Evidence of meeting #6 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 gender.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Peter Engelmann  Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers
Colleen Bauman  Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers
Kate McInturff  Senior Researcher, National Office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Kathleen Lahey  Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
Daphne Taras  Dean, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
Margot Young  Professor, Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Julie Mackenzie  Committee Researcher

8 p.m.

Dean, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual

Dr. Daphne Taras

Gosh, okay, I'll be fast.

I differ with the Bilson report. To me the devil in the report is in the details. I found that there was a strong element that prescribed exactly how the committees would run, how they would be set up. It cited pay as a type of committee. We already have occupational health and safety. I would put an onus on employers to work with employees to develop the mechanism that best suits them. There are a lot of non-union, employee representation forms that could roll pay equity into a discussion of racism, harassment, and other things. I don't know why there would be a privileging of a certain structure in a pay-equity committee. That was my only objection to the report. I've never seen a report impose such a structure on one workplace issue—not hours of work, not benefits plans, just pay equity. I would be happy to see it less prescribed.

8 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld

Thank you.

I'm sorry to be cutting you short, but I want to make sure all the questions get in before the end of our time.

With that, our next question will be to Ms. Gladu, for seven minutes.

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Excellent.

I want to echo my colleagues' comments. I am so thankful that you're all here, and your presentations were excellent.

I especially want to say hi to Kathleen, because I am a Queen's alumna.

My questions are going to continue on the theme of the 2004 report and trying to implement it. There are 15 pages of recommendations. What do you believe the priorities are?

I liked the comments about large employers before small employers; maybe leaving the dependent contractors for later, because that's complex; and doing the women equity before the intersectional. I think those comments are good, but within the report elements, we've heard that legislation is one of the first steps, that the complaint and enforcement resolution is important, and that the pay equity plan the employer has is important.

I'm interested in hearing what you think the priority should be.

8:05 p.m.

Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers

Peter Engelmann

I will start by saying I'm just concerned with Dr. Taras' comment about it being too prescriptive.

One of the problems we had and one of the things that led to multiple extra months of litigation was that the equal wages guidelines from 1986 were not prescriptive enough. Bell Canada had done this wonderful voluntary pay equity study, then disowned their own study, saying that it didn't meet the standards of this section or this section. It was bizarre. That only happened when they started to realize what is was going to cost to actually close the gap.

There's a fine line between too prescriptive and not prescriptive enough.

I think Dr. Bilson's report was more prescriptive, because at the time, we were arguing the Bell Canada case and had been to the Supreme Court of Canada twice. So be careful there.

All of the speakers have talked about the fact that the gap is growing again. The problem is that some of the maintenance provisions in the Ontario act are not good enough. One of the things the Bilson report does is talk about the need to revisit. I think what she's suggesting by way of maintenance is stronger protection than what we see in both Ontario and Quebec. I think there are some positives there.

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

What about Kathleen? What do you think?

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld

Professor Lahey, go ahead.

8:05 p.m.

Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual

Prof. Kathleen Lahey

On proactive responsibilities, I agree that it should start with the largest employers first, but I think there also needs to be some mechanism to empower people who are at the whim of their employer in defining the comparable groups to invoke some sort of outside expertise in some form. I myself have not seen an effective mechanism in any jurisdiction. Invariably, the most vulnerable workers are compared, according to their employer's choices, with people who are, for example, summer lifeguards. These are really inappropriate comparisons. There's really no room. The whole gender hierarchy in workplaces is such that a lot of people become silenced and are really frightened to speak up during pay equity periods of adjustment.

I agree that better monitoring and having this continue to be an obligation is something that really needs to become part of the culture of business management.

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

What about Margot Young?

8:05 p.m.

Prof. Margot Young

Thanks.

I'm going to reiterate, at an abstract level, many of the points that have been made.

I would caution you not to jump too quickly to the conclusion that detail is a problem. I think, in fact, the litigation over this shows that the absence of appropriate detail and specifications has been a problem.

Let me begin by saying, then, that a proactive scheme is universally regarded as required and as a feature that was deeply problematic with existing and proposed pay equity schemes. Second, the need to deal with issues of ambiguous terminology and the lack of guidance on methodology seem to have been of critical negative importance. There needs to be some detail about those. Finally, I would say the enforcement procedures are critical. It doesn't really matter what protections you have in place if there's inadequate enforcement.

Effective enforcement requires at least formal mechanisms and sites with individuals and offices responsible for that enforcement. It requires adequate funding for those assigned the enforcement task, and also for individuals, particularly those who are disempowered within the workplace, to proceed. Within that I would include funding for assistance, so that you're not simply leaving this up to individuals. The monitoring is a key expansion of the notion of enforcement.

8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

All right. Very good.

I have to pass this over to my colleague.

April 20th, 2016 / 8:10 p.m.

Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Thank you.

Professor Lahey, I find it very interesting, and I want to talk about the child care benefit and how that could possibly be a negative effect on women. I would think that, if anything, it would be a positive thing, because it's putting more money in their pockets.

I don't understand. Perhaps you could explain to me why there would actually be a negative impact from receiving more money. I just want to see what the correlation is there.

8:10 p.m.

Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual

Prof. Kathleen Lahey

The correlation simply is this. In the case of a couple, when it comes to deciding who's going to go into paid work and who's going to do unpaid work, the person who's pegged to go into the paid work will be the person who can earn the higher income. Because that's disproportionately male income earners, women become responsible for doing the home care work. Then when money is put into the hands of women to help close the household budget gap that will be present for many—at least the lowest 40% of the population—we're into a situation where we are literally subsidizing women to stay home and care for children in circumstances when, by virtue of their education, or their current employment opportunities, or all sorts of factors, they may actually prefer to be in paid work.

This is something that is really beyond question in terms of the data that is available. More and more women are going into unpaid work, either to care for their children's children or to care for their own children. It's because they simply cannot earn a living wage that can compete with the effect of the various child care subsidies and unpaid work subsidies that permeate the Income Tax Act, the employment insurance structures, and every fiscal statute in the country. Over 170 provisions provide either tax or direct benefits for women who are engaged in unpaid work.

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld

Thank you. Unfortunately, we're out of time on this question, and we do want to make sure everybody gets a chance.

We will move to Ms. Benson for seven minutes.

8:10 p.m.

NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

Thank you very much for all the presentations. They were really good, and it's starting to bring some of the pieces together. I know you appreciate that we're trying to be practical and move forward with something quicker rather than later, and feel the weight of doing something, considering nothing has happened.

First, to Ms. Bauman or Mr. Engelmann, you made a comment about expertise in pay equity. We have heard that term used, and I don't really know what that is. Could you say a little bit more about it?

8:10 p.m.

Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers

Peter Engelmann

Sure. A number of consultants have been doing work on pay equity in this country, predominantly in Ontario and Quebec because of the proactive laws, but elsewhere as well.

For example, in the federal cases, because we had to educate panels that had human rights backgrounds but not pay equity backgrounds, someone like Pat Armstrong, who is a fantastic expert on women and work, talked about the development of equal pay law, and equal pay for work of equal value, through time, and then proactive pay equity. She certainly testified. A fellow by the name of Paul Durber was the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission's pay equity unit when they had a pay equity unit. Paul has worked with both the Quebec tribunal and the commission, and in Ontario, so he has some knowledge of those areas.

As well, a number of pay equity consultants have worked on pay equity plans outside of just the big consulting groups and developed gender-neutral plans. It's important that the evaluation plan capture the value of women's work and that it really be gender neutral.

8:10 p.m.

Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers

Colleen Bauman

Just to add quickly to that, pay equity can be very technical. It is not exactly the same as human rights law and some other areas. That's where I think sometimes you see boards that lack that expertise needing to spend a lot of time to be brought up to speed in terms of technically how to do pay equity properly.

8:15 p.m.

NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

Thank you.

Ms. McInturff, with regard to one of the questions we've been asking our witnesses, I would value your comments because of the research you've done.

It would be my desire that we finally step into pay equity at the federal level, for both private and public sector employees, and we create legislation. In your presentation you talked about other pieces when we talk about the wage gap, which is bigger. But would you agree that this is an important step, that we shouldn't wait to get everything right, that we could actually have an impact on women's lives if we had federal pay equity legislation?

8:15 p.m.

Senior Researcher, National Office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Dr. Kate McInturff

Well, yes, clearly I think we need to act sooner rather than later. I wouldn't want to advocate not getting things right, but I think an incremental implementation may be—

8:15 p.m.

NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

That was maybe more the challenge.

8:15 p.m.

Senior Researcher, National Office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Dr. Kate McInturff

—the most practical way forward. There's been a lot of interest in, for example, women on corporate boards and women in business. But, really, when we're talking about a life-threatening impact, we have to think about the women who make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers. A pay gap for a retail worker, who is making $12,000 to $13,000 a year, can really mean the difference between food and rent or not. That's why I would urge the committee to act on this, because addressing it has a really substantial impact on the quality of life of the lowest-earning women in the country.

8:15 p.m.

NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

Thank you.

This is my final question, and it's to Ms. Lahey.

You mentioned the lopsidedness of how we approach things through federal government transfers to individuals. It was the $25 billion to $2 billion statistic you talked about. I just wondered if you could say a bit more about that.

8:15 p.m.

Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual

Prof. Kathleen Lahey

Yes. I actually did a research project looking at what would happen economically if all of those laws were repealed. The result was that it would immediately increase women's average incomes by over $3,000 per year simply by virtue of the way it would leave the individual tax transfer provisions to operate on each individual and not treat women as being bundled into a unit consisting of a usually higher male wage earner and herself. It would be a larger bump up in terms of after-tax incomes for women with the lowest incomes. This definitely would be a poverty reduction move as well. I'm convinced that every one of these joint and unpaid work subsidies has an invidious effect. No matter how humanitarian the impulse behind them is, they are actually undercutting women's interests.

We have a new sector to worry about that wasn't quite on the radar to the same extent back in the early 2000s, and that is the vast growth of people engaged in paid caregiving work. They are the new challenge from a pay equity perspective. When I was doing a detailed analysis of Alberta, there were so few men involved in caregiving that it was literally impossible to identify any male comparisons within that profession.

That's where you get into trying to do proxy comparisons, trying to find some other form of occupation that can be a reasonable comparison. If employers are allowed to choose something like 16-year-old boys who mow lawns for $12 an hour as the comparator group, then we will not be able to solve the problem of women whose careers now are involved in caregiving for pay under usually very precarious employment conditions, which themselves push the limits of existing pay equity laws to be brought into the framework, because they're often treated as being independent contractors or self-employed and not even subject to employment laws like pay equity laws.

8:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anita Vandenbeld

Okay, thank you.

Now for our final question, we're going to Ms. Nassif for seven minutes.

8:20 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

Thank you all for your participation today, and that goes for both those who are here in person, as well as the three witnesses appearing by video conference.

The 2004 Pay Equity Task Force recommended, in its report, that the government establish a Canadian pay equity commission and a Canadian pay equity hearings tribunal, distinct from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

The rationale for creating separate institutions was to ensure a pay equity regime that would have adequate resources and expertise. Both Quebec's and Ontario's pay equity acts established proactive pay equity regimes that apply to both public and private sector employees, as well as distinct pay equity oversight bodies and tribunals.

Do you believe it is necessary to create separate bodies to administer a proactive pay equity regime? If not, why?

8:20 p.m.

Partner, Goldblatt Partners LLP, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers

Peter Engelmann

I'm going to respond in English.

That said, I understood the question.

I think it is important that it be distinct, both from the expertise issue standpoint and.... I'm not as familiar with the Quebec approach because my experience has been more in Ontario, but one of the things I've heard as a criticism is that since it has moved to a court, rather than a tribunal hearing the cases, there is more re-education. We talked about expertise earlier. I think it's important that the adjudicators be at a specialized tribunal.

Your other point, about resources, is also a key one, because if the resources become bundled with other human rights or other labour resources, you will lose the focus and the ability to keep those experts and do the monitoring work that is so important.

I thus support the Bilson recommendation on both distinct bodies for a commission and an enforcement mechanism and for a distinct tribunal.