Mr. Speaker, on December 1, 1997 I asked the President of the Treasury Board whether the government would settle the pay equity dispute fairly, once and for all, or signal to the public that pay equity dead.
Under federal jurisdiction section 11 of the Canadian Human Rights Act provides that it is discriminatory practice for an employer to establish or maintain differences in wages between male and female employees who perform work of equal value.
In 1984 the Public Service Alliance of Canada filed a pay equity complaint on behalf of its members. They are still waiting for their money in 1998. We have all had the honour of listening to every excuse imaginable as to why it has not been done.
In the past 14 years the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Treasury Board have been through four years of joint union-management pay equity study, almost six years of hearings before a Canadian human rights tribunal and months of fruitless negotiations.
In the 1993 federal election the Liberals promised that if elected they would stop the stalling tactics of the Conservative government and work on an acceptable solution. I guess that was just another one of those promises the electors need to forget once the polling stations close.
The Liberals' idea of a solution was to continue the stalling tactics before the human rights tribunal. When that did not work they put some money on the table. The money is an amount which only partially closes the wage gap between male and female salaries for work of equal value. They are hoping that time will be on their side and that their employees will be forced to wait so long for pay equity that they will agree to any amount.
There is a perception that big business and the wealthy can tie things up in court through appeals for so long that it either breaks the small business or an average person runs out of money or dies. I do not think Canadians ever expected this to be the tactic of our government.
We see it with the Singer workers in Quebec. Government members do not care that they will be in their graves before that is settled. If they did they would have resolved it by now. We are still seeing it with the workers affected by the human rights decision.
Did Mr. Mulroney have as much trouble getting his money? Did the government wait 14 years to pay $474 million in cancellation fees to get out of the EH-101 helicopter deal? Will it take 14 years to finalize the Pearson International pay up? I think not. Why are they being paid and not the workers? Because government workers are ordinary Canadians, low and middle income Canadians.
In December the President of the Treasury Board misrepresented facts. At the same time that PSAC representatives were meeting with Treasury Board officials to continue the talks on pay equity, the President of the Treasury Board was conducting a press conference announcing that the negotiations were to end.
The government did not want to find a way to settle the dispute. The offer put forward by the Treasury Board fails to comply with the Canadian Human Rights Act and pay equity guidelines.
Have we reached a point where we have to go to the Department of Justice to encourage the government to comply with the law? Can Canadians trust that the government will comply with the decision of the human rights commission and pay the people all they are owed now?