Mr. Speaker, I just found out there is a positive aspect of being moved one more seat to the left. I am a little closer to the Speaker's plane of view. I appreciate being recognized in this very important debate.
This is one of the issues that really galvanizes what our party stands for. It also makes strikingly clear what lies at the heart of the Reform Party. I have very strong views when it comes to employment equity, affirmative action and government striking the fundamental policy framework that we expect our bureaucrats, our departments, our crown agencies and those businesses within the
federal realm of regulation in setting the parameters of the type of behaviour we expect them to follow.
This is not the first time employment equity has been debated in the House. In the last Parliament on a number of occasions, be they private members' bills or motions put forward on days to eliminate racial discrimination, members put on record what they believed about employment equity.
In the last Parliament we may have differed substantially on our economic approaches and policies and on our social policies but there was almost a unanimity of agreement with the New Democratic Party and with the Conservative Party when it was in government about a couple of fundamental facts about Canadian society.
One was that systemic discrimination unfortunately does exist. It exists in the federal workplace. It exists in the provincial workplace and it exists in the private sector. Anybody who would get up in the Chamber and indicate they believe there is no such thing as systemic discrimination clearly is from another planet or has been living with their head in the sand for longer than I have been on this earth.
Systemic discrimination is as real as the air we breathe and is as alive today as the people who sit in these chairs. More than once I have talked from the perspective of an MP who represents the largest indigenous black community in Canada, in Preston, North Preston, East Preston, Cherry Brook, Lake Loon. Those communities have been established in Nova Scotia a lot longer than the community I was born in, New Waterford. Most people in Nova Scotia see New Waterford as more of a Nova Scotian community than the Prestons which were founded by blacks from other parts of the globe over hundreds of years.
Preston community is six kilometres outside the boundaries of my city. My city has an unemployment rate of anywhere from 7.5 to 8.5 per cent. In the almost entirely black community, a ghettoized situation from 250 years ago, there are unemployment rates upward of 80 per cent in the winter.
One of the first things I did in 1988 after I was elected to represent the good people of the riding of Dartmouth was go to the Speaker of the day. I asked the Speaker, Mr. Fraser, whether it was possible to use some of my budget to get a survey done. Our budgets were more restrictive.
I explained what I wanted to do. I had gone to the bureaucrats. They are good people, not racists, not bigots. I asked them what information they had with respect to unemployment levels in the black community. They said they did not have any. Why not? How can there be federal programs such as skills training, job development and re-entry programs that are supposed to help those groups most dislocated from labour if there are no statistics about the degree of the problem in a particular community?
Bureaucracies knew there were problems but did not want to quantify them. We spent $15,000 out of my budget and we quantified. There were no startling revelations except that finally somebody white in a position of authority said the facts are the facts and they are indisputable. It was only then that bureaucracies felt comfortable trying to address the problems of barriers to entry and participation by visible minorities in my area.
I am saddened to say that seven years later I am worn down from my efforts of trying to battle systemic discrimination. Daily it becomes more systemic and rooted in the way bureaucracies operate.
The bill does not seek to tell employers they have to hire a black person or a native Canadian or a Cape Bretoner, which I am, if they are not qualified. It sets down a framework and sets out a policy objective that says: "If everybody in your organization looks like me, speaks like me and acts like me, they are more likely to hire somebody who looks like me, acts like me and speaks like me". That is not individual racism; it is the way life is in most organizations.
The bill seeks to build on the previous employment equity legislation passed in 1986 and say we have come a long way but we have a mighty long way to go yet. We cannot succumb to the insane attitudes of some on the loony right of the political spectrum and say, as the member from Windsor said: "I am all right Jack. What is your problem?"
I will tell the House what some of the problems are. A good businessman came to my office a week and a half ago. He operates without a line of credit at the bank and employs 17 to 20 people in the winter. He finances his operation through a finance company at 28.8 per cent interest. He cannot access capital through the regular sources. He has been shying away from the sheriff for 20 years. He is a black businessman. There are barriers to his access to capital from banks.
Seven years ago when we did the study the banks were angry because I fingered the banks and said there was systemic discrimination in their lending practices. They wailed. The facts coming to my office told me it was that way. How could an individual that resilient, who could operate from a line of credit from a finance company and who had no cash flow to work with stay in business? That was the best entrepreneur I ever saw.
Just think what would have happened if he was a white entrepreneur who had access to capital from the banks. Banks such as the
Royal Bank have recognized that when we talk about systemic discrimination we are not pointing a finger at individuals; we are stating facts based on statistics and we must work aggressively within a policy framework to deal with it.
This bill simply sets out the framework. It says the government is still very much concerned that its crown agencies and corporations may not be working as hard as they should to ensure there are no barriers to participation in the federal public service, crown corporations and the private sector which is federally regulated, to ensure the people who do the hiring, the people in power, recognize they may have to work a little harder. If we deal on the other side of it with the people in the labour market, maybe the young black who wants to be an entrepreneur does not understand he could be welcomed as a client of the bank. He also has his own barriers to participation in the equity market or the labour market.
Sometimes that extra effort is made to say: "We will hire 12 people and we have to make sure we do not send it just to the community college". The community college in my area does not have the proper participation of minority groups. It is not proportional. If employers say they have made a commitment to hire qualified individuals, and it is all about the merit principle, they must recognize that by past practices there may be some groups in society that do not feel they are wanted at the door and do not make the application.
Employers, because they have set it out as their policy to encourage qualified members of minority groups to participate, must make sure that instead of going just to the community college they also go to the Dartmouth East Black Learners Centre and say: "We need people with these skills. Are there some people you can send for us to look at?"
That is what this bill is about. It is about setting a direction. It is about setting a goal. It is about a process whereby we remind ourselves that systemic discrimination does exist and that we can do something about it to ensure individuals are not discriminated against based on colour, language, gender, sexual orientation or any of those other things that really should not make a difference.
I hope some of the misinformation from the Reform Party's minority report is put to the test. This is not about special treatment. This is about equal treatment and equal access. The bill does not solve the problem but it is another small step in the right direction toward allowing everyone regardless of colour, race or language to develop to the fullness of their potential. Governments are setting the tone and the direction to remove the obstacles to that full participation.