That is correct. Thank you.
Madam Chair and honourable members of the committee, and Madam Clerk and committee staff, thank you for the opportunity to come before you today on behalf of the Association of Canadian Financial Officers.
My name is Dany Richard. I'm the executive vice-president of ACFO. I'm joined by Stéphanie Rochon-Perras, one of our ACFO labour relations advisers.
ACFO represents the accountants and financial professionals who make up most of the FI group in the federal public service. Our membership is proud to provide the strong financial stewardship and sound business advice that a modern and professional public service requires.
Our membership is also female predominant. We are currently in the midst of our second pay equity complaint under the transitional provisions outlined in the budget implementation act 2009. It is in this context that we are here today to share our thoughts on the pay equity legislative regime. Our view is that the current complaint-based process is unsatisfactory in tackling pay inequity. It takes too long, it costs too much, it's too adversarial, and it only compounds the issue of gender-based wage and systemic discrimination.
We are also of the opinion that the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act should be repealed for reasons that are widely known and are briefly outlined in our written submission.
Overall, ACFO supports the implementation of a proactive pay equity regime as recommended by the 2004 task force. We endorse the framework established under the Quebec Pay Equity Act as a model for a proactive federal pay equity regime.
We propose nine recommendations in our written submission, but in our time here today we'd like to focus specifically on one recommendation.