Pay Equity Committee on May 4th, 2016

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Typically, is it someone in the field who hears a complaint who triggers an audit, or is everyone asked to comply with a yearly...? You mentioned the importance of reporting.

[Emanuela Heyninck]

We don't have a reporting structure in Ontario. That's why I would recommend that you consider having a reporting structure. The reporting structure allows a few things to happen. First of all, it's an opportunity for everyone to wake up and say, oh dear, I have something to do that I may not have done. It's a point of contact on the issue that allows them the opportunity then to become compliant, especially in a proactive environment where the expectation is that you are doing it.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Are all companies then underneath your legislation, or just certain sizes of companies?

[Emanuela Heyninck]

All private sector employers with 10 or more employees are under our—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay, so small businesses with nine or less are not included.

[Emanuela Heyninck]

Yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

When you talk about reporting, how do you report? Do you report to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario?

[Emanuela Heyninck]

We file annual reports and they go through the ministry to the legislature, yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

One area that we've been wresting with here, at least I find, is that when we had Stats Canada come in and we asked for a number of different areas, unfortunately, there are still unexplained components, there's a lack of reporting for bonuses, etc. There doesn't seem to be any kind of comparison, because we've heard much about the proactive model, but many provinces do not use the same proactive model as Ontario. With some of the averages that we've seen at the committee in the testimony, there seems to be a trend that it is narrowing, but—

[Emanuela Heyninck]

Are you talking about the gender wage gap number?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Yes. I'm not taking away any of the work that you do, but how do you know and how do you give legislators the knowledge that what you're doing is in fact materially having an impact?

[Emanuela Heyninck]

When we go in and have to order or find that adjustments are owing, this means that there is a gender bias in the evaluation of women's work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Thank you very much. That's your time.

We'll move on to Ms. Benson for seven minutes.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you very much, and thanks, everyone, those who are here in person and those on video, for your presentations.

The one piece that I think sometimes we are struggling with is the outcome to pay equity legislation and what it's intended to do. My understanding is the gender wage gap is an issue much broader than what we're talking about here, which is a human rights issue about women being paid differently because they are women as opposed to men. That's the intention of pay equity legislation, to find a way for that human right to be implemented. Is that correct?

[Emanuela Heyninck]

Pay equity and equal pay for equal work are probably the two most common and known ways to value women's work, because it has been traditionally undervalued. The impact it has on the gender wage gap would be impossible to measure. We have tried. I've had lots of conversations with Quebec over this issue. At the end of the day—I'm not a statistician, so I can't really tell you why—the wage gap is caused by so many factors that have nothing to do with discrimination. They have to do with accessible child care. They have to do with part-time versus full-time work. They have to do with choices that people make in terms of the careers they go into, yet those careers that they choose sometimes are undervalued because they're women's work.

There are way too many factors to be able to say “This thing will do that to the wage gap”. It's unfortunate, because now we spend too much time focusing on some number that even statisticians have a difficult time explaining. I think when you step back, you just say that we have a gender wage gap, which demonstrates that there are gender stereotypes and social norms and biases creeping in everywhere in our system, and those need to be addressed.

Then move that aside and really look at the issue, which is women's economic participation. You have a labour force now that is 50% women. We have graduation rates at all levels of schooling that is primarily done by women. Are we getting our return on our educational investment, as a society and as individuals and as families, if then we don't value the work women do in our society just because they're women, as I think the witnesses from NAWL said?

It's an economic issue, really. I think if you get hung up too much on whether the wage gap is 30% or 28% or 26%, you're really not getting to the issue. You're allowing that conversation to take over when everybody knows what many of the remedies are. If you start looking at countries where the wage gap is consistently very narrow, you will see that there is a panoply of support systems that allow women to participate fully in the economic sphere.

To me, yes, it's definitely a human right. Without a doubt it's a human right. But boy, it's also a big economic issue. If we're going to undervalue half of our labour force, I think we should all be giving our heads a shake.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you.

Mr. Durber, I took your comments as coming from someone who has been in the field practising under a variety of regimes. You were around when there wasn't a lot of structure. It was complaint-based. Of course, now you've had a chance to work under legislation at the provincial level. I took your comments as being some of the things we need to think about based on what we know from what has happened already.

Perhaps you could give us two that you think are the most important, that we need to listen to and learn from in terms of your experience in the past. You talked about gender neutrality and the average wage.

You both mentioned proxy. I'm not sure we should even get into that, but please comment on that if you wish.

[Paul Durber]

I could start with proxy very briefly. I suspect there are not a lot of predominantly female organizations in the federal sphere that don't also have male comparators, but there will be some. There does need to be a process.

For example in some small councils you find professionals at the top and support staff at the bottom. You can't figure out what the proper relationship should be. If they're federally funded then there ought to be some way of figuring out a fair wage, but I would not use the Ontario proxy approach for a number of reasons that you might want to get into later, but mainly it is too complicated

In Quebec it's entirely too simple. There needs to be some way of working on that.

In terms of what ingredients are most important very clearly the commitment by employers, unions, and non-organized employees is by far the underlying force behind any kind of pay equity. I think it's a mistake in the Quebec law that under 50 employees the employer can do their own thing. I think there needs to be participation.

Is that it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Anita Vandenbeld]

Yes, I'm sorry.

We have to go to the next questioner and it's Ms. Sidhu, for seven minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for all the presentations, and I'll share my time with my colleagues too.

Ms. Davis, you have publicly pushed for ending the gender wage gap in Ontario by 2025. As a founding member of the Pay Equity Commission of Ontario you point out 12 specific steps.

Would these strategies work for us federally as well?

[Linda Davis]

I believe they will. They are based on employment and also on human rights. I think that they could be adopted into the federal profiles.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Ms. Chicha, you have mentioned that non-unionized sectors are where some of the biggest challenges are in reaching pay equity.

In your opinion what specific legislative strategies would allow us to target non-unionized or more precarious sectors?

[Prof. Marie-Thérèse Chicha]

As I mentioned universality means that it applies to all sizes, all sectors, and all employees.

For non-unionized, you're right to say that if it's a non-unionized enterprise it is different from an enterprise where some employees are non-unionized and some are unionized because in the pay equity committee all employees must be represented, even if they are non-unionized.

In a non-unionized setting, especially in small enterprises where you find many immigrants and many visible minorities, it's a problem to reach them and to make sure the act is being complied with.

The pay equity commission of Quebec is now doing some work, and I'm invited to comment on this next week to see if this would be an efficient way of reaching non-unionized employees.

I don't know if this answers your question.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes, sort of.

Mr. Durber, can you speak about some of the successes and challenges during the formation of the Bilson report?

[Paul Durber]

I think I would support all, or almost all, of the Bilson recommendations. I think what you have to do.... Well, you don't have to do anything, but what you should consider is ensuring that equity applies equitably across the jurisdictions. It doesn't at the moment, because of the PSECA legislation, which effectively takes pay equity away from the public sector, in my view. I think that is somewhat of a difficulty in getting proactive legislation.

I'm not sure that answers your question, Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Are there any successes, do you think? If so, which successes do you want to elaborate on?