Pat Martin

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, with the one minute I have remaining I will put away the comments I wanted to make. I will instead ask the hon. member if he was aware of the comments of his colleague from Elk Island regarding tax freedom day as calculated by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Does the hon. member realize there used to be a corporate tax freedom day which had to be cancelled because it got in the way of New Year's Eve celebrations? They were merging on the same hour of the same day.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Saint John for a stimulating and vigorous speech. I would certainly like to associate myself with many of the points she made.

One of the key messages that I got from her speech was that we needed an economic stimulation package as part of the budget. A shipbuilding program is something we have advocated.

Could the member expand upon that in the context of the recent B.C. experiment to revitalize the shipbuilding industry there? We used to have 35,000 people working in the dry docks of the Vancouver Burrard shipyards and others. Now there are zero. However when the B.C. government needed four new ferries, rather than buy them from Singapore or Japan, it decided to revitalize its shipbuilding industry. Unfortunately it is still wearing that today because the four ferries that were built were prototypes. Even the first Model T built by Henry Ford surely cost more than the 100th one he built.

Could the member comment on whether the NDP government in British Columbia did the right thing by building ferries rather than buying them offshore?

[Employment Equity Act, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I too am sorry that the 20 minutes flew by so rapidly when the hon. member was just building up a good head of steam.

I did note with interest that he dedicated part of his speech to the very compelling issue of the regional hiring practices of the public civil service. I would like to add one to his list of which he might not be aware. Perhaps he would like to comment on it. In 1998 a woman wrote to the leader of the NDP, the member for Halifax, with a complaint about her daughter's application for a job at the NRC, the National Research Council. She was a trained scientist, an aeronautical engineer with a second degree in astrophysics. She was an immensely qualified woman but she lived in the province of New Brunswick. This job posting did not say that applicants must reside within a 500 kilometre radius of Ottawa. It said candidates must reside within a 50 kilometre radius of Ottawa, which is very tiny little net cast for such a qualified job. I think she was probably overqualified for the job. I would like the hon. member to add that to his list, the general grievance of this hiring practice.

Seeing that the subject today is employment equity and the Employment Equity Act, I appreciate the hon. member broadening the debate to include something that is clearly not being conducted with deference to any kind of effort at equitable access to employment opportunities for kids from Winnipeg, Halifax, Vancouver or anywhere else. Could the hon. member share his views on that particular incident?

[Employment Equity Act, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP caucus, I am glad to have this opportunity to speak to Motion No. 20, the purpose of which is to refer the results of the Employment Equity Act to the HRDC standing committee, as per the requirements of the act.

An aspect of the current Employment Equity Act is that every five years of progress will be subject to review, and the House of Commons gets the opportunity to review the progress made in the private and public sectors as per the goals stated in the act.

It was a generous move on behalf of the government House leader to give us the opportunity to speak to this motion today. I understand that normally this legislation would simply have been referred to the standing committee but the House leader of the NDP asked for some time today in debate to add our comments to this important piece of legislation.

The employment equity legislation has its origins in the very worthwhile belief that all Canadians should have equal opportunity for jobs in the federally regulated public and private sectors and in the workforce in general, and that especially the public service workforce should generally reflect the community that it serves in all ways, shapes and forms. This shortcoming of under-representation from what is called the four equity groups in the public sector workforce and the federally regulated private sector has been identified over the years.

It was to its credit that the government in 1986 brought in the first Employment Equity Act designed to achieve equality in the workforce. This legislation ensured that no person would be denied employment opportunities for reasons unrelated to ability. In other words, there should not be any kind of barrier to gain access to the workforce and the 1986 legislation recognized that. As well, the legislation at that time was concerned with correcting historic disadvantages to employment experienced by the four designated groups: women, aboriginal Canadians, members of visible minorities and persons with a disability.

The bill was rather complex. A number of factors had to be taken into consideration to design a methodology by which one could determine if any kinds of remedial measures needed to be taken in certain sectors. The government wrestled with this for a number of years until 1996 when the act was strengthened dramatically for the better. Changes were implemented that added substance to the act and provided a mechanism and a yardstick by which progress could be measured. The act charged the Canadian Human Rights Commission with the responsibility to review, document and monitor progress made in the sectors affected by the Employment Equity Act.

The whole concept of employment equity has been controversial. Let us not shy away from the fact that not everyone is wholly in favour of these measures. Not everyone, even in 1986, accepted that such measures were necessary or would be to anyone's benefit or advantage. Some of those viewpoints were put forward by the member for Calgary West. We also heard these arguments from a number of sectors but a diminishing number. Most people have come to grips with what we view as the realization that equity issues benefit all, if not now, then in the long run.

A series of myths has been generated by the move to achieve equity in our employment workplaces.

First, I suppose the most common myth we have had foisted on us, and we have heard it again today, is that employment equity is somehow a form of reverse discrimination. I define discrimination as treating one group unfairly. For example, if men and women were equally distributed in all jobs and salary levels of an organization, then it would be wrong to selectively advertise, for instance, for only women candidates, or for only aboriginal candidates or for only persons with disabilities. That is if we had already achieved true representative equity in the workplace. Then I could accept the argument.

We must remember that the measures found in the Employment Equity Act are there to remedy historic imbalances in the level of representation. The Employment Equity Act seeks to right old wrongs. There will be a period of transition until we achieve true equity in the workplace and, until such time, we believe special measures can be defended.

Employment equity levels the playing field for all workers. I would think that a grassroots party would be able to see the sense in leveling the playing field so that all workers would have an advantage. Some people are worried that their own children will perhaps have a difficult time trying to compete with a greater pool of people seeking employment. This is a difficult issue and I am sensitive to it, especially in times of job shortages when there are not a great deal of good unionized jobs available to go around.

I ask those people, who say that their 18 year old son applied for a certain job and believe that he did not get that job because there were employment equity measures undertaken, to think of our daughters as well as our sons. I would ask those people, who would criticize that particular situation, to think if their child had a disability and were applying for that job. For the last many years, it would have been the child with the disability who would have been passed over and not the inverse for what I say is an interim period of transition until we do achieve equity in the workplace.

Let us think of the aboriginal families, who for years and generations have had their children passed over for employment opportunities. In 1986 the House of Commons said that it was time to remedy these historic imbalances and injustices in our hiring practices, in our own public service, in any federally regulated service and, hopefully by way of example, in the Canadian workforce generally.

I should recognize that there are voluntary measures in some workplaces that are being undertaken today where there is no employment equity act lording anything over them. They have taken these steps because they believe it is the right thing to do.

Of the myths that I have noticed throughout the community of those who would criticize employment equity measures, the second myth I have made note of is that employment equity means hiring unqualified workers. That simply cannot be borne out by any empirical evidence that this is any kind of a serious issue. As an agency doing hiring, we all want to ensure that we are hiring the best person for the job. I would put this to the critics of this point of view. How would we know if we have the best person for the job, if we used to pass over women, or aboriginal people, or visible minorities or persons with disabilities because we did not want them in the workplace? It is easy to say that if we are passing over all of those groups of people, we may in fact be passing over the best applicant for the job. These measures would simply ensure that the entire pool is tested when looking for the qualified applicant for these positions.

Another myth is that employment equity measures cause overnight change in the makeup of the workforce and therefore a disruption in the way that we view things. Employment equity has been a long negotiated process of gradual change. It is the only way it can really be outlined. At least in the Canadian experience, it has not been intrusive or radical. The transition has been a long and gradual process of change in the workforce.

The fourth myth I have identified is the idea to somehow make Sudbury's workforce look like Toronto's workforce. In other words, there would be an attempt to harmonize the workforce all across the country in a federally regulated workplace. That is simply untrue. These things are viewed regionally. To use the example of Sudbury versus Toronto, Sudbury has a much higher aboriginal workforce and the methodology adopted in 1996 does take into consideration the availability levels in each category of the equity groups.

If the availability pool of aboriginal people in Sudbury were 15% and in Toronto only 2%, it would be ridiculous to harmonize those under any standardized national program. I want to put people's minds at ease that this is not some kind of a social engineering scheme that employment equity seeks to achieve. I do not believe those complaints have any merit.

Another myth we hear is that employment equity is somehow only for racial minorities, that it is an effort to change the colour of the workplace with the inclusion of visible minorities. Employment equity, as every speaker has reiterated, is for women, aboriginal people, racial minorities and persons with disabilities. The people who would most directly benefit from the employment equity measures in place today would probably be women, since half the workforce is women.

However, even as we make progress in some sectors, we must remember that we have not even met our targets of availability versus people who are actually hired in the category of women as an equity group. There is a huge shortfall and an underrepresentation of women in senior management positions. The glass ceiling is still a very real issue. Women are still being passed over for advancement and promotion to senior management. The myth that employment equity is all about racial minorities is simply not borne out in fact.

The last commonly held myth, and one I am actually happy to report on, is that employment equity was killed by Mike Harris in 1995 when he took power and repealed the employment equity laws in Ontario. I am happy to report that the federal government's current employment equity legislation, which has jurisdiction over all federally employed and federally regulated employees of the federal civil service, et cetera, and even in the private sector, many of whom live in Ontario, also affects those who seek federal government contracts of over $200,000 worth of business annually.

A lot of Ontario firms find themselves subject to the Employment Equity Act provisions if they seek to do business with the federal government. I am pleased to say that employment equity is not dead in the province of Ontario, in spite of the best efforts of the current premier, Mike Harris.

I am glad I was able to point out some of the myths versus facts regarding employment equity.

I now want to deal with some of the findings of the Canadian Human Rights Commission which, as I say, has been charged with the responsibility of monitoring employment equity provisions and using a yardstick to measure the progress.

I only learned today that Madam Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission for the last five years, has announced that she will not be seeking another term. I am very sorry to hear this. She was the steward of this organization through some very challenging times. She did a marvellous job in fulfilling her mandate with fewer and fewer resources and more and more challenges coming before her. We all regret the idea that she will not be with us for the next five year term.

When the government enacted Canada's first Employment Equity Act in 1986, it required federally regulated private sector employers and crown corporations to develop plans to achieve fair representation of designated groups in their workplaces. Women, aboriginal people, people with disabilities and members of visible minority groups were to be represented according to their availability in the labour market. However the problem with this is that the law had no enforcement mechanism.

Stronger legislation in the form of the new Employment Equity Act came into force in October 1996. The bill we are now dealing with today is the first fifth anniversary review, which is an aspect of the 1996 legislation. The act set forth the same core obligations for developing employment equity programs but it bolstered these obligations with a compliance monitoring process.

Employers were required by 12 statutory provisions to analyze their workforces, to review their employment systems, to identify barriers and to implement corrective action plans to ensure they made reasonable progress in dealing with underrepresentation.

Furthermore, the new act established the Canadian Human Rights Commission as the monitoring agency that would carry out compliance audits for the federally regulated public and private sector employers. Employers were given a year to prepare for the upcoming audits and the commission's compliance work began in October 1997.

I think it would be helpful to review some of the progress in those early first few years if we are to understand the scope and magnitude of the challenge faced by the people who were charged with the responsibility to enforce the act. It is useful for us as members of the House of Commons to be aware of this.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission carries out employment equity audits of federal departments, agencies and federally regulated employers and the Employment Equity Act mandates the commission to perform these audits and to report to parliament on the results every year. Working co-operatively with employers is the key, it points out, and enforcement is a last resort.

When the commission made its first report on its work during 1998, the first full year of employment equity audits, two employers in the country were found to be in full compliance, two out of all the audits undertaken. They were the Status of Women Canada, which is possibly fitting to be one of those, and A.J. Bus Lines. I will mention the names of those companies that do come into full compliance because I think they should be acknowledged for the special measures they have taken to come into full compliance.

After two years of experience, from a total of 111 initial audits completed, four employers were found to be in full compliance. If there were ever any proof needed as to why this employment equity bill was necessary, these figures would certainly make the argument for us. Out of 111 employers, 103 signed undertakings to submit to follow up audits. In other words, they were willing to work with the commission to put in place an action plan and then be reviewed again later. The remaining four audits were postponed or cancelled. Four would not take part in the second step. As a result of the follow up audits in 1999, eight more employers were found to be in compliance.

Let me revisit those numbers. Out of 111 agencies and companies visited, four were found to be in compliance. When remedial work was done and a second audit was conducted on the remaining agencies and companies, eight more were brought into compliance for a total of 12 out of 111. That is not really anything to be proud of.

I point out that these compliance audits are not all that onerous. We are not talking about changing 50% of the work force. We are doing it in a very systematic, logical and scientific way. An analysis of the availability of people in the four equity groups is done and then compared to the number of people actually represented in the workforce as per recent hiring. Employers were not being asked to eliminate some people and replace them with others. They were not being asked to hire only from certain equity groups. Employers were simply being asked to increase representation, which they failed to do.

I am looking forward to the results at the committee, the fresh numbers coming forward. I am optimistic that we will not find numbers like this, that out of 111 agencies, only 12 were brought into compliance through the Employment Equity Act provisions.

[Yukon Act, December 3rd, 2001]

I would not be here if I had struck it rich.

[Yukon Act, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the mining claim that I staked to build my home on at mile 18 on the Dempster highway was a placer claim. We were allowed to stake a claim on either side of a creek, 500 feet by 500 feet on both sides, so it was 500 feet by 1,000 feet. We were allowed to surface mine the creek bed for placer gold which is the light gold that is moved along by the flowing water down the creek. As long as the flow of the creek was not interrupted and the clarity or purity of the water was not changed for the person immediately downstream, we were allowed to carry on a gold mining operation as the water flowed by.

The whole Klondike gold rush was placer mining of surface gold in the fast moving waters of the Klondike gold fields.

[Yukon Act, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak to both of the issues that were raised. In the few minutes I have left I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for the minister of aboriginal affairs for the helpful tip. Perhaps I can make use of his recommendation. If we leave the tarpaper on or leave the steps off maybe we will get a tax break. We seem to learn something every day here.

As for the Kaska nation not being allowed to make a presentation, perhaps that was overstating things. They were told it was not possible for them to make representation to the committee because they came forward too late in the process. We have a copy of the letter the clerk of the committee sent to them saying that it was not possible for them to present because they had waited too long to express that interest. However, they argue that if the bill is not to take effect for another 17 months it should have been possible to extend the committee hearings at least long enough to hear from those affected parties.

I should point out that the Kaska nation is not part of the Council of Yukon First Nations. Therefore, even if representation was made by the Council of Yukon First Nations, the Kaska claim, which is almost one-quarter of the entire Yukon territory, would have been silent on that issue.

Speaking to the other point raised by the hon. member for Yukon, I will spend the minute I have left sharing with him the fascination I have and the true emotion I feel for that great territory. Even today, when I cross the border into Yukon, a great sense of peace falls over my shoulders. It is a majesty I do not think anyone could really feel unless they had actually visited that territory. I went there for a short period of time to take a job in one of the mines and did not leave for eight years. It had a profound effect on me as a young man in years that were important, when I was 18 to 25 years old, very formative years.

As for the pristine nature of Yukon, we should all be aware that the Yukon really depends on its natural resources for its future well-being and economic development. The reason I left Yukon in 1981 was that all five mines closed: Faro, Clinton Creek, United Keno Hill and Whitehorse Copper. The year I left, 8,000 people left Yukon, which had a population of 25,000. There was a mass exodus. When the five mines opened again people travelled north and the population stabilized again.

Even though the environmental concerns must be primary, key and paramount, we must also remember that opening up and developing the north means our natural resources base must be harvested in a way that will respect the majesty of the territory.

[Yukon Act, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in speaking to third reading of Bill C-39. I have been watching the bill with interest like most of my colleagues in the House of Commons, but perhaps more so because I spent a number of my formative years in Yukon and feel strongly about that wonderful place north of 60.

It is a pleasure to see the bill moving forward with a great degree of co-operation from all sides of the House and with the growing recognition that this is a natural evolution of the relationship between the territorial government and the Government of Canada. I join my colleagues by welcoming Yukon as a full partner for the first time in the great Confederation of Canada. We look forward to the day when it reaches the status of a full province.

I spent a long time in Yukon. I could point out some examples from my own personal experience as to why this move is important and why this devolution is a natural aspect of the relationship with the Government of Canada. I went to work in the asbestos mines in Yukon at age 17. I fell in love with the place and stayed for eight years. I met and married my wife, and our first child was born in Dawson City. I worked for the Yukon forest service for a number of years.

Other than the fact that I know members will be interested in my personal life, the reason I am saying this is to explain some of the contradictions that existed in the former relationship. As an officer of the forest service, even though I worked for the interests of the territorial government and the immediate forest district I represented, I was an employee of the federal government and a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, not a Yukon territory government union. The policy about land use was influenced greatly by what the federal government thought was best for the people of Yukon many thousands of miles away.

I can think of one graphic example which involved homestead rights in the Yukon territory at that time. If individuals cleared a certain amount of land, stayed and made proper developments to the land, the property would be deeded to them for their own personal use. This was of interest to many people because one of the shortcomings was that the Yukon government, even though there was a great demand for rural property, could not subdivide land and sell it in lots to the people of Yukon because its hands were tied within the federal government's master plan for the area.

As a land use officer for the Yukon territorial government but ultimately working for the federal government because it was still federal purview, I would look at these homesteads to see if the people met the requirements to earn title to the property by clearing the area.

I refer to the case of a backward hippie living on the land outside Haines Junction with two yaks. Yaks are Tibetan animals with long hair that look something like a highland cow but are not. They are quite wild. I learned that when one of them broke out of a truck in downtown Whitehorse, the local radio station had to alert people not to approach it because it was not a domestic animal. However I digress from what I was saying.

There was a lot of interest in the community in allowing Monty and his yaks to have deed and title to this piece of property. Most of us who lived in the community of Haines Junction at the time felt it would be positive for the local community if the land were cleared and developed so that houses could be built.

When the land was measured after being cleared and made into pasture he was one-half acre short of what he needed to qualify. Were it a local decision the person would have had his property and could have developed that little remote pocket of land close to Haines Junction. In the best interests of the local community, Monty and his yaks would have had a proper home.

That is one example to maybe help the people here understand what the member for Yukon was pointing out, the fact that most people in Yukon do want to see this devolution of authority and decision making take place. We believe those events should be decided by the people most closely affected by the ruling.

When I built my first home in Yukon we could not get land anywhere. What few privately held lots there were, even in a place like Dawson City where I lived, had prices that went through the roof because we were not allowed to subdivide or open up any more property. The only way to do that was to stake a mining claim, which one never actually owned but one was then allowed to use that property.

Those of us who had new families and wanted to build our first house had to stake a mining claim and build the cabin on the land. We then had to dig a hole 5x5x5 each year to prove that we were in fact moving dirt around. Was that dishonest? I do not know. It was something we were driven to do. This was the only way we could build without violating all kinds of bylaws and forestry rules, et cetera. We had to go into the forest and build a cabin on a creek and stake that placer claim.

We believe that with the settlement of aboriginal land claims and the devolution of power to Yukon territory, finally more and more subdivisions will be opening up based on need and on the local planning of towns, communities and the territorial government. The people who would now seek to find property in Yukon will welcome this devolution of power as well.

I want to point out one shortcoming. The NDP caucus was approached by the Kaska first nation in the Watson Lake area. The Kaska have strong reservations about the speedy passage of Bill C-39. They felt they should have had an opportunity to come before the committee because they took part in the tripartite process in the devolution agreement to this point. They were very disappointed that only the premier of Yukon appeared before the standing committee to make representation and that they were not allowed to come forward and put forward their concerns.

I believe the Kaska do have some valid points, in that their relationship in the 30 years they have been negotiating their land claim has been with the federal government. Now, as they reach the final stages of that negotiation, the very land that is being claimed will now be transferred from federal ownership to the territorial government. The ownership of some of the subject properties will change. If they were getting close to some sort of a closure of this long process with the federal government, they have a valid reason to believe that it might be impacted now by the devolution of authority or the control of that land to the territorial government.

I raise that concern on behalf of the Kaska. As much as it is possible, I urge the House to make space available for them or guarantee it to them at the Senate committee hearings on Bill C-39. The Kaska certainly feel shortchanged since they were not allowed to present to the House of Commons standing committee. I certainly hope they will be able to voice their issues at the Senate standing committee.

The NDP caucus, on behalf of the people of Yukon, welcomes the devolution of authority from the federal to the territorial government. We believe it is a welcome first step toward what we ultimately hope to see as the full provincehood status for Yukon territory. Some day it will be welcomed into the family of provinces and the Confederation of Canada. In the interim, it is the wish of Yukon people that they have more control over their resources and land use issues. It will be the NDP's pleasure to vote in favour of Bill C-39 at third reading.

[Health, November 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, more resources are desperately needed in the aboriginal community to cope with a 91% increase of persons living with HIV-AIDS. Fully 20% of new cases are aboriginal people, yet only 9% of the funding from the Canadian AIDS strategy is directed towards them.

When will the funding scale of the Canadian AIDS strategy match the changing face of the AIDS pandemic? Why does the government not fund the AIDS crisis in the aboriginal community to the same degree that they fund the general population?

[World Aids Day, November 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the last three years have seen a 91% increase in the number of aboriginal people living with HIV-AIDS in the country. Three hundred and fifty new cases each year means that one aboriginal person per day is becoming infected.

On December 1 we recognize both World AIDS Day and Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Day because the HIV-AIDS pandemic is growing at an alarming rate in first nations communities. Twenty per cent of all AIDS cases in Canada are aboriginal people, yet less than eight per cent of all funding for prevention and care is targeted to aboriginal communities. Perhaps even more worrisome is the age of aboriginal persons living with AIDS. Fully one-third of them are under 30 years old.

We need to give special attention to the alarming crisis of HIV-AIDS in the aboriginal community. I urge the government to increase its efforts in the prevention and care of aboriginal people in first nations communities.