Evidence of meeting #33 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 pay.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Research Economist, Income Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
I'm not sure if it will change exponentially, but we do have some evidence that the wage gap is narrowing. We need controls for occupation and industry, but the work experience is important too.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I ask specifically because we know that more and more women are going into medical school, for instance. More than 50% of the registrants in our medical schools in Canada are now female, so that wage gap that we have traditionally seen is going to change very quickly.
If I could use an example, if a young female lawyer is working in an accounting office and a male accountant is working in a legal office, the same wages will not be paid to either of those people who are not working in the discipline, because that's not the core business. If it's a lawyer working in an accounting office, the core business is accounting, and they're going after accounting clients. They need legal advice. In the same way, if you have an accountant working in a legal office, that person is not likely to be making the same wage as somebody working in an accounting office, because the law office is going after legal work, even though they need accounting services.
Do you see what I'm saying here? Okay. Thank you.
I want to move to Mr. Farrell.
One of the things I've heard here today is that pay equity is a human right, but what I'm also hearing is that as a human right, it's only to be addressed if someone complains. I would suggest that the safety of my person is a human right, but it is not my right only when I complain if somebody has assaulted me. Would you agree with that?
Executive Director, Federally Regulated Employers - Transportation and Communications (FETCO)
I'm not really sure I understand the context of your question.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I'm just trying to establish that pay equity is a human right.
What we heard on Tuesday from one of our witnesses was that they were going to use the economic downturn to drive up wages for women, which I'm not sure is beneficial in a market-driven economy. Could you talk about what you're hearing from your association and your group of employers on PSECA and on how this is going to affect the larger context of a market-driven economy?
Executive Director, Federally Regulated Employers - Transportation and Communications (FETCO)
Let me address a couple of issues.
I hear all the time in these discussions that you cannot bargain away human rights. First of all, we employers understand and believe that pay equity is a fundamental human right, and what we're trying to sort out is the appropriate way to get there, the appropriate way to solve the wage gap in the environment in which we're required to operate.
It's not a perfect environment. It's a difficult environment, so what we really need to do is find a way to properly problem-solve the pay equity issue. We're not disagreeing it's a human right and we're not disagreeing that the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Act have a very important role to play, but we're saying in particular that one of the things that prevents us from getting from where we are today to closing the wage gap is failing to recognize that we have to work on these issues together with our unions and with our employees. You just can't simply continue to bargain as usual and not have both sides at the bargaining table to find a way to work together to close the gap.
Compromises are going to have to be made. For example, if you have a fixed budget to deal with, you might have to slow the rate of increase for male-dominated jobs and accelerate the rate of increase for female-dominated jobs in areas where a gap exists, but both parties have to agree to that. If the unions say they're not prepared to find a way to deal with this budget that they must deal with in realistic terms, and if they're not prepared to understand the market conditions and the factors that go into pay--if all they're saying is that it's business as usual and that closing the gap, Mr. Employer, is your problem--then we're never going to solve the problem.
We don't disagree with proactive employment equity, but what we need to establish and what we want to find is an appropriate way to work with our unions on an ongoing basis--not just in collective bargaining--in a problem-solving way that will get us from where we are today to closing the gap in a meaningful way that makes sense in a market-driven economy.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
When we hear, Ms. Pageau, that it took Bell 15 years, and you said that some of the women never got compensation because they passed away before they ever were able to see that, that's an unfair system, is it not?
Human Rights Director, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
Fifteen years...?
Human Rights Director, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
Yes, absolutely.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
So if we can move from a complaints-based system into something that is a proactive system, as Mr. Farrell has used that word, is it not better for women in the long run?
As Mr. Farrell said, this is a forward-facing piece of legislation. We are going to have the opportunity to have the discussion before someone brings the complaint to the table. And in the same way, as I said earlier, I shouldn't have to complain if someone assaults me. My safety to my person is my human right. I shouldn't have to complain to someone first before it's recognized that my safety is a human right. So we're looking at establishing that in pay equity.
Conservative
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I actually would have liked to have heard the response to that. I'll begin by asking, Ms. Pageau, have you a response to that?
Human Rights Director, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
Well, we need proactive legislation, which is what is being recommended in the task force recommendations. I urge all of you to really study that task force. It talks about the involvement of the union. It talks about the liability of the employer.
I'm not quite sure I understand the relationship between a criminal act and human rights. I can't comment on that part, but maybe Mary has a comment or two on that.
Chair, Equal Pay Coalition of Ontario
If I can give this as an example, the CHRA was a complaint-based system in which federal employers, like the ones represented by Mr. Farrell, were essentially pulled, kicking and screaming, to the tribunal. They weren't out there actually sorting out and being in favour of pay equity and doing their thing by themselves. They had to be pulled, kicking and screaming. It took 15 years. Bell Canada went back and forth to court. That's what employers do when nobody is telling them they have to do it. They don't do it unless the unions bring the complaints. The unions have the resources to bring complaints, to keep employers' feet to the fire over that period of time. That isn't an effective system, and we all recognize that.
The issue, in my view, is that nothing is happening at the moment. The government has taken away the rights of women under CHRA. It hasn't implemented PSECA. Nothing is happening now, and when nothing happens the employers continue to pay discriminatory wages. Another example of this, and this is another part to this issue of the pay gap, is the pay equity laws only deal with part of the pay gap, the part that relates to the undervaluation of women's work. As Madame Drolet has said, the pay gap has a series of causes, and some parts may be discriminatory and some may not be. The discriminatory parts can also be addressed by employment equity laws in which women have not had access or there are barriers to accessing higher-paying work.
In Ontario, when the Employment Equity Act was repealed, they were supposed to also engage in a proactive planning process. They were to sit down with their employees and start doing that. The minute it was repealed, everybody stopped. They disbanded all the committees. Employers did nothing. That's what happens when you don't have a law that says you will do it, and you will do it as a separate process, you'll focus on it, and this is your timeframe for doing it.
The problem with putting it into collective bargaining is that when you get into collective bargaining, what's going to happen under PSECA is that there are two remedies in the public service when you can't reach an agreement. You either go out on strike or it goes to interest arbitration. So women have to go out on strike to get a human right, which you're not supposed to do. You shouldn't be giving up other requests like a safe workplace or whatever in order to get your human right. That's why you separate the processes—so you're not giving up something to get your human right. This is essentially what Mr. Farrell's doing. The men will have to give up their pay increase in order for the women to have their human right, so that's part of the problem.
If you're not in the stream in which you go and have a chosen strike, then it goes to interest arbitration. If it goes to interest arbitration, PSECA says that in the state of the economy you can then decide whether you can afford to pay women the human right. That is the other part of this process. International human rights standards don't allow you to ask if you can afford to pay them. You are supposed to have established pay practices as an employer from the beginning. This is no revelation to employers federally that there's pay equity. They could have been sorting out these pay practices for the last 30 years. They don't even notice it. They did not take action unless they were taken by unions to the tribunal, and then that took forever. To describe that as double-dipping is just ridiculous. The unions spent enormous amounts of money trying to get compliance.
That is the context, and that's why anybody who knows anything about pay equity finds that labelling PSECA as proactive is really a ludicrous notion.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you. That sheds a great deal of light.
We heard in testimony that the employer controls the hiring and determines the workplace and could indeed determine that the 70% threshold is never reached. So equating the power of the employer to the union is a spurious argument, inasmuch as the employer has control. Plus, you made reference to the fact that unions took employers, kicking and screaming.... Now if they attempt to represent their workers it's a $50,000 fine, which again undercuts.
I have another question. It seems contradictory that a government that is setting the rules for federally regulated workers is also the same body that will be subjected to those rules. Does that not seem to be a rather contradictory situation? How could it be resolved?
Chair, Equal Pay Coalition of Ontario
It's one of the reasons that international standards actually require the government to set the example. They're to be the leaders. They're not to be the people following behind. They're to be leaders.
What's most upsetting, actually, is that PSECA is a budget bill. PSECA was there to control the budget. I think Mr. Farrell quite candidly said that employers want to control their budgets, right? Getting it into collective bargaining is a way in which they could try to control it, and then, if you don't get what you want, you can strike, but the opposite is supposed to be case. From the point of view of the government, it's to take the lead, and under international obligations it is certainly supposed to ensure that its own employees--which is what it's doing here with PSECA, because PSECA covers the people that it funds and employs--
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Cathy McLeod
Thank you.
We are heading into our second round now. You each have five minutes. We'll start with Mrs. Simson.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses today. It's been extremely informative. All the other witnesses we've heard, I think without exception, have said exactly what you did: that pay equity is a human right. There's agreement that PSECA is actually going backwards as opposed to going forwards.
If it's a human right and it shouldn't be bargained away, based on what is stated in PSECA, when this bill is enacted, would it be fair to say that what we're doing is enshrining in legislation a violation of human rights here in this country? I'd like each of you to respond and tell me if that would be a fair statement.
October 28th, 2010 / 9:45 a.m.
Director General, Education, Labour and Income Statistics Branch, Statistics Canada
We wouldn't be commenting on that.
Senior Consultant, Opus Mundi Canada
I think it's a backwards step. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say whether it is contrary to the charter. I think that's a current challenge before the courts, actually, but I think it is an unfortunate step backwards.
There's no real requirement in that act, no mechanism in that act that I can see, that will actually give effect to pay equity. It's odd, in a way, that the preamble states unambiguously that the House agrees to the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, yet the legislation that follows is so Byzantine that most of us who read it think, “My goodness, there are all those pages; it must be doing something”.
Liberal
Chair, Equal Pay Coalition of Ontario
I think it undermines and perpetuates systemic discrimination pay in the federal public service. I think the failure to keep the CHRA in place also means that the people covered by it, the private sector federally regulated women, are also going to have their pay inequities perpetuated. The task force gave an expert report that concluded that those women were not getting their pay equity.
Remember that there are a lot of women affected by this proposed act who aren't unionized; for them, this is a whole other process that they need to deal with, and they don't have a union to help them.