Uqaqtittiji, I am rising on behalf of 69 petitioners who are seeking attention on pay equity. They have found that the office of the pay equity commissioner reported in 2024 that women earn 87ยข for every dollar earned by men and that this gap is even larger for Black, indigenous and racialized women, and disabled women.
The governments of Yukon, NWT and Nunavut continue to be exempt from the Pay Equity Act. The petitioners point out that the Treasury Board of Canada, as an employer, has a responsibility to establish a pay equity plan. They are calling on the federal government to do three things: to increase the funding for the Office of the Pay Equity Commissioner; to provide more resources; and to issue an order in council removing the exemptions for the three territories from the Pay Equity Act.