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.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
If you had the opportunity to tell us one recommended fix that you'd like to see put in place first, what would it be?
6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
I think we've all been talking about it.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld
Thank you.
The next question goes to Ms. Nassif, for five minutes.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Fine, thank you for your presentation.
Your administration of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Employment Equity Act reflects the differences in how these two statutes are structured. Under the Employment Equity Act, you administer a proactive system, conducting audits and ensuring compliance. Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, you examine the conduct of employers only when a complaint is brought forward.
In your experience, what are the strengths and weaknesses of these two types of systems to oversee human rights in general, and pay equity in particular? Do you think a proactive approach to achieve pay equity is necessary? You answered this question, but I would like to know whether our complaint-based system can be improved.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
There is no doubt that the employment equity complaint process must be improved to address the concerns.
I'm not sure I understood your first question. Could you please repeat it?
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Okay.
In your experience, what are the strengths and weaknesses of these two types of systems to oversee human rights in general, and pay equity in particular?
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
Since the process for responding to wage equity complaints is more complex, it takes a lot of time. We feel that the process must be changed.
The process around employment equity is that proactive model, so we've had the benefit of a number of years now of experience in auditing employers for compliance with the provisions of the Employment Equity Act, and we can tell you that it's a much less painful process. It's a much shorter process. It's a much less costly process financially. We believe it accomplishes the desired outcomes for all of the parties, most importantly, employment opportunities for persons in the four designated groups under the Employment Equity Act.
We can say objectively that the employment equity regime, being a proactive regime, is the better way to go, comparing those two.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld
You still have a minute and a half, Ms. Nassif. Do you want to share your time?
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Yes. I will share my time with Julie Dzerowicz. She always has a lot of questions.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Sure I do.
I just want to finish up on the question I was asking you about whether the human rights act needed to be updated.
In my own mind, and I don't even know why I'm thinking this, there are people now who don't associate with either gender, so I wanted to put that out to you whether you felt it needed to be updated with respect to pay equity—it could be for other areas—for those who don't relate to either gender. I'm just putting that out there.
I'm going to have another one.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
We're always looking at improvements. As I said earlier, we've not experienced as much angst, as much concern with respect to any of the other grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
As I said in my opening comments, we administer up to 2,000 complaints a year, and while it may not be perfect, we think we do a pretty good job at processing those cases whether they be around race, religion, age, what have you.
It's just the pay equity, which for us is something we've been talking about now for many years. I do want to be careful as well because my colleague has litigated a number of the largest pay equity cases in Canadian history, and there have been some great outcomes in those cases as well. It has not all been difficult. It has not all been bad. There have been some good results for people as well.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld
Thank you. That's time.
We are now going to Mr. Kmiec for five minutes.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Thanks very much for your presentation today.
When I think of pay equity, I think of equal pay for work that may be different but is of equal value.
I used to work not directly in human resources, but I was the registrar for the human resources profession in the province of Alberta, so pay equity was a big part of what my members used to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
I want to talk about the stakeholders you have met. You have here that you met with over 100 stakeholder groups. I was wondering whether those included professional associations—engineers, accountants, HR professionals.
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
My colleague is pointing out that many of those stakeholders you're referring to would be provincially regulated, so not necessarily ones that we would have met with.
I can't honestly say that we would have met with those specific groups. To be clear, it was our chief commissioner who met with those groups. I'm not aware of all of the groups. I know she met with a number of NGOs, employers, unions, educators, a cross-section of stakeholders across the country, but I can't honestly say that she would have met with those particular groups.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay.
Many of these professional associations, though, would set the standards that would be expected from their members when it comes to dignity in the workplace, maintaining a harassment-free workplace.
I'm thinking about the standards of conduct that HR professionals are required to maintain. The Province of Alberta requires those things. Pay equity may not be mentioned directly, but it's very much assumed in how HR professionals are supposed to behave, especially certified human resources professionals.
I'm a little surprised that they weren't included, although they are provincially regulated. I think it's an opportunity for the commission and these associations to better understand the interaction that their members may be having on the employee-employer side when coming to the commission or having different issues. Although they're provincially regulated, some of them work in federally regulated industries.
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
Right, and that's a very good point.
If I may, that's not to say that we do not do work with HR professionals, for example. We do a lot of it.
Mr. Narducci's branch is responsible for designing webinars that we offer to our stakeholders groups. I'll let Mr. Narducci speak to this, but often we include HR professionals. We do know—exactly to your point—that it's hugely important that our HR people know about human rights, whether it be pay equity or any other human rights. It's a good point.
I don't know if you want to add anything....
6:20 p.m.
Acting Director General, Human Rights Promotion Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission
We've done some work with, I believe it's the Human Resources Professionals Association, to develop, exactly as you mentioned, information that will be valuable for Canadians to understand, whether it is HR-related labour relations or pay equity, primarily from a human rights perspective, as you can imagine, where we're coming from.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay.
Hopefully I'm not overstepping boundaries here.
Would you be able to tell me, of these hundred stakeholder groups that you met with, how many would you say preferred the proactive approach and how many preferred the reactive approach? Did you keep that type of detail?
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Human Rights Commission
I'm not sure of the answer to that question, but it's certainly something we're happy to get back to you on.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Maybe I can ask on behalf of the committee whether you'd be able to produce the list of stakeholder groups you met with and, if it's possible, to say whether they preferred reactive or proactive. I'm just curious to know what types of groups you're meeting with.
One other thing I want to move on to is that you mentioned HRPA that you deal with, which is an Ontario association. They are provincially regulated. Quebec is the other one where they're self-regulated provincially, le Code des professions.
What about the other provinces? You have HR professionals working in very different fields obviously, because the economic mix is very different. In the province of Alberta, a great many of the professionals work in oil and gas especially, where I think pay equity issues are far less.... I would meet engineers, and it didn't really matter. They're desperate to get staff, so they would pay them whatever they were worth and they would be happy to have the person working for them.
Did you ever find a difference? Was there any specific industry or trade that you found had more complaints or less complaints? Was there a sector of the economy that was more affected by pay equity issues?