Vic Toews

[Supplementary Estimates (B), December 10th, 2009]

moved:

That the supplementary estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, be concurred in.

[Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations Act, December 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-471, the private member's bill on pay equity proposed by the Leader of the Opposition.

This government respects the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. In fact, earlier this year we took action to modernize pay equity in the federal public sector. We introduced the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act as a part of the Budget Implementation Act which received royal assent on March 12 of this year. As all hon. members know, Parliament, including the Liberal opposition, passed this important piece of legislation.

The new legislation imposes joint accountability for pay equity and it is the best way to achieve equitable compensation in the public sector. We are replacing the old adversarial complaints based system with a collaborative one. It brings much needed reform to a system that was broken, a system that was lengthy, costly and adversarial, a system that did not serve employees or employers well. In fact, women had to wait up to 20 years to have their pay equity concerns addressed following gruelling, expensive and divisive court hearings.

I would also like to underscore that our legislation reflects the best of the recommendations of the 2004 pay equity task force, not all of them, but the recommendations that are practical and useful to help ensure equitable compensation.

It makes federal public sector employers and bargaining agents jointly accountable for ensuring equitable compensation by integrating pay equity into the wage setting in the public sector so that the unions or the employer cannot ignore the fundamental principle of pay equity.

At the end of the day, our legislation will stop the practice of women's rights being ignored at the bargaining table only to have multi-billion dollar pay equity complaints filed by parties against wages they themselves negotiated.

The bill introduced by the Liberal leader is typical of his approach to public policy. He will say anything to one group of people and do the exact opposite in a blatant attempt to curry votes.

I want to remind the House about why this government took the action it did in the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act.

When our bill was introduced, Canada was facing serious economic challenges with the global economic downturn. Our government's response was to take immediate action through the economic action plan and through measures like the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act. When it came time to vote on the bill, what was the voting record of the Liberal leader and his colleagues, the Liberal chair of the status of women committee, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, and the Liberal finance critic, the member for Markham—Unionville? They voted in favour of the government's important actions, not just once, not just twice, but three times within the space of less than 30 days.

However, the Liberal leader and his party are now trying to undo it with this private member's bill. It is not clear why the Liberals have had a sudden change of heart. Why would they pass our legislation one day and then decide it is not good enough the next?

They speak well of human rights and yet were perfectly willing to support our budget knowing that that legislation was in the budget. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Perhaps even more baffling is the fact that their bill goes against the very position advanced by the former Liberal government before Parliament. I am speaking of the fact that this private member's bill requires the implementation of every single recommendation of the 2004 pay equity task force report.

There are 113 recommendations in all, and as the Leader of the Opposition has indicated, this will require unspecified costs of the government. He has not specified what these costs are but he has clearly indicated that there will be costs for the government. I think the people of Canada are entitled to know what these costs are. Are they simply financial costs? Are they statutory costs? What type of costs are they that his bill will bring forward, as he indicated to the media just a few hours ago?

The previous government publicly spoke out against supporting the task force recommendations in their entirety. In 2005, the former minister of labour and former minister of justice said:

--the Report does not provide an adequate blueprint for implementation of pay equity in a broad range of federally-regulated workplaces.

They also said that the report failed to address key issues that form the backbone of effective pay equity legislation. This includes the relationship between pay equity and collective bargaining, which is an issue I am pleased to say our legislation addresses.

The former Liberal ministers made these comments in a letter to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in November 2005. A month later, the same justice minister appeared before that same committee to reiterate his government's concern with the task force report. Two former Liberal ministers saw the flaws in the task force report. One of them, the hon. member for Mount Royal, is still with us today. In fact, he supported our legislation last March when he, along with the Liberal leader, voted with the government to adopt the Budget Implementation Act.

It is not clear to this government why the Liberals have changed their tune. It is not clear why they would recommend adopting the entire task force report today when, back in 2005, they actively spoke out against such an action, including the fact that it did not properly integrate the pay equity with the collective bargaining situation. What is clear to us, however, is that this impractical private member's bill will carry undefined costs, as admitted by the leader, and it seeks to undo all of the positive changes that the House already voted in favour of.

By adopting all 113 recommendations of the task force report, we would end up with a pay equity regime that requires machinery changes and costs which have not been fully identified or quantified. With this bill we would also end up being forced into accepting a tight timeframe that would prevent any stakeholder consultations on regulations. This timeframe would also derail the consultations that the government has already committed to for 2010.

In addition, the bill seeks to cover all federally regulated private sector employers. These are employers who, as our government already knows, are not presently equipped to implement such far-reaching measures in the current economic context.

Moreover, I would note that a private sector consensus was never achieved on the majority of the task force recommendations report. This lack of consensus led our government to create the pay equity program for federally regulated private sector employers. This program was created in 2006 and it continues to provide support and resources to these employers to help them meet their pay equity obligations.

I would like to end my remarks today by underlining again that Parliament has already taken action to modernize pay equity in the federal public service. It did this by passing our Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act so that women would not have to wait 20 years in order to see pay equity just as a result of collective bargaining. The legislation that we pass is the best means to achieve equitable compensation in the public sector.

I am proud to say that this legislation has strong support. In addition to our Liberal colleagues across the aisle, the association representing most federally regulated employers supports our legislation.

We will continue to consult key stakeholders and employee representatives as we develop the regulations in support of our legislation. These regulations are scheduled to be in place in 2011, giving us plenty of time to conduct meaningful consultations with all interested and affected parties.

This government believes that women deserve fair pay rates now and every time their collective bargaining agreements are renewed, not 20 years from now. That is a fundamental right that our legislation protects. It is too bad that the Liberal leader does not understand that.

[International Co-operation, December 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy for the opportunity to remind the House that it was our government that took action to tighten the guidelines around separation pay. Upon taking office, we reduced separation pay to a maximum of four months, bringing it down from the six-month maximum being paid out by the former Liberal government.

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, between October 19, 2007 and October 19, 2009 the total amounts of funds dispersed from the consolidated revenue fund to pay for severance and separation pay for departing exempt staff of the combined cabinet including the Prime Minister’s Office, all ministers’ offices and all ministers of states’ offices were (a) $2,013,300, and (b) $4,907,032 respectively.

[Public Service of Canada, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, military families have always been a priority for our government. That is why I am pleased to tell the House that the Public Service Commission has been working with government departments on some important changes to help military families. These proposed regulations will give priority for externally advertised public service positions to surviving spouses or common-law partners of persons employed in the public service, members of the Canadian Forces and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Any form of assistance that helps these families deal with injury and loss is the least that we can do for our men and women in uniform.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Why don't you call out one of your Liberal colleagues to speak out.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, relating to the comments the minister just made, I appreciate that he is a former prosecutor from Nova Scotia. I am a former prosecutor from Manitoba and I had occasion to listen to Mr. Colvin's testimony.

What struck me about the testimony was that there was no first-hand knowledge of who committed abuse on any of the few prisoners he interviewed. He had no knowledge of the key issue that is essentially the knowledge that Canadian soldiers had about the likelihood of abuse, much less torture, on prisoners who were turned over to Afghan authorities.

Here is a man, Mr. Colvin, who spent about half a day out of his entire tour outside of the wire and had these few interviews. As a former prosecutor, I would have real concerns about even initiating a process on that basis. We are not dealing with someone recounting first-hand knowledge about the key issue here.

Would the minister indicate what his concern would be if someone actually commenced a legal proceeding on this basis?

[Afghanistan, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps Mr. Cutler was speaking in respect of his experience with the former Liberal government.

Our government is committed to ensuring that employees feel safe to raise concerns honestly and openly about wrongdoing. That is why we strengthened protection for whistleblowers under the Federal Accountability Act and brought into force the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

This witness has the protection of that act. This government is proud that we brought in this protection, which that government refused to bring in.

[Points of Order, November 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian soldiers had these prisoners. They transferred them to the Afghanis. The suggestion made by the member opposite was there was something untoward done by Canadian soldiers to Afghani prisoners. If he has any evidence in that respect, he should stand and give that evidence. The fact is Canadian soldiers do not mistreat their prisoners.

[Points of Order, November 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, let us put on the record what happened. The member for Toronto Centre said that there were no Afghan prisoners transferred by Canadian soldiers to Afghanis prior to 2006. It is a ridiculous suggestion that Canadians did not transfer. What did they do with these prisoners? They did not hold them.