I hope my colleague will stop me when we hit that four-minute mark.
Good evening, distinguished members. It is a pleasure to have the privilege to be here and talk to you about this very important work you are embarking upon.
I am joined by my colleague, Colleen Bauman. We are both partners in the law firm Goldblatt Partners. We are here speaking on behalf of the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers. It is a national organization representing union clients with a goal of promoting the legal interests and improving the well-being of Canadian workers and their families.
We practice in the area of labour and human rights law, and we have extensive experience representing employees with respect to the discrimination they may face in their workplace.
CALL is delighted that this committee was struck. There was a tremendous amount of work done a long time ago, 12 years ago, by a task force chaired by Beth Bilson. I recall having the opportunity to appear before that task force on behalf of two clients at the time.
They did some wonderful work. If you get nothing else from us tonight, they have done some very detailed work. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. There is some fine-tuning, and I hope we get some questions on some of that.
In any event, what the Bilson report recognized was that the federal system for resolving pay equity was not working. Very few employers were tackling the issue voluntarily. Those who did the right thing were then at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their competitors. Those employees fortunate enough to have strong union representations were the only ones who made gains under the former law, or current law in part.
I personally prosecuted two very lengthy cases, one as counsel for the union at Bell Canada, on behalf of the telephone operators. The case took almost 10 years. We were at the Supreme Court of Canada twice. It was just full of technical arguments. At the end, there was a settlement, and there was some pay equity for the telephone operators, but it was a very lengthy legal battle.
The other case I was involved in was for the Human Rights Commission, prosecuting a complaint against Canada Post. That case started before my first-born was born, and I think he was 18 or 19 when we finished. That was before the tribunal. Then it was appealed up to the Supreme Court of Canada.
That is not how to do pay equity. That does not help women and men working in female-dominated jobs get equal pay for work of equal value.
The great thing about the Bilson report is that she had the experience from Ontario and she had the experience from Quebec. They looked at both regimes. They made some improvements, in my respectful submission, to them. Unfortunately, the report was never implemented, and the system went from bad to worse.
My colleague, Ms. Bauman, will talk about PSECA.
Here are some key principles of the Bilson report, very quickly. Pay equity, or equal pay for work of equal value, is a basic human right. That was recognized by Ms. Bilson. It is very important that it be dealt with separately from collective bargaining.
The coverage should be across the federal jurisdiction. This includes federally regulated employers, Parliament, the federal government, its agencies, and crown corporations. Importantly, the Bilson report says we should look at employees and federal contractors. I think that is very important.
It deals with structures of employers or lines of business that require special consideration. Far too much time was spent on technical arguments, fighting over what things mean. You need detail in your legislation.
It recognizes the importance of maintenance of pay equity. This has been a problem in Ontario and Quebec, and perhaps we can talk about that.
There is a need for a truly independent pay equity commission and an independent pay equity tribunal. You need experts to deal with these issues.
It goes further than other pay equity legislation in addressing the disadvantage of visible minorities, aboriginals, and disabled people, in addition to women. That may be something you want to phase in as a phase two. Get it right for women. Get it right on systemic gender discrimination first, and then move into phase two.
Colleen, I am over my time.