Mr. Speaker, the response is as follows:
a) It is standard practice in developing labour policy to seek the consensus of business and labour groups through consultations. While some consultations have occurred, the process is not complete. Stakeholders have asked for refinement, precision and clarification of proposals before committing themselves.
b) Since the release of the report in October 2006, both the Minister of Labour and departmental officials have heard the views of a broad range of individuals and groups.
Departmental officials have met individually with the following employer organizations: Federally Regulated Employers — Transportation and Communications (FETCO), the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the Canadian Bankers’ Association, Conseil du patronat du Québec, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Canadian Search, Employment and Staffing Services, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Officials also met numerous union and community-based organizations, namely, the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada, Teamsters Canada, Canadian Auto Workers, Confédération des syndicats nationaux, Grain Services Union, and the Workers Action Centre/Parkdale Legal Aid Clinic. Departmental officials also organized a roundtable in Winnipeg in December 2006, with participants from the Canadian Professional Drivers Association, Workers Organizing Resources Centre, Progress Rail, Sabourin Transport, Canwest Global, and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
In January 2007, the Minister of Labour made a four-city tour. In Montréal, he met the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, Fédération canadienne des entreprises indépendantes, and Au bas de I’échelle. In Toronto and Vancouver, the minister participated in breakfast meetings which attracted some 25 to 50 employer representatives each. As well, in Toronto, the minister met the Canadian Bankers’ Association and Teamsters Canada. In Vancouver, the minister also met the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. In Calgary, he met the Canadian Industrial Relations Association, the Institute for Advanced Policy Research, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, and Westjet.
b) i) Because of the report’s length and complexity, 192 recommendations, many stakeholders did not focus on details, preferring instead to make comments of a general nature.
There was a high degree of consensus in support of a new compliance strategy. All stakeholders favoured more education and information and they recognized the need to get tough with repeat offenders. In July 2007, the minister spoke at the annual conference of the Association of Labour Relations Agencies, where he announced that the labour program had begun to hire and train more inspectors to strengthen compliance through handling workplace complaints so that issues are dealt with in a timely manner and to ensure that Canadians can count on stronger enforcement, safer working conditions, and better labour relations. The minister reiterated that the labour program is investing in education, sharing best practices, providing dispute-resolution expertise, and conducting audits and inspections targeted to high risk workplaces and industries.
The report may be divided into three major areas: “flexicurity”, sector-specific legislation and minimum wage. Regarding flexicurity, we heard that unions favour those aspects of the report that supported security, but they did not like measures which promoted flexibility. Employers took the opposite view, supporting flexibility and resisting proposals for more security. Both employers and unions found ideas surrounding sector councils and sector-specific legislation quite attractive, but they identified a variety of challenges to making this approach more practical. Finally, there are huge differences between employers and unions regarding the minimum wage. Unions support a minimum wage that is based on a poverty measure, such as the low-income cutoff, and which is adjusted annually in line with increases in the cost of living. Employers support the status quo where the federal minimum wage reflects the current minimum wage established by each province and territory.
b) ii) Before committing themselves, stakeholders have asked for the refinement, precision and clarification of proposals. The government is doing this, but because many of the recommendations are detailed and complex, the process is time consuming. The government will continue to work closely with stakeholders.
c) It is standard practice in developing labour policy to seek the consensus of business and labour groups through consultations. The stakeholders have already expressed a high degree of consensus in support of a strengthened compliance policy featuring additional education and awareness activities and more robust enforcement. The government has started to implement part of this through reorganization placing a greater focus on compliance and by hiring additional inspectors. More work is required for consensus to emerge in other areas.
d) We are strengthening compliance and hiring additional inspectors within existing resources. Otherwise, it is not feasible to consider funding without knowing the result of the consultation process.