Thank you for being with us today to share with us your explication about pay equity.
The federal government and some of the provinces have pay equity legislation in place, while other provinces currently have none. The wage gap has declined slightly over the last decade in the federal public service, although a fairly significant gap remains. In the provinces that do not have legislation, the overall reach is varied.
My question is in two parts. Do you believe that legislation could ever adequately address the issue? Is it the only answer to address this issue? Is there any way we have been able to attribute the decline in the wage gap strictly or mostly to the existence and application of pay equity legislation currently in place?
The second part is, assuming we could implement further legislation that is national in scope, would forced compliance be realistically possible from the federal level across all provinces? Even more, with or without the help of the provinces, would it be possible to administer and enforce such legislation adequately across the private sector in Canada?