Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure indeed today to rise to speak on the motion presented by my colleague from North Vancouver. I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech, which outlined the purpose of his motion.
The motion deals with a sensitive issue, the practice of employment equity. I am pleased to have seconded the motion and to support the motion, which calls for the immediate end to employment equity programs and the end to the inclusion of employment equity requirements on employment or training forms. Such requirements encourage candidate selection to be made on the basis of sex or ethnic origin rather than merit and as a result foster a sense of resentment among applicants. The whole concept of employment equity is flawed. As my colleague pointed out, it advocates the hiring of individuals based on designations, not merit.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley West also expressed it quite well. He said the concept of employment equity will subordinate the principle of merit to the politics of race and of gender. This is made clear by a number of factors, one being the sense of dissatisfaction with employment equity by those it claims to help.
Members of targeted groups who supposedly benefit from employment equity face two difficult questions, the first from themselves. Were they chosen for the position they now hold because of the target group they belong to, or was their hiring based on merit? It is a question that is always there.
Second, there is a question from their colleagues. Do the individuals they work with have doubts about whether they were hired based on the fact that they are a member of a visible minority or a member of a disadvantaged group, or did they truly deserve the position?
This brings me to my second point. When people in a workplace really do not know why they or their colleagues were hired, whether it was based on merit or because of a specific category to which they belong, it fosters a sense of inequality and divisiveness among co-workers. This sense of inequality, as a result of astute hiring practices and quota filling, can lead to a split in the workplace because they create an atmosphere of distrust and doubt. This does not make for a productive or a happy workplace.
I would like to tell a story that was told to me by a staff member of a member of Parliament on the Hill. She had a friend at university, a very bright individual and a member of a visible minority group, who often spoke out very strongly against employment equity programs. Many people questioned his position. They asked why he, one who could obviously benefit from such programs, was so vocally and so strongly against these programs. His reasons were that he did not know, and was afraid that he would not know, if he was hired based on his skills or his skin colour. His co-workers would not know either. This individual said he wanted to be judged solely on the basis of merit and on nothing else.
Indeed, even hon. members opposite have expressed similar views and have shared similar stories. The hon. member for Waterloo stated in committee, with regard to the government's employment equity legislation, that an individual from his own riding did not want people to think he got his job based on preferential treatment. This constituent was also speaking out against employment equity.
Looking at this concern from another point of view, from a point of view based on productivity in the workplace and from the employer's point of view, I would like to tell another story. This story was told to me personally by a gentleman who owns a fairly large business that he built from scratch in my constituency.
This gentleman's company bid on government contracts on a fairly regular basis. He had been very successful in winning these contracts over the years. He was expressing a deep concern to me that his company was no longer eligible to bid on these contracts. The reason was that he did not have the proper quota allocations within his company. More than 50 per cent of his employees were women. He had always hired a considerable number of women because they could do the job best. He had some members from visible minority groups. But his company could not successfully keep enough employees from the aborigi-
nal group to be able to bid on this contract. Because of this, this business person was disqualified from bidding on these contracts. Any way one looks at that, it is discrimination.
Why does the government then feel that we need employment equity? I guess its reason is to correct perceived injustices in the workplace, an honourable motive. However, when we look at numbers we see that these injustices are often only perceived, and mostly perceived by government.
I would like to present a few more stats to add to those presented by the hon. member for North Vancouver a little earlier.
There are 570,000 people currently regulated by the present Employment Equity Act. Women make up 45.6 per cent of those covered. When looking at women in the overall Canadian workforce, we find that 45.9 per cent of the workforce is female. There is a difference of .03 per cent between those who work under the bodies that are covered by the Employment Equity Program and those in the greater workforce. That is .03 per cent. We have to ask ourselves if this .3 per cent is enough of a difference to warrant the cost and the damage done by these employment equity programs.
According to StatsCan for example, in 1992 single women made about 99 per cent of the salaries of single men. Many salary differences between men and women can be explained by lifestyle choices, for example, the choice to stay at home and raise a family. Of course, that is a very honourable choice indeed.
As well, the Economic Council of Canada released a study in 1992 that found no correlation between wage levels and a person's country of origin. The same report also found that immigrants have a lower unemployment rate than Canadian-born workers. The conclusion reached in the council's report was that there is no significant discrimination against immigrants in general.
In 1994 the employment equity report said that in total, women occupied 47 per cent of government jobs while 47.3 per cent were available to work. Jobs held by women increased by a full percentage point in 1993-94. They took a full per cent more of the top jobs despite the fact that the executive category declined by 6 per cent. Again, would government have us bring in costly programs to adjust for a difference of .3 per cent?
I have a few more statistics. The civilian staff at the RCMP is 82.6 per cent female. At Citizenship Canada, 74 per cent are female. However, in Transport Canada more than 75 per cent are male. Are we to assume that this under-representation of women in the transport department is caused by discrimination? I would say no. However, that is what the report wrongly assumed and this illustrates the fundamental flaw in the report. It is difficult to determine why there are differences, but we cannot automatically assume that it is due to rampant discrimination.
Again I ask the question: Why do we need employment equity programs and legislation? The answer is: I do not think we do. Then why do we have them? I believe we have them because the Liberal government's agenda has been and in fact is set too much by special interest groups and these special interest groups support employment equity. They are not driven by public interest.
We have had too much government based on the vocal input from a minority and too little government based on the less vocal input of the majority. We have had government by the minority instead of the majority. What we have with employment equity is a playing field that is tipped in favour of special interest groups. That is not what Canada is all about.
The motion today calls for the immediate end to employment equity and I fully support the motion. In keeping with the Reform practice of proposing positive alternatives, I will explain the Reform Party's position on employment equity by making five short statements:
One, all Canadians are equal before and under the law and all workers have the right to be free from discrimination in the workplace. Two, the market will provide solutions to a representative workplace in the private sector. Three, it is the role of government to ensure equality of opportunity rather than to determine equality of employment outcome in the public sector. Four, the workplace should be free from arbitrary obstructions to hiring or promotion. Merit must be the sole hiring criterion. Five, employment equity legislation is coercive, discriminatory, unnecessary and costly. It should be discontinued.