Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to join in the debate on Bill C-64 not only as a legislator but as a practitioner who in the private sector has applied this legislation very effectively. I reiterate what my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood has pointed out. This act when utilized to its fullest potential allows Canadian businesses to be more competitive than any other businesses in the world.
Let us look at the act and figure out what it really asks employers to do. First the act says that employers should look at the demographics of the labour force around their businesses. They should look at the percentages of white able bodied men, women, the disabled, visible minorities and aboriginals, and then look inside at the representation of their employee bases. In almost every case companies look inside and find that they are not representative, not even close to being representative.
When they see that displayed in front of them so clearly very often they ask how they can possibly be serving their customers or clients effectively when they do not have members in their employee bases that come from those communities, that have those ethnic backgrounds or that have that gender understanding.
They then say there is something to the legislation, that there is something they have to do. They begin to ask themselves how they have let this happen. How have they allowed their employee bases to become so homogeneous? What is it about the way they do business that has encouraged this?
In the bill the government requests employers to take a look at the numbers, at the representation, and build targets for themselves, targets and not quotas to give themselves a time line so that they can make shifts and their employed population is more representative of the surrounding society, their customers, their clients. The recommendation in the regulations is that they look at the employment systems that exist within companies: how people hire, how people promote, how they recruit, how they fire and how they retire.
When we actually start to look at the internal mechanisms of how these activities occur it is fascinating to find, unfortunately very often, aspects of systemic discrimination. This is not to suggest that we want to be discriminatory. People do not want to discriminate. However over time things have become systemic or part of the way we do things.
The value of the legislation is that it says that we should stop and think about what we are doing. Is this really what we want to be doing? Every time the answer is no.
For purposes of illustration let us look at some examples. When people decide they want to hire a new employee they think about the skills, the abilities and the qualities that need to be filled by the person who is going to take the job. They may take a lot of time. Some companies take no time to do it; other companies take time. When they get into the interviewing process natural human characteristics sometimes take over and we tend to hire people who are most like us.
Even though we may say we need someone with a particular education, with particular life and job experiences to fill the job effectively, sometimes in the course of interviewing we find somebody who looks like us, likes to play golf, perhaps goes to the same church, and we know he or she will fit in. All of a sudden that is the person who is selected for the job.
We need to recognize we want to make employment decisions based on skills, based on qualifications and based quite frankly on merit. We do not want to mix in things that are not bona fide requirements. When companies sit down and think about how this happens, they prepare for the interview and recruitment process more effectively and as such get better results.
We can think about how jobs are advertised. For example, large companies typically advertise in the Globe and Mail . They know a certain kind of person reads that newspaper. Do they think about advertising in the ethnic newspapers, in the Teka in my local community that goes to the Six Nations, to broaden the base and increase the numbers of people who are on the slate for consideration?
There is nothing in the legislation that says companies have to select anyone but the most qualified, but they have to create a situation so that the slate is broad enough to include all members of society.
When people start to see the impact of the decisions they make in terms of the recruiting process they say that they do not mean to be but they are being selective. The system has generated itself to be this way and we need to change it. We can think of how jobs become available through word of mouth: the president says to the vice-president who says to his sister or whomever. That is a very selective source of candidates.
Companies need to use different strategies to broaden the slate, but there is nothing in the legislation which says once a slate is determined they have to pick someone from a particular designated group.
We start by going through the employment systems analysis at the hiring stage and at the recruitment stage. Then we start looking
at what happens with the day to day norms in the company, the activities and the way employees interact. One important matter that has come from the legislation is an understanding of the importance of having policies that support a harassment free workplace so that once people come together in a workplace community they can work effectively together. They understand each other's differences. They know they have to treat each other with respect and dignity.
One important learning as a result of the legislation which has not been developed very quickly but with patience, understanding and education over 20 years is that harassment free workplace programs are vitally important.
Another thing which I have seen magically take hold in communities is the value of cultural diversity training where we sit down and understand social, economic and ethnic differences among Canadians. When we sit down, talk about them and understand them suddenly the barriers that stopped people from working together are gone and the value of being able to enjoy differences, celebrate diversity and understand different ways of getting to the same end makes a company a thriving, competitive organization.
First they have to take a look at the demographics. Then they have to take a look at their companies to see if there are processes that are systemically stopping them from engaging all Canadians in the workplace. This is not a bill that revokes the merit principle but quite the opposite. It says to use the merit principle but use it fairly and equitably. Their decisions should be based on skill, bona fide job requirements, qualifications and characteristics; not on a person's social history.
I can tell a personal story about working for a company. After I had been there for a couple of years and had been identified as perhaps being someone who could progress through the system, I was given a test to write. It had nothing to do with whether I could do mathematics or whether I could relate to people. It asked me about the history of my parents. Did my father belong to the Moose Lodge? Did my mother belong to the UCW? How many children were in my family?
This was not very long ago. I sat back and thought these were the measures they used to determine success in the organization. They were building a homogeneous population of white able bodied men at the top, typically from the same university and with the same graduating degree. Thanks to this legislation that company looked inside and discovered it was a detriment to its capability and its competitiveness and it is no longer there.
The bill is not about revoking the merit principle. It is not about reverse discrimination. It is about reversing discrimination and making sure we have a level playing field for all Canadians to participate. It is an important piece of legislation.
As a human resources practitioner I can say that if they follow the model presented through regulations they will effectively create for their companies a very good, strong working human resources plan and process. It is all there in the bill. Quite frankly it is all about treating individuals with dignity and with respect.
Like my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood I am proud to stand in the House in support of Bill C-64 as we continue very slowly but very effectively with the changes we need to make the country's workplace the engine of our future: competitive, fair and equitable.