Madam Speaker, the Reform Party put forward today the following motion:
That this House deplore the government's employment equity policy as unnecessary, ineffective, costly, unpopular, intrusive, discriminatory and harmful to designated and non-designated groups; that this House recognize the equality of all Canadians by affirming that hiring and promotion be based solely on merit rather than on gender and race; and that discriminatory employment practices be more vigorously pursued on an individual case by case basis.
I come from a family farm in rural Saskatchewan. Whenever work was available it did not matter much what one's gender or colour was. My sister was involved in the work on the farm. It did not matter what task was at hand. She was able to do it as ably as anyone else on the farm. We are proud of her abilities to tackle any task at hand.
It is with that approach we should be looking at employment opportunities. We should be looking at the skills of the applicants rather than at the colour of their skin, their gender or some other distinguishing mark or blemish, if one would be so bold as to use that word.
It gives me pleasure today to speak on the issue of employment equity or what I would rather call preferential hiring or affirmative action, a concept that is failing around the world wherever it has been tried. The specific area I should like to address is the government's definition of equality. Equality has been loosely defined as equality of numerical representation in the workforce.
For example, if 5 per cent of our available workforce is made up of visible minorities each employer's workforce should reflect the 5 per cent. In order for the government to move toward equality of numerical representation, it must obtain an accurate statistical base showing the representation of designated groups.
However, accuracy of statistical base depends on self-identification and here we have a huge problem. The government has stressed that self-identification is the backbone of the employment equity program. There are a number of problems, however, with the self-identification process.
The Stentor group, testifying before the human rights committee, stated that employee data collected by means of the self-identification process was unreliable. Many employees are reluctant to participate in the self-identification process because often there is a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of fellow workers. Most individuals would rather have their promotions and benefits based on merit than on gender or race.
I will use an example that is very close to home. The Clerk of the House of Commons appeared before the committee on April 27 and stated that a voluntary self-identification survey was sent to 1,700 House of Commons employees. Shockingly, only 23 per cent of the employees returned the survey. Of that number less than 50 identified themselves as belonging to a designated group. From these numbers it would be next to impossible to implement an accurate employment equity plan.
It does not work. It does not work on the Hill. How will it work across the country? Yet the Liberals are committed to employment equity. They think they can legislate it. They are absolutely wrong.
Difficulties also arise in determining who should belong to the designated groups. For instance, should a person of mixed parentage be counted as a visible minority? Why? Why not? Should a third generation visible minority Canadian be thought of as disadvantaged as a new citizen from the third world? Why? Why not? These questions need to be addressed by the government.
There are also problems in defining what constitutes a disability. If I were to wear glasses I would be considered disabled. It is ridiculous. This list goes on and on. It shows how complicated and interwoven the problems surrounding the whole employment equity affirmative action programs become. Yet the Liberals in their red book are committed to this terrible policy, this impossibility.
Another concern is with regard to intrusive behaviour in the identification process to know who are the minorities. To get the statistics surveys have to be done, which means employers and employees have to comply. Yet the right of individuals to refuse
self-identification is an important privacy right. The boundaries of consent to self-identify are already being blurred.
In March 1995 the Department of National Defence issued a diversity questionnaire to all employees. The first section was compulsory, requiring personal information such as name and address. It was pretty basic stuff. The second self-identification section was voluntary. By requiring partial information the department obtained knowledge of all those who refused to self-identify. It is a serious problem. It is an invasion of a person's privacy.
They already know now who refuses to identify themselves as being in a visible minority, a group that might qualify for special assistance under any kind of equity employment program. It is intrusive. It is wrong. It is a violation of some basic rights as Canadians. Some members of designated groups can now be approached by the national defence managers and be pressured to respond or asked to agree to be identified under the authority of section 17(3) of the proposed Liberal legislation, Bill C-64, where only those employees who agree to be identified are to be counted.
Employers can use a variety of informal methods and pressure to persuade employees to give consent for self-identification. To make any part of a self-identification questionnaire compulsive is coercive. The use of personal information for anything other than department wide statistics should be unacceptable. Any that are made necessary by requirement are inherently wrong and are another weakness of employment equity.
The government is saying that if a person is a visible minority there is a greater likelihood that person will be disadvantaged. I do not accept that. I think that is wrong. Why should certain visible minority groups which earn some of the top incomes in the country qualify for employment action programs? It does not make sense when others who are not visible minorities are passed over.
I would like to give the House an example of how ludicrous the whole concept of employment equity, gender equity or race based equity can become. A law program at a university in the province of Ontario undertook what it called an equal opportunity approach to education. Essentially it was trying to get a certain number of visible minorities into the law profession, which is an admirable goal. However, what it did was not so admirable. On the law school application was a question whether the applicant was a visible minority. I am not too certain why being a visible minority would make someone a better candidate for law school. I do not understand why that would be the case.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. The students in the law school are segregated during exams between those who are visible minorities and those who are not visible minorities. Those individuals who are visible minorities are given eight hours to write exams, while those who are not visible minorities are given four hours. In addition, visible minorities are given special access to tutors that is not available to other students. To make matters worse, those who were not visible minorities were kept in the dark about the university's policies.
The type of approach taken by the university is doing visible minorities a disservice. Can you imagine getting a law degree from that university and it becoming common knowledge that you had twice the time to write the exam or that you were given special tutoring? I am sure the demand for those students would be half as great as for those who followed the regular course. Employment equity or equal opportunity, when it becomes based on gender, race or some other distinguishing mark of a visible minority, it is ludicrous and ridiculous.
It is insulting to visible minorities that the only reason they are in law school or they are hired is because of their skin colour, their gender or any reason other than their ability and their merit. Instead they should be given the message that they are qualified to be there, that they have skills, intellect and the determination to get the job done, whether it be to get a law degree or to get a job.
In conclusion, I would like to talk a bit about something which is important to me, results. In the last election a bunch of nonsense went around that somehow the Reform Party was male dominated and that the party was only interested in the male segment of the Canadian population. Actually the statistics do not bear that out.
It is very interesting to find out that of our candidates, the female candidates had a higher success ratio than the male candidates. We had no equity program. We did not demand that half of our candidates be female. Maybe if we had we would have had twice as many members here.
We left the choice of the selection of candidates up to the local constituencies, which looked for the best person for the job. They did not look at the colour of their skin or their gender. They looked at their ability to represent their constituents. They looked at their ability to come to this place to try to change it. We were more successful at electing women candidates than we were male candidates. A lot of Canadians do not know that because they have been given misinformation by the Liberals and by others who have a vested interest in the whole issue.
As employers, let us choose people based on merit. As government, let us promote a policy that will let people succeed because they deserve to, not because they are pampered on some unreasonable grounds that forms the basis for employment equity programs.