Finance committee  It's a good question, and in many ways it's hard to know what the cost would be for the federal government. Obviously, pay equity is the responsibility of employers, to be paying their employees equally. The federal government has said that it's committed to a proactive regime.

Finance committee  CUPE has long had a position in favour of public pharmacare. This is obviously the unfinished work of our public health care system. We're fully behind the Canadian Labour of Congress' campaign that's currently under way. I'm sure you heard from the president earlier today about

Finance committee  Yes, and just to note, CUPE represents public sector workers. We don't represent federal public sector workers, so I don't want to speak for—

Finance committee  —the federal unions here. Obviously, they deserve pay equity just like anyone does. Part of our rationale in calling for proactive pay equity legislation is to remove it from bargaining, because in a lot of cases, much of the holdup has been in the bargaining and legal processes.

Finance committee  I think that's a question for the federal public sector unions, and if you'd like an answer from them, I'm sure we could get you one.

Finance committee  It's just the way they're organized. The way they're set up is, to us, quite clearly going to provide less benefit than the drop-out would have done. In your example, you described the mechanics correctly. The drop-in for child-rearing is basically saying that you're not workin

Finance committee  It's quite clear to us that it will be on net, because if you think about when women tend to have a first child in Canada, it's around age 30. We'd be basically averaging their earnings from 25 to 30. If you look at the way people earn, you see that's when salaries and earnings a

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for having the Canadian Union of Public Employees here today. We're the largest trade union in Canada, with 650,000 members across the country in virtually all sectors of public work. Obviously, Bill C-74 is a very large bill