moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-64, in Clause 3, be amended by deleting lines 33 to 44, on page 2 and lines 1 to 6, on page 3.
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
Motion No. 8
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 18.
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 19.
Motion No. 10
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 20.
Motion No. 15
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 38.
Motion No. 16
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 39.
Motion No. 17
That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 40.
Madam Speaker, for the benefit of members present who may not be entirely familiar with this bill and for the benefit of those thousands of Canadians earnestly watching this on television wondering what on earth this is all about, we are talking about the affirmative action bill of this Parliament. It is officially entitled employment equity.
What this bill purports to do is primarily to the public service, but any private companies of 100 employees or more doing business with the federal government are going to be going through substantially more hoops than they have in the past in meeting quotas for employment.
The amendments the Speaker has mentioned all have to do with three separate and distinct criteria. They are to remove the effects of this bill from application to the private sector.
If it is the Liberal government's intent to foist employment equity or affirmative action on the operations of the Government of Canada there is little the opposition can do because the government is going to do what it wants to do. However this should be carefully considered as it applies to the private sector. Private sector employers have enough trouble these days without adding one more hurdle for them to overcome.
I would also point out that the private sector by and large is light years ahead of the government in its relationship with minority groups. Much of what is done by the private sector is done in enlightened self-interest. There is nothing wrong with enlightened self-interest. A company will hire from those available the very best people it can get. They should not be acquired by a quota system, no matter how that quota system is comfortably or carefully disguised as employment equity. It is still affirmative action. It is still reverse discrimination. It still purports to set out that people are able to get jobs, advancement or opportunities based on human characteristics rather than merit.
The other amendments I have proposed that we will be discussing, and we would ask the government to consider carefully, are that the sole criteria for advancement or employment be merit. It should be understood that although there are items in the bill that purport to say that merit has not been taken out, we think it would be improved if we were to explicitly say that yes, the Government of Canada understands and appreciates and affirms that merit will be the sole criteria on which people will be hired, on which people will be promoted and any distinction within the employment will be based solely on merit.
The Speaker mentioned quite a number of amendments. Most of those amendments are consequential amendments that have to do with making sure that if there is an amendment, for example, to clause 3(2)(i) that those amendments follow through. Most of them really do not have any consequence. We are talking about just three major philosophical ideas in all of these amendments.
The third is that there is quite a convoluted procedure whereby people must identify themselves to the responsible officer to make sure that the employment equity or affirmative action targets or quotas are met. The person from the government comes in and says: "Hi, I am from the government. I am here to help you", snicker, snicker. The person comes in and says: "I am from the government, I am your employment equity or affirmative action officer and I am checking to see if you are in compliance".
Suppose this person goes into a room and everybody working in the room is black. There are 20 people working in the room. The person from the government looks at a piece of paper and notes that everyone has identified themselves as Canadians. They have not said that they are black; they have not said that they are yellow, white or green or whatever colour they might be. They have said: "We are Canadians". Technically they would not be in compliance.
This gives the compliance officer the chance to use some common sense and say: "Wait a minute, these people are definitely in compliance with the spirit of the law, if not with the letter of the law". It gives the compliance officer a little bit of flexibility.
These are the three major thrusts of the amendments we would ask the House to carefully consider before automatically saying: "We are not going to consider any of these amendments".
That concludes my short remarks on Bill C-64 at this time. We will have a lot more to say on this subject when it is debated at third reading.