Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Ottawa—Orléans.
It is a pleasure to rise today in the debate on our government’s economic fiscal update. The world is experiencing an unforeseen and unprecedented global economic slowdown. As a result, Canadians are making hard decisions to ensure that they are ready for the future. They are making hard decisions to ensure that they will have the money to pay for their children’s education and for their own retirement.
This government is also making some hard decisions to keep its house in order so that these tough economic times shall pass.
On Thursday, we heard the Minister of Finance tell Canadians that we are taking concrete action to ensure responsible fiscal management and effective government. This action includes measures to keep spending under control and focused, as well as measures to modernize our institutions and the way they do business. Canadians expect no less from their government.
As part of this commitment, the Minister of Finance announced that our government will be introducing legislation to ensure predictability in federal public sector compensation.
In this country we are fortunate in having one of the best public services in the world. Public servants work in more than 200 federal organizations. They work in dozens of different occupations, from border guards to food inspectors and from public health specialists to diplomats.
It is important to remember that public servants are paid by the Canadian taxpayer. It is important that the government lead by example and tighten its own belt before it expects Canadians to do the same. That is why our government will introduce legislation to ensure that public sector compensation remains reasonable and affordable. This legislation would put in place annual public service wage increases of 2.3% for 2007-08 and 1.5% for the following three years. Our government is ensuring that pay for the public sector grows in line with what taxpayers can afford.
This restraint will apply to all public sector employees, including members of Parliament, senators, cabinet ministers and senior public servants. Our government is also ensuring equitable compensation in the public service. This will bring much-needed reform to our complaint-based pay equity regime, which has proved to be a lengthy, costly and adversarial process that serves neither employees nor employers well.
We should be especially proud of the progress toward greater gender balance in the public service, particularly within senior ranks. It is worth noting that back in 1983, fewer than 5% of women were in senior management positions. Today women make up 41% of senior and executive ranks of the federal public service. Women are taking their rightful place in the federal public service.
They are not only taking on top jobs, but their representation in many groups has also increased dramatically over the years. For example, women now represent nearly 60% of knowledge workers. They also represent about 50% of the economist group and 40% of the commerce officers group.
It is safe to say that over the past two years, there has been a significant change in Canada’s public service, and women have played a big role in that change. Today, the public service provides women and men with equal access to all positions and with identical wages within the same groups and levels.
I am proud of the example we are setting for both private and public sector organizations around the world. I am aware that the situation is not perfect, but remarkable progress has been made in addressing the wage gap between men and women in the federal public service. Since 1999, the difference between total wages for men and total wages for women has been decreasing steadily.
Given this situation, and given the need to ensure that the strides women have made in the federal public sector continue to be maintained, the time is right to put in place a more modern approach to pay equity.
We need to take action to put an end to the long and drawn out court cases of the past. It is worth recalling that the last court ruling on pay equity was in 1999 and at a cost of about $3.2 billion, a settlement that took a gruelling 15 years to achieve. We cannot afford any more repeat performances like that. Public service employees deserve better. Taxpayers deserve better.
Next week the government will table legislation that will ensure such court cases will become a thing of the past. The legislation is important and I encourage every member of the House to support it. We need to move on. We need to replace the existing complaints-based pay equity regime that has left us with a lengthy, costly, adversarial process, a process that does not take into account the realities of the new Canadian labour market.
I note with encouragement the developments over the past two weeks, which has seen the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the country's biggest federal public sector union, withdraw two pay equity complaints through a negotiated settlement with the government. The fact that we are able to come to a negotiated settlement on two important pay equity complaints is another strong sign that the time is right to move forward with a more modern approach to equitable compensation.
Moving to an approach that is based on collaboration with bargaining agents rather than the current adversarial process will ensure pay equity issues are addressed as they arise and that problems are resolved expeditiously.
The legislation the government will introduce will give us a more modern and collaborative approach. It will help us rid the current system, which is archaic, onerous and just plain unfair to employees. However, all these important measures are already being threatened by an opposition that is more interested in lining its own pockets than by leading by example. Just as Canadian families and businesses are doing, the government should show prudence and restraint.
In this global economic instability, supporting the legislation is the right thing to do. It is what Canadians expect. Most important, it will ensure prudent and responsible use of tax dollars and it will protect the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. It will ensure that women and men continue to benefit from quality working conditions in Canada's public service.