Mr. Speaker, the Canada Post Corporation was created to provide a standard postal service that meets the needs of Canadians across the country, no matter where they live. To do this, Canada Post has employees across the country and is one of the largest employers in Canada.
To begin, I would like to remind the member that Canada Post, as an independent, arm's-length crown corporation, is responsible for its own operations. As a result, the government, like previous governments before it, does not interfere in its operations. However, our government expects Canada Post to respect the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling on this decades-old dispute that originated years before that member was elected to this House.
Our government continues to expect Canada Post to take the necessary steps to implement the decision as soon as possible. It needs to be recognized that applying the court's ruling is a complex and massive undertaking. In November 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and upheld the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal award to eligible employees for compensation of 50% of the wage gap found to exist from August 24, 1982 to June 2, 2002.
Canada Post has publicly assured Canadians that it is moving forward as diligently and efficiently as possible to implement this ruling. To make payments, the corporation must complete a thorough review of the employee data to determine eligibility and, as required by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, reach an agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada that provides certainty and finality on all compensation issues. Canada Post and the Public Service Alliance of Canada must come to an agreement on a number of key issues, most notably the amount of compensation to be provided by individual, each individual's wage gap, and other calculations on which that amount would be determined.
Canada Post has a dedicated team of Canada Post employees that has been working through the complex data gathering and review process. This complex work involves reviewing tens of thousands of individual employee files. That member should know that some of these records are available in digital format. Many are available in paper format only, some of which date back many decades.
The corporation continues the massive job of gathering data, while attempting to reach an agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada. In order for Canada Post to be able to make the payments according to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's requirements, Canada Post also needs a clear and final agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada on all issues raised.