Mr. Speaker, I can hardly stay on my feet after that. It is phenomenal.
The hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has made a great contribution to this legislation at committee. Although I am not a permanent member of that committee, I do have some interest in this particular legislation and sat in on that committee a couple of times and was very encouraged by his participation.
I do have some reservations about this motion, but not because I am not sympathetic to union-sided labour requests. In fact I am very sympathetic to their concerns. However, it seems to me that this section is not necessary in order to get co-operation between management and trade unions or employee unions in this context. Any employment equity plan could and should and indeed probably will be the subject of a collective agreement.
The problem I have with this is in legislating union involvement as opposed to leaving the balance between management and unions the way it is so that management retains the prerogative in terms of recruitment.
It seems to me that clause 15, which the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve had a hand in establishing at committee, sets out the necessary collaboration between management and labour. However, the problem is that ultimately, because management has the prerogative to hire, only management can have the responsibility under the scheme of this act.
I would be afraid that if we create a scheme where management and union are both responsible, then effectively we undermine our ability to enforce employment equity through management. We cannot simultaneously undermine management and promote a scheme that would make labour responsible for management activities. It seems to me that this is an integral part of human resources management and an important part of the general Canadian way of doing business.
Only the employer has the final decision on who to hire, promote, train, or terminate. The hon. member should be conscious of the importance of that within this bill, because it allows us to maintain the balance between management and labour. There is no disagreement here. We need the unions to participate fully, but we cannot upset the balance by forcing them to co-design a program or to consider them co-responsible with employers or we are going to undermine the system.
I would like to remind my colleague that workforces of employers are often represented by more than one union. This happens frequently, for instance, in Windsor, Ontario, where I am from. If all union representatives were expected to co-manage the preparation, implementation, and revision of this kind of plan there could be a situation of protracted delays in implementation, increased costs to employers, and possible deterioration in labour-management relations.
To my good friend from the Reform Party, I would like to point out that the cost of this to government would be phenomenal. If unions as well as employers were to submit reports and the human resources ministry required to make the reports public, there would be significant additional costs incurred. Since the human resources development ministry is required to make reports public, every expansion requires a greater budget for copying and distribution to interested parties across the country.
It is because of the Canadian people and in their interests that the Employment Equity Act is where it is today. It is a viable and effective tool for human resources management. I think we should let it continue to work the way it is, working co-operatively between management and unions. This has been done successfully in most employment equity activities for over a decade. Employers should continue to strive to get the input of interested parties in this valuable process, but let it be part of the collective bargaining system rather than something we enforce.