Status of Women Committee on May 14th, 2014

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I don't dispute that. But if you institute early child care and you have a bump in participation—and there is historical record now probably in excess of 10 years—you should see a difference between female participation rates in Quebec and female participation rates in the rest of the country.

[Seema Lamba]

Yes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Is that true? I don't know.

[Seema Lamba]

There is some difference, but I'm going to be honest, it isn't a significant difference if that's what you're looking for. There are some differences province by province, and there would be different reasons for it. We can get back to you on that if you want.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Putting aside the benefits of day care for kids and all that sort of stuff, that seems to me to be a pretty significant issue. If in fact the preference is to make it as easy as possible for women to participate in the workforce, you would have thought that by now you'd be able to see a statistically significant gap between the participation rates of women in Quebec and the participation rates of women in the rest of Canada.

[Seema Lamba]

We can get back to you on that, if you're interested.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay. So you don't have—

[Robyn Benson]

We certainly don't have the statistics here, but I would imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult to research. We'll put it into our brief.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Chair, I obviously don't belong to this committee, but it seems to me that's a pretty interesting piece of data, to know whether there is that, because it's a pretty significant debate in this country.

The second thing that kind of caught my ear was something you said about Bill C-10, that a union cannot...I took it as “represent” your membership in pay equity cases.

Could you explain that to me, please?

[Robyn Benson]

The changes that took place now have dictated, if you will, that unions can no longer represent their members in a pay equity complaint. Should we counsel or should we try to represent them, then it's a $10,000 fine.

What the PSECA says is that they want unions to negotiate pay equity at the table. Well, it's not something that you negotiate, because you certainly don't give up pay equity for something else. When you go to the negotiating table, you go there with some give and take. Pay equity is not an issue that would ever be negotiated. We disagree with that.

But PSECA does clearly say that if we are to represent our members, then the fine is $10,000.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Is that $10,000 period, $10,000 per day, or...?

[Seema Lamba]

It's $50,000, but I forget whether it's a day or....

[Robyn Benson]

I'm sorry, it is $50,000.

I should have known that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Are you fined if that representation takes place outside of normal bargaining?

[Robyn Benson]

I can tell you what happened before PSECA. For example, PSAC filed a pay equity complaint 30 years ago for Canada Post. It's the most recent one, and it was just accomplished last year. We represented that all the way through, through all of the courts.

If that were to take place now, if we as the PSAC filed the pay equity complaint, we would receive a fine. It clearly articulates that we are not to represent. What they want now is for it to be negotiated versus done via pay equity complaint, if you will, through the courts.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So in effect the access to legal recourse for pay equity has been cut off by Bill C-10.

[Seema Lamba]

An individual can file a pay equity complaint, which is actually pretty much impossible. The reason unions file pay equity cases is that it takes a lot of resources and analysis and expertise to do it. For an individual to do it, it will be very, very difficult.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

What about an individual in the form of a class action?

[Seema Lamba]

I'm not sure whether or not that process would allow that; I'm not sure.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Are there a number of outstanding pay equity claims going unrepresented at this point, or uninitiated?

[Seema Lamba]

I don't know.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

After consultation with the members and since our previous guests had a certain amount of time at their disposal, I will end the meeting.

Thank you very much, Ms. Benson and Ms. Lamba. I also want to thank the members of the committee.

We will reconvene on Tuesday, May 26, at 3:30 p.m., in the same room, to discuss our report on eating disorders.

I wish you all a good week in your ridings.

The meeting is adjourned.