Evidence of meeting #32 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you. That's good. We have 15 seconds, and if you think you can get something in, that's okay, but I'll turn to Madame Demers from the Bloc.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Yes, Madam Chair, that is what I was going to say. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, Mr. Desnoyers.
I would like to thank our guests for being here with us this morning.
I would like to begin by sharing a concern with you. Last week, when Ms. Laurendeau came before us, I had the impression that someone was really trying to pull the wool over our eyes and that the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act was being presented as a nice Christmas gift all tied up with a ribbon, as something great that would really help public sector employees. But you seem to be saying exactly the opposite.
Ms. Laurendeau said, and I quote:
The Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act will come into force once the regulations are developed and established through the governor in council. As we speak, the regulations are being developed through a consultative process. We have been consulting and working very closely with the bargaining agents and nearly 30 separate agencies [...]
I assume that this means bargaining agents for both sides, that is, the employer and the workers, and not just the employer's agents.
Are you among those bargaining agents and separate agencies?
Women's and Human Rights Officer, Membership Programs Branch, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Yes, we did receive an invitation. We took part in consultations that lasted two days in April and two days in June. That said, the dates were unilaterally imposed, the documents were sent at the very last minute, the resource persons for the consultations seem to be clearly from the management side, and the comments that we provided during the first consultation in April were not reflected in the document for the June consultation. So you might say that we did not have the impression that we were closely involved in developing the regulations.
I believe that my colleague would like to add something.
Classification and Equal Pay Specialist, Public Service Alliance of Canada
I just want to add that while we have had some consultations about the regulations, there was no consultation about the legislation itself. PSECA came out of nowhere for the union, and it was just introduced in the legislation.
The nature of creating regulations is that we're so restricted in what we can address. We can't address the bigger issues of pay equity, not only because of the nature of the consultations themselves but also because of the structure, because of how regulations have to be structured. I think there are only four areas in the legislation that require regulations that there's any say in; it's so restrictive that we question the legitimacy of the consultation on this, absolutely.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
What is your greatest concern about this legislation, which I assume should be in force by January the first?
Women's and Human Rights Officer, Membership Programs Branch, Public Service Alliance of Canada
There are a number of things. We are worried that setting the bar for female-predominant job classes at 70% will reduce access to pay equity. It will disqualify half of the female-predominant groups in our union. Adding market forces to the evaluation criteria in determining whether equal pay is being given for work of equal value reintroduces the criterion that created the discrimination in the first place. Market forces are what cause discrimination against women and result in their work being undervalued. We are very concerned by the fact that we will no longer have access to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The legislation targets one category of women employees, that is, those in the public service, prohibits them from taking action under the Canadian Human Rights Act or complaining and, in particular, prohibits the union from representing its own members. If a union has one fundamental duty, it is to represent its members. Now we are being prohibited from doing so.
As we have already mentioned, this will really bring chaos to the bargaining table. On the one hand, it forces us to bargain for this fundamental right for women, which is unfair, wrong and unjust. Moreover, it will dramatically slow down bargaining, given that everything has to be done at the same time as discussions on pay increases, leave, etc. It will really create confusion in the collective bargaining process.
Bloc
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
Can I just add one point? If people really want to do something about the debt owed to women, we should get rid of the equitable compensation act and quickly start the process of implementing the pay equity task force, because that's what's going to bring equality to women's work, not just in the federal public service, but for women under federal legislation generally.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Barbara has just concisely answered the question that I wanted to ask. I was involved in negotiations in the private sector for over 30 years, and I can say that pay equity is a huge battle that women have been waging for over 50 years. They have made progress little by little, with this kind of legislation being passed in most jurisdictions. In Quebec, the legislation is a bit unusual. It is gradually being modernized, and women are continuing to make progress as a result.
As you have mentioned, two classes of workers are being created at the federal level, just in the public sector. We know that there will be no easy win through bargaining. Even if bargaining is poorly handled, women will be the losers.
I would like you to give us a little more detail about the consultations and how you see this negotiation being done at the federal level. Do you think the negotiations might be botched and that you might be told that there is not enough time to deal with pay equity, that other things need to take priority and that pay equity will be dealt with later?
Classification and Equal Pay Specialist, Public Service Alliance of Canada
I'm not a negotiator myself. I'm a classification and equal pay officer. We have always kept that side of creating job evaluation plans and pay equity separate from negotiations, for good reason.
I've been involved in the consultations on the regulations. One of the things that came across from the employer representatives who were there, from both separate employers and the core public service, was the huge concern with the amount of information the employer is going to have to provide to the union. As we're saying, if we're liable for this, we will want very good data. We want clean data. We want solid data.
Most of them around the table seem to think that wasn't going to be available. I know this from other processes I've worked in, and even the Auditor General has talked about the lack of computer systems that have solid data, across the board; there are inconsistencies from every department. That's just a minor concern. We have no idea how long it's going to take. There are no timelines in the legislation for this to take place except that it has to be before we can come to a final collective agreement.
As my colleagues have said, the sheer technical side of it has the potential to drag negotiations on indefinitely.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
That's it.
Thank you very much.
For the Conservatives, we now have Ms. Brown.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, ladies, for being here.
In some ways, I guess I need to congratulate an employer I had in the past. I worked as a draftsman in an engineering office many years ago when I was a student putting myself through school. I'm very pleased to be able to say that my employer looked at my work as a draftsman—draftsperson, if you choose—as equal to the work that was being done by any of the men who were in the drafting office with me. I was paid on par with what the men were getting. I guess I need to go back and congratulate him for being so proactive and forward thinking.
I guess really want to pick up on something that Ms. Berry mentioned.
By the way, Madam Chair, just so we have it on the record, I'm going to be sharing my time with Madam Grewal.
You talked about this dragging on indefinitely. If I look at the history of what's happened with pay equity, what we've seen over the years is that there were no negotiations. Women went to court and waited 20 years to receive the compensation. Probably the most topical was the situation with the women at Bell Canada. It took them 20 years to get that through court. There really was no goodwill on the part of the former administration to do anything on this issue.
I'd like to refer to a letter that was sent to Ms. Neville in October 2005. It was written by the Honourable Irwin Cotler and the Honourable Joe Fontana. It says:
Given the complexities associated with the implementation of proactive pay equity legislation, the Government cannot, at this time, introduce federal legislation by October 31, 2005, without further study and consultation.
There was no commitment from a former administration to even undertake to prepare a legislation. The letter goes on:
The Government will consider a range of methodologies and processes in implementing pay equity reforms and will work towards introducing a bill on pay equity by late 2006 or early 2007.
So again, there was no commitment from a former administration.
If I may just bring to your attention the date of the October 31, 2005, either the former Prime Minister knew he was calling an election or there was never a commitment to do anything on this anyway. But I want to say—
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Excuse me, on a point of order, I'd ask that the letter be tabled, and I'd like to point out that what Ms. Brown just read was a commitment to introduce pay equity legislation.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we will table it in both official languages.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I don't think there was a commitment, because it was just going on to study more methodologies, more consultations. When we talk about this dragging on indefinitely, we have an administration that was in power for 13 years during the time when, for instance, the Bell Canada court case was going on for the women, and also no commitment to study pay equity.
Yet our government has said that we respect the principle of pay equity, we know that women are an essential part of the economy, and that when women prosper, everybody prospers. I know that in my own family when I prospered with the same pay as my male cohorts, my family prospered. I was able to go to school.
We took action last year to modernize pay equity in the public sector. We brought in a system that was more timely, that was proactive and that was to ensure equitable compensation. We did this because we knew that a better approach had to be taken to build on the strides that women had made over the decades.
If you look at the 2006 statistics, you'll see that Canada has one of the highest labour participation rates of females in the workforce amongst all the OECD countries. In 1983, we know that fewer than 5% of women were in senior management, but today we have more than 41% of women who are in senior and executive roles in our public service. I commend those women for doing that. We're seeing more and more women achieving top jobs. Not long ago, we had a presentation of women in non-traditional roles, and we're seeing women going into medical schools, with more than 50% of the applicants and the registrants in medical schools now women.
My question, first of all--and this is just to educate me--is this: does a female deputy minister in the public sector, with equitable education and experience, make the same as a male counterpart?
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress
I think we need to be really clear here. We're not talking about equal pay for equal work anymore. That was, quite frankly, a fight of our mothers and our grandmothers, because there was a time when women doing the same jobs were paid differently. Some of us maybe weren't in the workforce yet, and maybe we were, but I recall the columns for male help wanted and female help wanted.
We're not talking about what you just started out with, which was about being a draftsperson and being paid equally. That's different. We're not talking about equal pay for similar work. That was another fight by women before us. What we're talking about is equal pay for work of equal value. What we're talking about here is that there are jobs that are undervalued.
If the statistics about the participation of women in the workplace you've been giving are correct, then it's even more abysmal that we're still making 70¢ on the dollar on average, in every occupation except one, and that's as nannies. That's the only place where on average women get paid more than men do.
It's abysmal that racialized women in this country get paid about 64¢ on the dollar, that aboriginal women are at 46¢ on the dollar, and that women with disabilities are at around the same amount and have huge amounts of unemployment. By the way, that's for full-time, full-year work. If you start to throw in part-time, contract, and temporary work, on average we're down to 63¢ on the dollar. There's just been a recent study on that.
If you ask whether a deputy minister gets paid the same as another deputy minister, well, there are obviously rules that have been brought in on that. What I'm telling you is that our jobs have been undervalued. We're talking about bringing up the value of the jobs. The fight in Bell Canada was about bringing up the value of the operator's job to be equivalent to male-dominated jobs that had the same or different components of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm sorry, Ms. Brown. We've run out of time.
I am sorry, Ms. Grewal, but you don't have time to ask your question.
I'm afraid that we are supposed to finish at a quarter to. Because we have Ms. Mathyssen, I don't know that we will go to a second round.
Go ahead, Ms. Mathyssen.