Mr. Speaker, on October 3 in this very House at the start of the debate on the amendment motions to Bill C-64, the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest said: "The private sector by and large is light years ahead of the government in its relationship with minority groups".
That comes from one of the more enlightened members of the Reform Party. Imagine what the rest of them must be thinking when such a glaring error has been made. That is incorrect and false information. It was not intended to be. It just happened to be because that member did not know as his colleagues do not know the truth of the matter. I want to set the record straight.
Our latest annual report was tabled in the House by the Minister of Human Resources Development and the President of the Treasury Board. It shows that for three of the designated groups, that is, women, aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities, in representation levels the ratios of designated group members to the entire workforce are higher in the federal public service than in the whole federally regulated private sector. Those are the facts.
The lower representation of visible minorities in the public service as a whole is due in part to the fact that the public service does not have an equivalent to the banking sector where representation is 13 per cent.