Maybe I'll start, since I haven't spoken to any of the questions.
I would like to advise the committee that I'm a recipient of pay equity. I've been with the federal government for 36 years, and many of those years were as a CR, which is the clerical regulatory category. When we filed our complaint in 1984, I was a CR and then subsequently got a pay equity cheque in 1999.
It's really difficult for the PSAC, when we've had so many pay equity complaints and it has taken so many years. Here I find myself now as the president of PSAC, elected first in 2012. Then, of course, we resolved the Canada Post pay equity, and I'm the individual who talks to the folks who want the cheque paid out to the estate. I'm the one they call to say, “My mother died”, or “My grandmother died. Who do I contact?” As a matter of fact, I think it should be known that Canada Post is still making cheques today as I sit here, because they haven't completed the payments.
Proactive federal legislation obviously would mean that we wouldn't be waiting 30 years to have pay equity. I would ask you to look at page 5 of our presentation. Clearly, the task force worked for two years, from 2002 to 2004; they commissioned research reports, heard from witnesses, had round tables and high-level discussions; and then they came through with a number of consensuses and principles. I would thus suggest to you that there wouldn't be difficult steps. I think we would need to have the commission established, we would need to have the tribunal, and certainly we would move forward from there.
Are there additional costs? Well, there are costs to going to court. When we have to file our complaints and we have to go through the human rights apparatus and we have to go to the highest court in the land, if I may be so cheeky, it costs money. From my perspective I think it's the way forward. It's what we should be doing, and I think it can be accomplished by this committee.