Hansard - Bill C-10 - Budget Implementation Act - Conservatives' Attack on Pay Equity for Women

40th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 011
CONTENTS
Monday, February 9, 2009

Bill C-10 – Budget Implimentation Act - Conservatives' Attack on Pay Equity for Women

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, NDP): Madam Speaker, I do not believe my colleagues in the Liberal Party really understand what is at stake here. If it was not apparent before either in the doomed economic statement of November 27 or the recent budget, then it should be clear now based on what is in this legislation, Bill C-10, the budget implementation act.

If there is any way for me to make a miracle happen on behalf of the women of this country, it would be to convince the Liberals not to sit back and support the budget implementation act which sets back the clock some 30 years in terms of women's equality. I wish I could find those words because they do not realize that what is at stake here is everything that the member for Beaches—East York fought for all these years, that I fought for, that my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan fought for, that the member for Trinity—Spadina fought for and, of course, that my male colleagues fought for as well.

We entered political life to make a difference. One way to make that difference was to ensure that some measure of pay equity was being enforced right across this country. I cannot believe that the Liberals are going to sit here today and let this go down the tubes. I cannot believe that they are going to let the women of this country down simply because they got boxed in by some stupid response to this Conservative budget, which does not deserve to be supported for one second of the day. I cannot believe it.

I may be emotional today, but I have been involved in the women's movement for some 30 to 40 years. When we started working in the women's movement it was not just to be patsies for the men or for a right-wing macho party like the Conservative Party. It was to stand up for women, to stand up and be counted and make sure that the laws of the land respected and reflected the great diversity of this land and the values of this country. At the heart of that is equality and justice. At the heart of equality and justice is pay equity, and what pay equity means is equal pay for work of equal value.

If the Liberals do not understand what they are doing right now, then they only need to talk to the Conservatives who at their last convention in November, in the city of Winnipeg, rolled back the clock in terms of their own party resolutions and eliminated the concept of equal pay for work of equal value. They changed the definition of pay equity back to what it was 30 or 40 years ago, which is equal pay for equal work. That resolution was sponsored by the Conservatives' own caucus. It was not an individual member who did not know what he or she was doing. It was sponsored by their caucus and introduced by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

How can anyone sit and ignore what is really being done to us here today? Look at the legislation. Look at what the Conservatives are doing to the concept of equal pay for work of equal value. Look at the sections under the supposed public sector equitable compensation act. The title gives the first clue. Does it say “public sector pay equity act”? No. There is a weasel word in this bill. It is a weasel word that allows the Conservatives to do what they passed at their last convention, which is to eliminate the notion of pay equity forever from this country and from women's struggle for equality. It is absolutely reprehensible and no one in the House should allow them to get away with it.

I can go back to 1985 in my province of Manitoba, when the notion of pay equity was just being developed. The women's movement was trying to convince politicians and governments about the importance of dealing with pink ghettos and women earning half of what men were making, because at that time we did not have anything that resembled equal pay for work of equal value.

That is a concept that looks at what is involved in a job and what a person brings to a job. It is not just about the straight job description, comparing a female car mechanic to a male car mechanic. It is about comparing jobs that are not necessarily identical but there is an equal value to the job, a certain level of skill, education, expertise, knowledge that justifies that job being paid on an equal basis to an equivalent job in the male sector, or in a male dominated workplace.

In 1985, the NDP government in Manitoba listened to the voices of women. In Manitoba we brought in the first legislation in this country on equal pay for work of equal value, called, The Pay Equity Act. It was not called the “equitable pay act”, to sort of pay women on an equal basis to men. It was very specific. The Pay Equity Act states:

WHEREAS many women in the Manitoba labour force work in traditionally female occupational groups, where their work is undervalued and underpaid;

AND WHEREAS Canada's international obligations commit this country to implementing the principle of equal pay for work of equal value;

AND WHEREAS section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees individuals equality before and under the law and the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination;

THEREFORE HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, enacts as follows:

1 In this Act..."pay equity" means a compensation practice which is based primarily on the relative value of the work performed, irrespective of the gender of employees, and includes the requirement that no employer shall establish or maintain a difference between the wages paid to male and female employees, employed by that employer, who are performing work of equal or comparable value--

That was the breakthrough over 30 years ago.

What do we have today? We have a government that wants to eliminate this concept from the federal statutes. It wants to take away the very notion, change the definition and eliminate any right for women to inherit what is rightfully theirs.

Today and every day that we have raised this issue, the President of the Treasury Board, the minister responsible for Manitoba, has perpetrated a hoax on the House. He has totally misled this chamber. He has not told the truth about what exists in Manitoba. He has tried to leave the impression that what the Conservatives are doing is equivalent to this historic pioneering move by Manitoba back in 1985.

Let me set the record straight. There is no comparison between what the government is proposing and what is on the statutes in Manitoba. Instead in this federal system, under the Conservative government's proposals, there is no legislation that entrenches the notion of equal pay for work of equal value and there is no mechanism for appeals. The Conservatives are taking away the right to go to the Human Rights Commission. As my colleague from Beaches—East York pointed out, it also will fine people who actually advocate on behalf of employees who want their rights upheld. The Conservatives want to fine people maybe $50,000 if someone in the union decides that the complaint is worth pursuing and the woman was done an injustice and therefore needs some representation. Not only do the Conservatives take it away, but they penalize people for advocating on behalf of women.

What we need in this country at the federal level is a government that does not turn back the clock on women, that does not negate a value or a struggle that was won legitimately with integrity and with all the education and research to justify and to explain that breakthrough.

We in the House cannot let the government take away something that has been so important to our struggle, no matter what party we belong to today. All of us, Liberals, Bloc and New Democrats, one way or another have fought for equal pay for work of equal value. I do not know about the Conservatives. Maybe there are one or two or a few among them who know what this means, what it is all about and what they are doing today, but if not, I suggest they go back and do a little research, a little reading, because what is at stake here, what they are about to do is to eliminate something that is fundamental to any notion of equality.

Manitoba's legislation is not based on the notion of equitable compensation as this bill is, but Manitoba's legislation is grounded on the principle and founded on the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. That is the system that was started in 1985, and as a result of the pervasive nature of the fact that it operates in all sectors of our society, it has gone from strictly the provincial civil service to all sectors. When it does not touch a certain sector and there is a gap, a person can still go to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and lodge a complaint.

What the minister said is rubbish. It is absolutely not true when he suggested any comparison between Manitoba with its enlightened policies about women and the Conservative government's outdated, retrograde, chauvinistic, macho approach to decisions that have to be made on the basis of women and women's equality.

I saw it in the House today. Those members stand up and hoot and holler when someone brings forward legislation to get rid of the gun registry. Do they stand up to their Prime Minister and make all kinds of noise on something as negative, as regressive, as outdated, as unjust as their party's decision on equal pay for work of equal value?

All I can say is that we are talking about something that is fundamental to everything we have done and worked for over the years. We cannot let it slip away. The Liberals have an obligation to look at this and understand what they are doing by agreeing to pass Bill C-10, a bill that eliminates--

Mr. Leon Benoit: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member has been here long enough to know that it is improper to use something as a prop. The member is using a document. I grant that it is a very good document she is using as a prop and it is well worth showing, but it is against the rules and I think she should stop using it as a prop.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Denise Savoie): The member is using the actual legislation, so it would appear to be in order.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: I guess, Madam Speaker, you could consider this a prop considering the fact that it should be put in the garbage. This is the government's bill and if the members do not want me to use it, maybe that is what they think of it. This is the bill that we are debating today. I would suggest to the member that he read it and realize just what his government is doing on the notion of equality.

Maybe I should read from it. Let us begin with page 362, the clause that begins with the establishment of this supposed new legislation that the President of the Treasury Board likes to refer to as being on an equal basis with what exists in Manitoba, the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act.

I would like to know from the government what “equitable” means, how this is defined in law and what bearing it has in terms of equal pay for work of equal value. I would like to know, on the basis of this huge bill of over 500 pages, why we have a section that fines people who work on behalf of employees who feel that their rights are not being met or adhered to. I would like to know why in clause 399 of this bill it says specifically that the Human Rights “Commission does not have jurisdiction to deal with complaints made against an employer within the meaning of the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act”. I would like to know where one can find justice if one still believes in the notion of equal pay for work of equal value. There is no legislation that upholds the concept and now there is no way to advance a complaint with the Human Rights Commission that is founded on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

What is left? What are women? Are we chopped liver? Do we have no rights anymore? Where does this take us? What does the government really want to do? How does it feel about women and equality?

I do not know if I can get through to the government members on this because they obviously have an agenda that was made clear at their convention in November. They do not like the notion of equal pay for work of equal value. They are in an era way before the women's movement and women's equality. They want to set women back and negate the gains for which we fought for so many years.

However, I want to appeal to the Liberals because they were part of this struggle. Sure, there were some problems along the way. They did not advance the changes in legislation and the broadening of the mechanisms for the Human Rights Commission to pursue injustices in terms of equal pay. Sure, we did not get far enough in terms finding a way to have the government initiate, on a proactive basis, complaints about the lack of equal pay for work equal value. Sure, it was a complaints based system and lots of problems with it, but at least we had the concept, at least the Liberals understood and at least there was some common ground but now we are about to lose all of that.

There are so many other reasons why the Liberals should oppose the bill, why they should not be making deals with the Conservatives and why the Conservative-Liberal axis is just wrong, One need only to look at pay equity or child care and the fact that the bill makes absolutely no attempt to address the very serious situation facing parents either looking for child care or women or men working in the child care field.

I want to refer to Pat Wege from Manitoba who has been working on this for about 30 or 40 years. She said:

Shame on the Government of Canada for leaving child care out of the federal budget yet again. The majority of parents need child-care services, whether they are employed, searching for a job, or need to enter retraining.

She goes on to say:

While the [Conservative] government continues to ignore the child care file, U.S. President Barack Obama is wasting no time. His economic recovery plan includes billions in additional support for the development of more early learning and child-care services.

Whether we are looking at pay equity, child care or employment insurance, especially when it comes to women who work in part time jobs or in precarious employment situations, not to have access to employment insurance when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own, is absolutely reprehensible and wrong.

I thought the Conservatives were joining us when we tried to raise in the House, when the Liberals were in government, the whole issue of Kelly Lesiuk, the famous Manitoban who fought the system because she was short a few hours and could not afford to leave her job to have another child because the EI rules were just so regressive in terms of women, especially young women who wanted to have children.

I could talk about the RCMP cuts and the fact that the Conservative government talks about law and order and about getting rid of the gun registry. Goodness knows why the Conservative members will not stand up for RCMP officers who need to be supported and respected. They work in dangerous situations, often in isolated communities and often on their own, and yet the government wants to roll back their salaries. Go figure. How does that make sense in this day and age?

I could talk about infrastructure and the fact that many communities in Manitoba will not be able to take advantage of the infrastructure dollars simply because the Conservative government is trying to suggest that if a municipality has already budgeted for a recreational facility or the construction of a building then it will not eligible for any support. Does that make sense when a municipality is trying to pull together the resources in the first place to meet its infrastructure needs, and along comes the government and says that it is not eligible?

Why did the government not bring in the gas tax formula that we and others recommended to deal with infrastructure dollars?

Where is the support for people who are being bilked out of millions of dollars because this climate is producing all kinds of Ponzi schemes and fraud artists? Where is the support for the many Manitobans who were ripped off billions by fraud artists?

With so many areas that need to be addressed, so much left to be done, so little in terms of a stimulus kickstart package from the government and so much wrong being perpetrated on Canadians, especially women, one wonders how anyone can support the budget.