Madam Speaker, first may I take a few moments to thank my hon. colleagues and the Speaker for allowing me the wonderful opportunity to bring the latest addition to my family into the House this evening.
It is with some disappointment I rise to debate this motion today. It is clear from the mover's comments that he intends his motion to be an attack on employment equity. Unfortunately, the wording of his motion seems designed to obscure this fact.
If his intent is to oppose employment equity, it is a shame he did not have the courage of his convictions and spell that out in his motion. Instead he has given us a platitude which is open to a host of interpretations.
No one can disagree with the motherhood statement in his motion. Of course hiring should be based on merit. Where we start to disagree is in how we ensure people are hired based on their merit.
Employment equity was introduced because it was clear many people were not having a chance to be assessed on the basis of merit. The degree to which women, aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minority groups are under-represented in many areas of the workforce makes it obvious that the problem is more than just a lack of qualified candidates. What makes this even clearer is that in sectors where the groups designated under employment equity are well represented, they were often concentrated in lower paid occupations.
The employment equity legislation focuses on removing barriers that may prevent people from the designated groups from finding employment.
While there are targets, these are to be met by ensuring the hiring procedures and workplaces are free of discrimination. The legislation does not set out hiring quotas. There is also nothing in the legislation requiring employers to hire unqualified candidates. In fact, the reverse is true.
Section 6 of the legislation states specifically that private sector employers are not required to hire or promote unqualified persons. It also states that in the public sector there is no requirement to hire or promote persons without basing the hiring or promotion on selection according to merit in cases where the Public Service Employment Act requires that hiring or promotion be based on selection according to merit.
According to my hon. colleague, we can rely on the marketplace to solve the problem of the under-representation of women, members of visible minority groups, persons with disabilities and aboriginal Canadians. Unfortunately this has not proven to be the case.
The member is right when he says that there are many economic advantages to employers in having a workforce which reflects the community as a whole. What he ignores are the barriers that exist for people from under-represented groups when looking for work. It is these barriers employment equity seeks to eliminate.
The barriers members of designated groups face range from racist or sexist behaviour in the workplace to hiring practices which exclude many people from even having a chance to be considered for jobs. Eliminating these barriers is crucial to ensuring we have hiring based on merit.
It should also not be forgotten that we all benefit from some of the changes required by employment equity. One of the complaints I hear from people in my riding who are looking for work is that they have difficulty even hearing about vacant jobs.
For many young white males, the group the mover claims to be worried about, this is a particularly serious problem. Finding out about a large number of jobs depends on networking. In other words, who you know.
Young people just starting out are ready to work. They have the ability to work. However, they are not getting that opportunity for some of the same reasons members of groups designated under employment equity legislation are being excluded. Even getting information about job openings can require an extensive network of contacts, something most people who are just starting out do not have.
Even more disturbing is any attempt to link the high level of unemployment among young males to employment equity. Across Canada 1.4 million people are unemployed. We have this level of unemployment because the federal government has chosen to deal with the deficit by cutting and slashing instead of trying to get people back to work.
If we are genuinely concerned about the plight of unemployed young people we should be supporting measures such as reinvestment in health care, a cut in the GST or work experience programs which will put young people back to work.
In closing, I would like to touch on an aspect of the employment equity debate which the government would rather we forget. A key part of employment equity is the assumption that there should be equal pay for work of equal value: pay equity. During the 1993 election campaign members of the Liberal Party agreed with it. They promised public employees they would receive a fair settlement. Five years later public employees are still waiting.
First the federal government forced employees to go through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to get justice. When the employees were successful at the tribunal the federal government appealed the decision. There is an old saying “justice delayed is justice denied”. The way the Liberal government has broken its word on pay equity has left many questioning its commitment to promoting fairness in the workplace.