Right, you and whose army? The unemployment rate for white males with university degrees was just 4.1 per cent in the 1991 census. Compare that with 7 per cent for university educated aboriginal peoples and 10.9 per cent for persons with disabilities with the same academic background.
The situation facing people with disabilities is particularly bad. They are being hired at a rate that is only one-quarter of the representation in the Canadian workforce. They experience an unemployment rate of 18.5 per cent, double the national average. Is it any wonder their labour force participation rate is only 60 per cent?
I could go on: the situation facing aboriginal people not just on isolated reserves but in our cities; the situation facing women who are disproportionately found in clerical, sales and service occupations, what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and I in our years as feminists-and proud we are to use that term-know as the pink collar occupations, the job ghettos. Stories of these people have been told eloquently already.
During the recent hearings of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons approximately 60 witnesses came forward to share their experiences and expectations. They came from many backgrounds but the vast majority supported this legislation based on their real life experience, not some theory they posit in their group of white males getting along just fine and do not want the hoards of those people knocking at their gates.
Look out, the gates are being knocked on and they are being knocked on hard.
The committee heard stories of broken dreams. It heard stories of sincere desires to become full participating members of society. Witnesses did not appear before the committee to seek a special deal. Witnesses appeared before that committee to seek fairness. That is what we as members of Parliament have to start giving. Those people on the other side of the House need to learn a little bit about that.
Witnesses did not ask for redress for the wrongs of the past. They wanted attention to the wrongs that are happening right now. These are not the kinds of wrongs human rights commissions can address through individual complaints. These are systemic discrimination that can only be got at by being rooted out and dug out through things like the Employment Equity Act.
The problems have little or nothing to do with evidence of overt discrimination. They have everything to do with removing barriers and implementing innovative solutions.
Mr. Speaker, Reformers seem to seize on the odd statistic that this law has had some impact. They see one improvement in some indicator and declare that the war on inequality has been won: strike down the law and send home the troops. Well not so fast. The battle is not over.