Once again the authors of the red book are delivering on the promises in the red book.
We used to sing in the church I am proud to be a member of: "Every promise in the book is mine". We are talking about another book here. I do not want to be sacrilegious, but I am sure members get the point. We identify with those promises because they are promises we fabricated in opposition having listened to the people and without any 1-900 lines. We did not have them pay to get through to us. We listened and they told us they had some concerns about employment equity, our subject today.
We heard them and we incorporated those concerns in commitments. We ran on that basis. We were elected to a majority government on that basis. We are back here this afternoon as we have been several other mornings and afternoons to say to the people of Canada: "Here is another example of how we want to honour the commitments we made to you back in October a year or so ago".
While today we deliver on some promises, we believe we must go even further. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, constituted as the employment equity review tribunal, will hear appeals from employers to resolve disputes and to assure compliance with the law.
Let me remind the House that the changes to the act are in direct response to issues raised by both the designated groups and by businesses. Disadvantaged Canadians complained to us there was not enough compliance with the legislation. Accordingly we have given new authority to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to conduct audits of employers to verify and gain compliance with the act.