That's a great question.
What I will say on behalf of the member organizations within the organization that I represent is that we are 18 large employers that are federal. Most, if not all, are heavily unionized. I don't know if Statistics Canada has run data on this, but from reading some of the literature, my sense is the gaps are narrower within heavily unionized settings.
When I was talking to some of our member companies over the past couple of weeks and preparing to come to speak to you today, I got a lot of positive feedback from HR professionals who have been around for a while and have seen the world change in this area. Did they have statistics they could give me to say it was 10% better than it was when they started in their jobs in HR? No, but certainly there was a positive vibe around the way pay equity is a part of the conversation and the way HR systems are organized around joint job evaluations and these sorts of things.
There is a sophistication to it now that might not have existed 25 or 30 years ago, and I believe that is revealing itself in the data. The gap is narrowing. Are we there? Absolutely not. I read some of the transcripts from the previous committee meetings you've held, and I know that some of the union leaders have said “Get off your wallets, companies, and fix this.” We believe the issue is more complex than one simple fix, which was the tone of our presentation, but overall, the feedback I received from the member companies was that it is a lot better and things are improving.