Pay Equity Committee on April 11th, 2016

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to do a quick question and then pass this on to my colleague, because there's one thing that I didn't get to ask earlier.

I believe it was in the Status of Women presentation that we have statistics being collected by Statistics Canada since 1997, but slide 9 of the deck supplied by Employment and Social Development Canada says, “There continues to be a gender wage gap in the federal private sector, however, over the past 10 years it has been declining”. Again, it goes from where it was in 2005, at 81.9 cents, to 86.9 cents now.

Do we have any understanding of why? I know that wages overall for the average median worker went up, but how do we explain this statistic? Has there been any thought put into that?

[Anthony Giles]

No. These are just straight calculations based on Statistics Canada data. To understand why that change is happening, you would have to do far more detailed research and analysis to unpick the problem and figure out what's at work there.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Does this information stem from a labour force study that happens on a regular basis?

[Anthony Giles]

Yes, the underlying data comes from Statistics Canada. As for the way we figure out what's going on in the federal jurisdiction, because Statistics Canada doesn't divide its data by federal and provincial, we take the predominant sectors in the federal jurisdiction and apply that to Statistics Canada data to do estimates of what trends are going on federally.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Just to make that clear, you take the Statistics Canada data and you pull it out specifically for the federal...? Okay. Thank you very much.

Marilyn, go ahead.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

All right.

Following up on my NDP colleague's question, in the 2004 report the suggestion was that if they introduced pay equity legislation and all of the tools and the complaint process resources.... In your opinion, what is the best department to provide that? Secondly, what is the best department or organization to provide the oversight they talk about?

Status of Women? I know you want to....

[Justine Akman]

No, I think I had better pass.

[Anthony Giles]

Does anyone want to take that?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Manon Brassard]

I think that question has to be looked at in detail.

If there are three of us, it's because the three of us have a policy role to some extent. I'd say that the Department of Justice probably would want to have a say from a charter perspective as well. It's not as clear-cut as it looks. I believe the Bilson report had a structure that was not so much department led. There was a commission and a tribunal.

[Anthony Giles]

Yes, I'd agree with that. I think that because of the nature of the problem it naturally involves a number of different departments, and then the choice is, do you create something separate as was recommended by the pay equity task force or do you find some way to share responsibility?

I'm not sure I know what the best answer to that is, but what I will say is that my experience working on issues like this across government does not suggest that it would end up with everyone trying to toss the responsibility elsewhere. There is a genuine understanding that there's a problem here and a genuine willingness to work on it.

[Justine Akman]

If I could just add one thing from Status of Women. When FEWO studied this in the past, the recommendation was for the Departments of Justice and Labour to continue to lead the work on it and I believe that was back in 2004. There is definitely a role for the Department of Justice in this as well.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I have a question relating to what Terry was getting at and I hope I understand this correctly.

I understand the Canada Labour Code gives labour program inspectors the authority to examine wage records and then gather information related to pay equity, and then the inspectors can notify the Canadian Human Rights Commission if they do find evidence of gender-based wage discrimination in the establishment.

Can you give us a sense of how often the labour program exercises that authority and also if labour program inspectors have the authority then to conduct ongoing audits and monitor compliance related to pay equity?

[Anthony Giles]

I was wondering that very same thing myself, so I can actually answer it.

I'm not sure where the original idea of empowering labour inspectors to report cases to the commission came from and there were a few in the early years, but what was determined and experienced is that the nature of the inspections done by labour inspectors, who go in to check on paid wages whether it's hours of work or being properly regulated and so on, does not very frequently give them the kind of information they would need to even suspect that there might be unequal pay for work of equal value.

What the program efforts then turned to was more of an educational role and a support role, so that if employees came with a specific question, we would either be able to give them a first-level answer or refer them to the right people at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In recent years, I don't think there have been any referrals at all, certainly not in the last five years, which is the period that we checked.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

In terms of the federal contractors program, I think that falls into the labour program, and on the issue of compliance, you explained earlier some of the experiences that contractors have in terms of compliance. Are you aware of any employers that have declined to continue to be registered under the federal contractors program because of employment equity requirements?

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

We're out of time, sorry.

Do you want to follow-up with that, Ms. Benson?

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Sure, I don't mind following-up on that question. I'd like to hear the answer.

[Anthony Giles]

I don't know the answer to that.

Has any previous federal contractor stopped bidding on federal contracts because of the obligations in the federal contractors program? I don't know. I could check back with our department and come back with an answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Ms. Benson.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

First, there are two things. This committee is looking at pay equity as opposed to.... At the moment it is illegal to discriminate on pay, so if someone's a heavy duty mechanic and a man, or a heavy duty mechanic and a woman, and they're getting paid differently, that's against the law. But what we're trying to get at here and what the 2004 report is about is the fact that there's work being performed of equal value, but because it's being performed predominantly by women or predominantly in professions that women are in, the discrimination is happening on a broader scale.

To your point, it's not as easy to figure that out, and it's certainly not easy for an individual to figure out. You're in there with 3,000 other people all not getting paid the same or enough. It's hard.

The complaints-based system has been tried and then we veered off and had the public service do their own version, and then we have federally regulated employers doing something different.

Just to my point, because I really do feel that we can move on this issue, I respectfully understand that lots of different departments have expertise within areas that would touch on pay equity, but it is a concern of mine that the conversation about who's going to start when, and who's going to lead, and whose budgets it will be from.... Those things do concern me. They do get into those bureaucratic conversations and, to be cynical, we keep talking about it, as opposed to....

I would be interested to hear from each of your departments. Have you actually had a conversation about pay equity and about where it fits, whether it's framed within the minister's mandate or whether it has been part of a conversation? I'd just like a clarification of what your role is in pay equity.

[Anthony Giles]

We haven't had the kind of conversation that you're referring to and the reason is that with the process that has been created with the appointment of this committee, our work since the motion came up in the House and since the committee was created has been, (a) to start to gather information that you may have asked of us, and (b) to begin to look at the issues that we're all looking at here so that we will be ready to jointly advise the government on how to respond to what this committee recommends. So at least in the case of our department, we're not out ahead trying to think of a solution to that division of responsibility. It's too early to do that, given the process that has been put in place.

[Justine Akman]

As I stated in my presentation, the wage gap is firmly in the minister's mandate letter and she has already started working with her colleagues on this issue in a variety of different ways and will continue to do so.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'd like to come back to something a bit more specific, and this is about Status of Women, building on your comments, Justine, that in the mandate letter there is an ask of the minister to make some progress on reducing the wage gap, which I understand is a much bigger picture than just pay equity. That's something you can start to move forward on and look at so maybe you could tell us a bit about how you might be looking at that and how that might add to this conversation, because I know pay equity is not going to solve all the issues and you want to be able to focus on one piece.

Today this committee has a chance to focus on pay equity, so how would your work inform this piece?

[Justine Akman]

In my presentation I mentioned the factors that contribute to the wage gap, but there's a variety of different items right now in the mandate letters of various ministers that could actually play into the wage gap. There's developing a national child care framework, working on a poverty strategy, working on more flexible work arrangements, and working more with the Department of Employment and Social Development on enhancing women in apprenticeships and in the trades. The list is very long. There is a number of different ideas.

Of course, a lot of this is not in federal jurisdictions, so it will be very important to engage with the provinces and territories. Our department engages with the ministers and agencies that are responsible for the status of women; but, of course, it will also be very important that they reach out across their governments as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you. We're out of time.

Seeing that it's two minutes before 7:30, we have two minutes for Ms. Dzerowicz, and then that will be everything.