Pay Equity Committee on May 4th, 2016

[Paul Durber]

Yes, there are a lot of successes, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, where largely unionized employers have moved a great distance toward pay equity.

I would characterize proxy as somewhat less successful in Ontario, in part because of the mathematical formula. For example, there are some people for whom it will take 30 years to achieve pay equity, and I don't think that's reasonable.

It was an enormous success to get all of those parapublic organizations—if I could use the Quebec expression—covered by pay equity. That was a great success. The difficulty has been in making sure that people actually end up with good pay-equity settlements. There are many successes in terms of reforming job evaluation, many successes.

I think, by the way, that those models should give us all confidence that proactive legislation in the federal sphere can work. It has worked elsewhere. I think it can work very well in the federal jurisdiction.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

You have one minute and 10 seconds, Mr. Sheehan.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

My question was answered by Emanuela through a series of other questions.

I believe you had to leave at 8:30, Emanuela, and it's a quarter to—

[Emanuela Heyninck]

I have to leave now. I have a flight.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you. My question was been answered.

[Emanuela Heyninck]

If you have other questions that you want to send to me, I'm quite happy to answer them if I can, but I do have to go.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you very much, Commissioner. It's been very useful.

I'm going to move to the open list. I'm going to keep a speakers list, so if anybody wants to ask a question....

I have Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, and thanks for having me as a guest on this committee.

I have a couple of questions, but I'm very interested in Ms. Chicha's comment about the implementation.

I'm picturing myself as a former business person with several employees under payroll in terms of how we would adjust to legislative change, knowing that we also have to stay in business. The pay equity commission in Quebec would be in place to help evaluate the delta between what you're paying and what you should be paying. Then you have four years to work your way into that through some type of a granting system. Am I understanding that correctly? Also, there would be four-year pay-down.

Is there a staged implementation to ease the burden on employers to get towards pay equity?

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

Yes. In fact, all proactive legislation has this approach by steps. In Quebec, the first four years are devoted to doing the pay equity plan. A small company can start at the last year or even the last month.

For people I know who have implemented pay equity in small enterprises, it takes them approximately one week, or at most two, to do the plan. It's quite easy to do it. Large enterprises can start earlier.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Right.

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

Did that answer your question?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I think so. The first part of the process then is getting your ducks in a row. I don't know how else to say that. Once you've agreed on the settlements, then there would be some method whereby the government would help you work towards the goals that you'd determined in the first part of the process.

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

In fact, this is done by the employer and through the pay equity committee. It doesn't need to go to the pay equity commission.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay.

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

It's done independently but following the guidelines of the pay equity commission.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Super. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Professor Chicha, I think this has been very helpful for me, because I was sort of cringing about talking about legislation being incremental. But I see the incremental piece comes, perhaps, at the implementation stage and that all employers get a time period in which to do their plan and then a time period in which to actually get to the financial end goal, if it's large, and they can do it over years. You've said that in Quebec it's four and four, and in other places it's three and three. Is there any science to the time? Do they just pick that out of the air? Does it make sense? Does it work?

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

I think it's essential to have some time to do it, but I find that four years is too much, maybe because the guidelines took a long time to produce and then they wanted to help employers and employees by giving them all the tools. They thought maybe it would take four years. I really don't know exactly why it was four years, but as the chair of the task force that advised the government on this, I can say that we were against such a long time. It takes eight years to finally get the pay adjusted.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Right.

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

Two or three years was suggested by the federal task force, so I think three years would be okay.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Ms. Dzerowicz has the next question.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

My question is to Ms. Chicha.

You've done a wonderful job. You've done a lot of work internationally. You've done a lot of work in Quebec. You're very familiar with the Bilson report.

I want to ask you about best practices around compliance. I'm sure around the world there are different compliance numbers depending on whether an employer is unionized or non-unionized or for different groups, or whether it's a large employer or a small employer. I just wanted any advice you might have or anything you want to share with us in terms of how we ensure the highest level of compliance if we're making some recommendations or creating legislation. Do you have any advice around that?