think there may be some way to go forward on this. I thought, too, that probably it was a bad way of approaching things to be inconsistent with the human rights code changes that we've had passed and voted on by members in this House. At any rate, that's where I'm at with it.

While I have the floor, Mr. Chair, I want to talk a bit about some of the testimony we received. One example is the testimony on the Canadian business corporations and co-operatives. At committee here, the witnesses talked specifically about the definition of diversity in their submission to us. I won't go through all of it, but I think it's important to note that these are organizations that made a significant attempt to make sure to caution us on leaving the definition of diversity, other than gender, open to interpretation by “distributing corporations”. They said, “At a minimum, the definition of diversity should recognize the intersectional nature of identity, and encompass gender, disability, race, ethnicity”. They mentioned as well that identity in terms of aboriginal status was one of the things.

There was a great discussion about this, but it was quite clear that they didn't want it be left to the regulations alone. There's more on this, but I'm hoping to hear from some Liberals on this. I don't know, Mr. Chair, if there are any members on the list, but I'm surprised by the lack of a contribution at the moment. I think it's pretty hard to come here and see this, but I'll speak before the bill.... I think that if you want to come to this committee and you want to make a difference, these are the words that we're talking about here. It's the issue of race. We've seen what's happened in this House of Commons and in the Canadian public with regard to discussion about this. Religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, and all those things are very important in Canadian society right now. Gender, of course, is really important. It's interesting to note that this is not just in our country. There are other countries that have done this.

I think the gender issue is particularly interesting. We had the events on the Hill yesterday, which I know have been noted, with the “Daughters of the Vote”. I think almost every member of the Parliament had their seat taken by someone. I think maybe one person passed on the seat for their own decision.... At any rate, look at where Canada sits in the world, and then at the best examples of quotas and penalties. That shows that there are vast improvements versus “comply or explain”.

We've decided to go to comply or explain with regard to gender, and also reporting. What we've done is that we've disengaged, for better or worse—I'm not here to argue either-or—from the one that really makes the big difference. For example, Norway, where they have legislation with quotas and penalties, is at 35.5%. France has 29.7%. Then you drop down to comply or explain, and it goes to 22%, and that's United Kingdom and Denmark. Canada is at 20%, and there was evidence presented to us that we were taking a step back.

We have an opportunity at this particular time to include.... This motion has gender and identification. When we go to comply or explain versus quotas, we've given up one of the most important legislative aspects for the minister to be able to act on this. Now with comply or explain, the better the information and the more thorough, and the more comment from Parliament, being this motion...it's to specifically target those elements. This way, we don't leave it to somebody else who's unelected and unaccounted for to decide what would be put in the regulations.

I know Mr. Schaan has talked about the regulations a bit and so has Mr. Lametti, but the reality is that the regulations are not controlled by Parliament. That's something that is not done. The minister has passed on this responsibility. He has a wonderful statement today about women and their rights and how things are better, but when it comes to having an oversight for him or anybody in the future, he's disengaged from that.

In fact, later we'll probably hear that we're going to have a five-year review of the bill, if we're lucky, because the minister chose not to put a review into the bill. That was a decision made by the government, clearly, or it was a colossal mistake. I think it was a decision.

At any rate, we have very few opportunities to actually have a say and to give direction. I don't want it to be some faceless, nameless person behind the curtain who helps to decide what regulations are going to be reporting. When they don't report those things—they have less to report in—that means we have less information for the minister to make a decision. If they come forward with regulations that it's just going to be gender, it's not going to be diversity, it's not going to be aboriginal, or it's not going to be anything else identification-wise, then how do you know if real change has taken place? You don't know, because they don't have to do it. They are voluntary decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You're repeating.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, I'm not. I'm talking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You're saying the same thing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Tell me exactly what I've repeated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You're saying the same thing over and over actually.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, I'm not. I'm actually—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

I would like you to—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's different.

I think the record will show that I'm going about the various ways why we're.... This is important. If you want this succinctly, this is important. We're undermining the way that Parliament and the minister can get information to show the proof related to measuring the outcomes of a system. It's based upon faith, not based upon any type of oversight. That's what I'm specifically getting to.

There are different ways that happens. It can happen through the identification of these different elements, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity. All of those things are important. It could be—and maybe I'm repeating a little about that—just based upon race, or it could be just based upon race and gender. It could be just based upon race, gender, and ethnicity. It could be just based upon race, gender, ethnicity, and something else. We don't know, and it could change. That's my whole point. It's based on regulations. What I'm arguing for is to actually have that included, so that the minister can measure those things.

The measurement is important. I want to talk about measurements and how we could actually see things take place. It happens in the private sector. The measurement is very critical in the private sector. We've seen this by evidence presented in the House of Commons that talks about that. There's the greater Montreal area, which leads me to diversity benchmarks and assessing the programs of diversity in leadership. These are critical. This is going to show that it's done in the private sector as well as the public sector. What we have happening here is that we have diversity of visible minorities only accounting for 4.8% of leadership positions. They can measure that. They can measure that and they can find out. What they showed was that there was actually 2.2% at the end of the day.

In the greater Toronto area, 50% of the population are visible minorities. This is sector by sector. They actually have very few representations of that, so the variance among companies is important. While 11.9% of the companies have at least 50% women on their senior management teams, 16.7% of the companies have none. How do they get that information? They get that from disclosure. There is other research as well, but I won't go into the other research. I'm not going to follow that up with more, but I think the Diversity Institute is a legitimate element. I don't know why Mr. Longfield is shaking his head, but it is a legitimate arm, and maybe he'll care to intervene.