Mr. Speaker, I am never going to stand up to say there is something wrong with paying people a fair wage, an equitable wage based on the effort, the scope, and the responsibility of a job.
I know for a fact there are women who are working for less than men but with the same responsibilities and their jobs having the same scope. That is discrimination. That is a human rights issue. This particular bill undermines some of the fundamentals of equal pay for work of equal value.
We have a government that on Wednesday said that even though it is 2016 and people have a human right to equal pay for work of equal value, they are going to make people wait two more years, although not one witness said we needed to wait two more years. On Wednesday, we were waiting. As I stated, working women are really struggling because they are not getting paid equal pay for work of equal value.
Then we have a government that is very quickly saying that the ministers in question will have the same title. It is going to give them the same title, but not change any of the responsibilities or scope of the positions. It is going pay them more and change the title. I just feel very disrespected by that. I do not want that to come out as how equal pay for work of equal value is done. It is not.
It does a disservice to all those women who have struggled long and hard, some of them in long court cases and others in fact having died before getting their compensation. The member and I may not agree on this part, but the government has its priorities screwed up.