Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on this bill.
I like to call the bill respecting employment equity an act without respect for the abilities and sensibilities of Canadians. I put forward that the act perpetuates several myths: there is systemic discrimination that will be cured by systemic remedial measures; the myth of righting the historical wrongs of the past by proactive reverse discrimination in the present; the myth of addressing the problem of racism with a far more dangerous version of the same; and the myth that government mandated crutches to groups when those groups only desire to compete in that race from the same starting line.
I speak in opposition to the bill and its policy of affirmative action in all matters related to government operations that is dressed in the guise of the euphemism of employment equity.
I noticed the member for Brant mentioned that in making an application for a job the government is asking about membership in a club or background or whatever. She took offence to that and I agree with her offence to that kind of thing.
This weekend I was looking at an application for a university for my daughter. That application was for a post graduate position in the university and included a page to ask her if perhaps she was disabled, or if she was from the aboriginal community. She was asked to identify herself presumably to gain entry to a program that should be equally available by academic achievement and by ability in one of our public institutions. As she takes offence at the questions asked of her, I take offence that my daughter should be asked certain questions that are outside her academic ability to enter an academic institution in the public realm.
That is very much the case in many of the areas in our society. We have taken one situation and given it another solution which is going to create a larger problem.
I speak not just as a Reformer but for the vast majority of Canadians who I know feel as I do, that people desire to be recognized for their ability-my daughter, myself and members of the House included-for their personal qualities and not for the colour of their skin or for their personal characteristics.
Along with a colleague from this side of the House I served on the committee on human rights and the status of disabled persons. I took part in the examination and hearings on this bill. We submitted over 40 names to be considered as witnesses to come before that committee. Those witnesses' names were submitted to offer balance to the discussion and what we felt was a majority perspective, the public perspective on many of these issues. Of the 40 names we submitted, only four were brought before that committee. From what I see in the report which the government produced, of those four none were heard.
When the Liberals came to power they trumpeted a new and open process of government. They chose to refer this bill to our committee before second reading. In reality what that did, and certainly at the end of our sessions in the spring, was remove that bill from public scrutiny and then allowed this orchestrated affirmation of the broad concepts of the bill.
I was interested in many of the witnesses who did come from across Canada through the choice of government. When we asked trade union representatives for instance how their experience of employment equity came about, they were very pro this bill. They supported what the government had to say. When questioned
concerning their own advancement or achievement of the goals of this bill, their own structures denied the fact that they took it seriously. They were very willing to apply it to companies or to businesses but not to its own administrative structure, where there was an obvious lack of representation from the disabled community and the aboriginal community. Generally speaking, women were not doing too badly in most of these situations.
I get the feeling that some of these programs put forward by the government are simply vehicles for certain groups to put forward their agenda. The groups that perhaps need government consideration for programs the most are denied or shunted aside while the more vocal groups take the stage.
I want to comment on an aspect in this bill that has not yet been addressed. It is in terms of my recent experience at the fourth world conference in Beijing. This applies very much to the concept of employment equity. Our government signed the document to that conference, which was very much in support of affirmative action. It becomes very plain after reading the document that it is an affirmative action program our government signed in the name of the Canadian people on the platform for action.
The platform for action from the Beijing conference commits all signatory nations to implement over 500 actions by the year 2000. In the next five years we are supposed to put in place 500 things that nobody really knows about here. They were signed on to half a world away.
I question our government's accountability in that process. Certainly around the world and across Canada employment equity has been denied by the public-certainly not by this government, because it has not been listening to the public. It has now extended that, again completely unaccountably half a world away.
Let me read one section into the record. This is part of the platform for action: "Implement and monitor positive public and private sector employment equity and positive action programs to address systemic discrimination against women in the labour force, in particular women with disabilities and women belonging to disadvantaged groups, with respect to employment, hiring, retention, promotion and vocational training of women in all sectors".
We are working on a bill here that I believe does not have the support of the Canadian people. Our government has put this not only in the public sector but in a private sector agreement in an international document it has signed on to. I am not even sure if Canadians know that. It has done that without resolution of debate on this issue in this House and certainly no debate on its signing on to the documents from the United Nations.
Will this document from Beijing ever come to the House? Here we have positive public and private sector employment equity agreed to elsewhere, but will we be able to discuss it here? We have signed on to something with no accountability coming through from the status of women people or anybody telling us what they have done, let alone the fact that they should not have done it without accountability. I question whether they will even admit it when they get back here.
We are committed to an aggressive program of affirmative action. It is an umbrella program that covers all federal departments. This is not simply the status of women people who are going to work with special interest groups. The program that has been defined in our signing on to this document encompasses all federal departments in all areas, looking through what is called a gender lens, which would reflect public and private sector employment equity and positive action programs.
I am amazed to hear the government saying it is open and available to Canadian opinion when it goes behind closed doors or behind the globe and signs on to documents that are not only against public sentiment but have no accountability in the House. I object strongly to the denial of open government and of the wishes of the Canadian public.