Status of Women Committee on Feb. 4th, 2021

[Karen Jensen]

I do indeed believe that this legislation will significantly impact not only federally regulated private-sector employers, but also the other provinces in Canada where there is no proactive pay equity legislation.

It's obviously important for the government to take this seriously, and I believe that it's doing so. As head of the country, the government has a responsibility to implement pay equity measures. As I was saying, this is going to not only impact private-sector businesses at the federal level, but also those in the provinces.

As I said in my opening remarks, much good will come from applying the act. I have always insisted that it is good for business, for workers and for the economy. Certainly—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry. That's all the time for that one.

Ms. Mathyssen is next.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

One of the things that concerns me, getting back to the continual delays we have seen and the length of time this will take to implement, is that this money is being stolen, ultimately. There are women who are being impacted daily. If someone was stealing money, we wouldn't say they could do it for another few years until we teach them to stop stealing money. You'd stop it right away.

There's an organization called the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association. They first filed their pay equity complaints in 1992. It's only in 2020 that this complaint has been rectified and action is being taken on that complaint. In some cases the money owed to these women is paid to their estates because they're not alive anymore.

Can we talk about the potential delays for women? Ms. Wong was talking about seniors. What impact does this have in the long term—the delay on women's pensions, on their benefits and on that idea that there is a longer-term cost to women specifically?

[Karen Jensen]

The member has very rightly underscored the reason a complaint-based system is completely inappropriate for addressing gender inequality in wage circumstances. I know about those cases the member is speaking about, the toll it has taken and the amount of money that has been kept from women who rightly deserve it.

I'm only too happy that the complaint-based system is no longer going to be a reality for the vast majority of women in the federal jurisdiction, and that we will have a proactive system.

There is no question that the amount of time it takes to develop a pay equity plan and to put it in place is going to be difficult for many people who have been waiting for a long time for this legislation to come into place and who are very much looking forward to the increases in pay that they are due. That is without a doubt a hard thing for a lot of people to stomach.

I have represented Canada internationally, and we need to be proud of the fact that as a country we are recognized as a leader in the world for enacting this legislation, for getting on with it and for putting in place a pay equity division of the Canadian Human Rights Commission that will support employers and unions to work collaboratively to address the pay equity gaps and to do so in an expeditious fashion.

There are many countries where the legislation—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry. That's the end of the time for our panel.

Thank you so much to Ms. Jensen and Mr. Willbond for being here today.

For those of you who are going to be participating in our in camera portion, we'll suspend the meeting and you'll have to log back in with the other link that was provided.

Thanks to our witnesses. We're off to our in camera committee report consideration.

[Proceedings continue in camera]