Evidence of meeting #5 for Pay Equity in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was model.
A video is available from Parliament.
9 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
As a follow-up, I'd really love some insight into how you see a proactive tribunal or commission process being able to address the situation of under-represented groups of women, like aboriginal women and those from minority backgrounds. That, more than anything else, has struck me throughout the testimony today.
How does a proactive system address under-representation in the workforce and enhance pay equity for those groups?
9 p.m.
Executive Assistant, National President's Office, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Under-representation is addressed through employment equity, not pay equity. We already have legislation in place for that. It is proactive, in the sense that there is an obligation to put in place employment equity plans and to have a statistical analysis of your workforce to make sure that all the groups are properly represented. If they are not, you have to go through your whole employment system and make sure there are no biases. Where stereotypes have acted as barriers, you have to be aware and take steps to redress that.
On pay equity, to really address the wage gap between aboriginal members or racialized employees, you would have to find—I'm sorry for using this awful expression—job ghettos. You would have to find people concentrated in certain job classifications. We could probably find such concentrations, but I'm not sure how much.
9:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld
Thank you. Sorry, that's the time.
The final question is to Ms. Sheri Benson, for three minutes, unless you don't wish....
9:05 p.m.
NDP
Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK
I'll give everyone one last hurrah here.
I seem to be—there's some term in baseball—the cleanup batter, so I will give each of you about 30 seconds to leave us with a parting comment, some piece of advice you would like to leave us with, or what you think was the most important thing you shared tonight.
I don't know whether Helen and Robyn want to share it.
9:05 p.m.
National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
I'll start very quickly.
I think the title of our presentation says it all: the time for action is now. As a 36-year employee, I am certainly one who did benefit from pay equity. I think it's about the next generation. We need to have a proactive pay equity law so we don't find ourselves here again.
9:05 p.m.
President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
We still need a long-term plan, but we also need short-term fixes. We believe that your easiest short-term fix is to eliminate PSECA and move forward with a more proactive legislation.
9:05 p.m.
Executive Assistant, National President's Office, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I would say don't reinvent the wheel. Everything is in there. There is language. There is a law that comes very close to those recommendations in Quebec, and it is available in English, so you can get inspiration there.
9:05 p.m.
National Coordinator for Strategic Campaigns, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada
I just want to say that a progressive proactive pay equity program has to come with a gender and equity lens to make sure we cover and we're representing all the marginalized group of women, and as well that we look at precarity of employment. Employment is changing in Canada, and we really need to cover all the new types of employment coming up.
9:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld
Thank you very much.
I want to thank our witnesses for staying at this late hour, and also the committee members for staying late. Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.