As I was saying, the government does respect the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. That certainly is much respected by this government. That's the main reason why we took this action to update this outdated complaint-based pay equity regime.
We have heard from people that, in many cases, women waited 15 years or more. We've heard that from you this morning. We want to get away from that. We want to stop that.
This was the act that we felt was going to give improvements for women. We're looking for accountability. The employer and the union would both have accountability to see that this happens, instead of just the employer.
I agree; what woman has the resources to go through 25 years of divisive court action against their employer? This act is to get away from these types of things.
We've heard a lot of different comments here this morning, and Ms. Chicha, you've said that the existing model is inefficient and expensive. The complaint-based model is not going to work. We have introduced what we feel is a proactive model. Certainly the working group did recommend a proactive model.
Can you just make some comments on some of the statements I've made here this morning? Do you think this is going to make a more timely decision-making process? Is it going to make that possible for women so they are not going to have to go through such lengthy individual processes that are so costly to them?