Mr. Speaker, listening to the last presentation, it proves the point that so much of this comes down to enforcement of what we already have.
We have laws to protect against discrimination and obviously if those laws are implemented we need not to go any further or introduce any kind of new laws.
I have not heard very much talk about what the business community is saying. Coming from that area I have to put some emphasis on what it is saying about the job equity program.
I am a little annoyed that we should be dealing with this bill in the House which will basically institutionalize discrimination in the workplace. This is exactly what I feel Bill C-64 does, and the Liberal government should be ashamed of promoting this sort of archaic legislation.
We have heard from many reform speakers now. It is absolutely clear why we oppose this bill. We are not racist. We are not sexist and those gurus of political correctness who try to pin that label on the opponents of affirmative action should be publicly condemned for their behaviour.
Reformers know that the huge majority of Canadians are utterly opposed to setting up discriminatory quotas for the hiring and promotion of target groups such as visible minorities. Such discrimination is wrong, no matter what disguise we put on it or what name we put on it. Calling it employment equity and calling the
quotas numerical targets does not change a thing. Everyone in the House should know that.
For those who argue the wrongs of the past have to be corrected through measures such as these, two wrongs do not make a right. There was discrimination in the past and not everyone got a fair shake in life. That is terrible but we have come a long way and we are moving very quickly to right those wrongs. We have come a long way and now the UN even goes so far as to say we are the best country. I agree with that.
The kind of big government, social engineering contained in the bill is utterly unconscionable. Canadians want less government interference in their lives, not more. This is especially true in the case of affirmative action. The role of government is to provide equality before the law and to prohibit discrimination. However, Bill C-64 does exactly the opposite.
Bill C-64 enshrines inequality before the law. It encourages reverse discrimination. Perhaps worst of all, it propagates a victim mentality among our citizens. Minorities and women should think of themselves as equal partners in building the future of Canada. They should be encouraged to compete, to succeed and to provide for their families.
Bill C-64 is absolutely terrible because it sends the wrong messages. It tells our women and visible minorities they are victims, that they are oppressed and that without special legislation they will be incapable of succeeding in our society. This message is not only false but is extremely counter productive and does nothing to build Canada for the 21st Century.
Bill C-64 will create a tremendous number of problems for the country. They will go on and on and become greater and greater, much as the Americans have found since the introduction of their legislation in the sixties. Now they are having to remove it. There will be social costs and there will be economic costs among many other problems associated with this kind of legislation.
As far as the social costs of affirmative action, there are many. To begin with, the bill promotes an unusual them versus us kind of confrontation in the workplace. This confrontation takes place on two levels. There is a confrontation between workers who have already been hired and there is a confrontation between job candidates.
For job candidates the situation under affirmative action is very clear. If they are not a member of one of the target groups they are penalized. If they are they are entitled to special preference. Not only does this mean the all important merit principle is being overridden, but such discriminatory treatment will foster resentment among the majority against candidates who receive the special treatment. As the resentment builds it could very easily lead to an ugly backlash against people from visible minorities when they are not really the problem at all.
The problem is bad legislation. The problem is the government's ill conceived social engineering which will have very serious side effects.
The first major social problem is that merit is not the sole reason for hiring under Bill C-64. Once the country slides down that slippery slope there is no telling where we will end up.
Among those who are already working there are other serious problems associated with employment equity. The two most significant problems involve promotions and layoffs. In both these cases giving preference to certain employees over others can have devastating consequences not only for the efficiency of the business but for workplace harmony.
Imagine a company with 100 employees struggling to make ends meet. Under these circumstances it is essential that everyone work as a team. The very future of the company depends on it. Let us assume ten people have to be laid off. Under market conditions the business would get rid of the ten people who are the most expendable. Under affirmative action, however, what would the company do? If certain employees were seen as exempt from these layoffs, how would this affect workplace team work and camaraderie? The answer is obvious and everyone in the House knows it.
The exact same situation would occur in the case of promotions. If employees feel their very livelihood and careers are being hindered by affirmative action they will strike back, and this is exactly what we do not want. The workplace should be an opportunity to succeed through skill and hard work. It should not be a place where Canadian citizens are penalized or rewarded for their skin colour or their sex.
Beyond the very obvious social costs, there are also economic costs to this legislation. If we use the Ontario employment equity law as an example, the Chamber of Commerce estimated that a company with more than 500 employees would have to spend $100,000 just to comply with the paperwork. This figure does not even begin to factor in the intangibles caused by hiring, firing and promoting workers on the basis of race, sex or disability.
In the U.S., California particularly, the total cost of affirmative action has been estimated as high as 4 per cent of GDP. That is exactly the same as what is spent on all the education programs in that state. Even if this is double the actual number it still translates into billions of dollars lost. In a time of global competition we must become efficient. We must not tie the hands of our businesses behind their backs.
The U.S. is now abandoning this system of affirmative action because it did not work. It was one of those social experiments of the 1960s. In Ontario the Harris government has decided to scrap the lousy affirmative action law of the previous NDP government. Why? It was too costly and because it would not work. The Ontario
Liberal Party agrees completely and would also throw out this program had it been elected.
I wonder why its federal counterparts are so utterly out of touch with the wishes of the Canadian public. Maybe they know what Canadians want but they simply do not care. Is it possible there is so much arrogance on the government side of the House that it thinks it knows better than the Canadian public? Will those paragons of political correctness in the Liberal benches rise up to save the country from its own folly?
There are many flaws in this bill, many things we could explore. Unfortunately my time is soon up. It is late in the day. I ask everyone to think about Bill C-64 and the institutionalizing discrimination it causes. I ask everyone in the House to consider before they vote on this and think about the consequences for this great country.
