Pay Equity committee  Great, thanks a lot. It's my pleasure to meet with the committee. I think this is incredibly important work that you're doing. Today I'm going to speak to the notion of pay equity as required by Canada's commitment to equality, both at an international and domestic level. I

Pay Equity committee  I'll simply conclude by saying I'm happy to discuss the charter obligations and what the nature of pay equity being a human right concretely demands going forward.

Pay Equity committee  Thanks. I'm going to reiterate, at an abstract level, many of the points that have been made. I would caution you not to jump too quickly to the conclusion that detail is a problem. I think, in fact, the litigation over this shows that the absence of appropriate detail and spec

Pay Equity committee  Let me jump in really quickly, and then I think Kathleen wants to also. There is a bundle of issues to consider when you're thinking about the institutional home for a pay equity system. You want a system that isn't already burdened, because that results in delay. You want a sys

Status of Women committee  Thanks. It's a real pleasure to be able to speak with the committee this morning. My professional work focuses on issues of women's equality, specifically in reference to constitutional law, international human rights, and social justice and the law. I've worked with a number of

Status of Women committee  I'll jump in, if that's okay. I'm currently chair of the status of women committee at UBC, and I also sit on a number of university-wide equity and diversity committees. The situation of women in the academy is one that I spend a lot of time thinking about in the administration

Status of Women committee  I think the answer to that is an obvious one. If we'd led in the area, with a criminal justice system that is victim-centric, that understands the gendered systemic nature, the kind of rape culture that characterizes our nation and others as well, I think we would have done a muc

Status of Women committee  I can speak generally to this. There's a lot of literature documenting this in relation to specific climate challenges, but it is the case that women are distinctively and differently vulnerable to the ravages of climate degradation. This is particularly true for indigenous women

Status of Women committee  It's easy to make a call for federal implementation and facilitation of universal child care. Quite simply, that would make a huge difference to the economic security of many women, particularly sole-parent families. A lot of evidence shows that people have difficulty entering

Status of Women committee  I concur. I think the methods we're employing clearly aren't working, and it is time to think about quotas. There are a variety of different ways to implement quotas. With a sensitive and structured sort of approach, we can do much better at getting the kind of outcomes that we

Government Operations committee  It's a pleasure to be here. I really have three simple points to make. I'll make those quickly and then I'm happy to have a conversation in more depth. The first point I want to make is that this particular piece of legislation really doesn't, as far as I can see, have much to d

Government Operations committee  Thanks. You've definitely opened the conversation up, and I'm going to take a piece of that opportunity, but not a whole chunk of it. I did think about what we would want the federal government to do. I want to reiterate the point that it's critical to be clear about what is or

Government Operations committee  Well, my understanding was that some of the material in the press release mentioned this as a gender equity measure. It's really that framing of the bill that I'm assuming the government did purposefully. That's what I'm speaking to.

Government Operations committee  I can be brief. First, I'll mention pay equity legislation: move it up on the legislative agenda. Second, there are real problems with employment insurance in terms of access to parental and maternity leave and basic unemployment insurance benefits for women because of the way t

Government Operations committee  My heart is still at UVic.