moved:
Motion No. 7
That Bill C-64, in Clause 15, be amended by replacing lines 14 to 27, on page 10, with the following: b ) the preparation of the employer's employment equity plan.
(2) Where the employees are represented by a bargaining agent, the bargaining agent shall participate in a consultation under subsection (1).
(3) A consultation under subsection (1) is not a form of co-management.
(4) The employer and its employees' representatives must implement and revise the employment equity plan jointly."
Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to say that this is one of the best motions you will see during your career, and I am rather confident at this point that even the government will support it.
We spent a lot of time reviewing Bill C-64, which was referred to our committee at second reading. This motion essentially provides that employment equity must be based on a joint effort, so as to ensure that it is effective and that the prescribed objectives will be reflected in the workplace.
Any organization that has been successful in promoting employment equity has managed to do so because the employer's and the employees' representatives got together and agreed on certain objectives.
This amendment seeks to ensure that employees' representatives can participate in the preparation and implementation of the employment equity plan. As you know, the Bloc Quebecois is very much in favour of employment equity.
The problem that we found when we reviewed this bill, and the parliamentary secretary should pay attention since his support would be helpful, is that there is no clear provision to ensure that workers will be involved in the implementation of the plan.
The bill only includes a rather vague provision on the implementation of employment equity plans, and the parliamentary secretary cannot pretend to ignore the fact that the clause did not receive much support.
Indeed, the parliamentary secretary surely remembers that, when union officials appeared before the committee, they expressed a great deal of concern about clauses 14 and 15 dealing with the consultation process. Clause 15 refers to a consultation, but it does so in general terms; there is no mandatory or compulsory process.
It is very important to understand the purpose of the amendment, and I think the Reform Party will agree that an employment equity policy is not feasible without the consent of all parties within a company.
That is definitely the purpose of this amendment. Companies and workers even came to see us to compare notes. They told us that in the Canada Labour Code, a provision required the policy on sexual harassment to be posted. What kind of action or measures should be part of an employer's policy against sexual harassment? A number of unions came to see us and said that ideally, to promote employment equity each employee should receive the employment equity plan. The plan would be available in the company and be posted in public rooms and areas.
We can never stress enough the importance of consultation and consensus in achieving this goal. We were and still are afraid that if we as parliamentarians, if the House of Commons does not adopt this amendment, the bill will again suffer a degree of imbalance and there would be a definite bias towards the employer and a tendency to be less forthcoming to the representatives of the workers.
I may recall that this bill will make the Canadian Human Rights Commission responsible for monitoring employment equity. In case of violations of this legislation, the commission may establish an employment equity review tribunal.
This is a major innovation. Unfortunately, the tribunal will not include labour representatives. What also bothers us in this bill is that because there will be an employment equity review tribunal consisting of three people, there will be no right of appeal. This is quite a decision, and I see Mr. Speaker, that you share my reservations and that is your social conscience speaking out.
My point is that there are few instances under our justice system when there is no right of appeal. In most cases, whether we are talking about criminal law or an administrative tribunal, it is a foregone conclusion, and the hon. member for Lotbinière is aware of this, that the person who appears before a tribunal always has the possibility of launching an appeal.
In this case, there is a clear imbalance which the amendments of the Bloc Quebecois are meant to correct, and I am confident that the government majority will support this view. As for the Reform Party, knowing what they are like, I never felt very confident about their support.
It would be very interesting at this time, for continuation of the debate, if the parliamentary secretary would rise and agree with me that the bill would be improved by acceptance of the Bloc Quebecois amendments, which I would remind you would ensure that negotiating agents, if present in a company, would be involved in more than just the drafting process, through the employer's possibility of consulting them. These consultations however are often optional rather than mandatory.
With our amendments, there would be an obligation not only to consult the workers' representatives, the negotiating agents, but also to involve them in the implementation process. Consultation is equally important during implementation, when an employment equity plan has been agreed upon, as it often has to be lived with for two, three or four years. There may be staff turnover, but the basic objectives remain.
We on this side of the House are of the belief that the way to meet the objectives and to ensure that the plan is what both management and labour want is to require the employer's representative, who may make his views known in a tribunal specifically designed for that purpose, to remedy any existing imbalance, and to ensure not only that workers and their representatives are consulted on an optional basis, but rather that their participation in the implementation process is mandatory.
As you know, the implementation process is, in concrete terms, the way the objectives will be met after concrete agreement on an employment equity program is reached. This is something no legislator can put into the wording of a statute, because it is part of the internal dynamics of a company. It is a bit like a marriage contract. You may well say: "Who does he think he is, talking of marriage?"
But you would be wrong in that, Mr. Speaker, because I have many examples around me of what marriage is, and I know that marriage is a matter of trust. It is a matter of an undertaking
between two individuals, whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes, who have chosen to forge a link of trust. For employment equity to be a viable entity, for it to be realistic, there must be trust and understanding involving all parties concerned. And by all parties concerned I mean of course the negotiating agents, if present in the company, and the representatives of the employer.
I would be extremely disappointed-having invested a great deal of energy, working hard on the committee, as the government is well aware, the parliamentary secretary as well-extremely disappointed if ever these amendments were struck down. I must admit that my confidence in this government would be seriously compromised in future if that happened.