2001 Legislative Session: 5th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes
only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2001
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 22, Number 10
[ Page 17487 ]
The House met at 2:09 p.m.
Prayers.
G. Campbell: I rise today to recognize the passing of two British Columbians who made a significant impact on the public life of this province. David McTaggart -- who was the co-founder of the world's largest environmental organization, Greenpeace -- was a tireless advocate on behalf of the environment not just here in our province but in Canada and around the world. He was recognized for that advocacy. He was killed in an automobile accident in Italy over the weekend. I'm sure the thoughts and prayers of every member of the House are with his family at this very difficult time.
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Also, hon. Speaker, yesterday Jack Diamond passed away. Mr. Diamond came to Canada in 1926. He came from Poland. He was penniless. But in this land of opportunity, his accomplishments were extensive. He is considered the founder of modern-day horse racing in British Columbia. He was chancellor of Simon Fraser University and a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was a leader in the Jewish community in British Columbia and a noted philanthropist who supported a broad variety of causes that made life in our province much better and of higher quality than elsewhere. Jack passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday at the age of 91.
I'd ask the House to join me in recognizing and remembering the contributions of these two great British Columbians.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We would join with all members of this Legislature to honour both of these men. It is part of the travails of life to open up the newspaper and see such tragic losses, particularly in the case of Mr. McTaggart, to what has been a worldwide cause on behalf of not only our generation but future generations.
Jack Diamond, who I had the pleasure to meet, lived a long and fruitful life. Nevertheless, his loss will be deeply felt, although his legacy will live on in his children and his grandchildren.
Hon. G. Wilson: In the House with us today is Mr. David Tones, who is the third national vice-president of IWA-Canada. I would ask the House to please make Mr. Tones welcome.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: In the House this afternoon are four first nations chiefs from the lower Island. They are Chief Alan Claxton from the Tsawout band, Chief Curtis Olsen from the Tsartlip nation, Chief Bert Charles from the Beecher Bay first nations and Chief Linda Bristol from T'Sou-ke. With them is Paul Sam from the Nil/tu,o Child and Family Services Society. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Joining us in the galleries this afternoon are a number of people who do a great deal of work in this province on the issue of adult guardianship. I'd like to extend my thanks to the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities for arranging to have our guests here this afternoon.
I'm pleased to welcome Mary Williams, external vice-president of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities; Christine Seitz, who is Ms. Williams's personal attendant; Linda Perry, executive director of Vela Microboard Association; Laney Bryenton, executive director of the B.C. Association for Community Living; Joe Dickey, member of the Community Family Link Society; Lou Drage, member of the Mount Arrowsmith Elder Abuse Prevention Committee and chair of the Community Response Network; Lola Cook of the Community Response Network; Ed Bodner, provincial president of the B.C. Government Retired Employees Association and member of the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations; Don Burns, officer of the Royal Canadian Legion, Pro Patria branch; Margaret MacKenzie, director of the B.C. Retired Teachers Association and president of the lower Vancouver Island branch; Joanne Taylor, executive director of the Representation Agreement Resource Centre; Deach Tetarenko, director of the Alzheimer Society of B.C.; Lorna Hillman, executive director of the Family Caregivers Network Society; Margaret Birrell, executive director of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities; Gordon Argyle, member of the Home Support Action Group; Melanie Maxwell, member of the Representation Agreement Resource Centre; Jay Chalke, public guardian and trustee for British Columbia; Linda Derkach, director of adult guardianship implementation at the public guardian and trustee's office; and Robert Maxwell, who is also a member of the Representation Agreement Resource Centre.
At this time I'd also like to acknowledge Christine Gordon for her dedication and hard work as coordinator of the Community Coalition for the Implementation of Adult Guardianship Legislation. She is unfortunately unable to be here with us today. I invite all members to join me in welcoming them and invite everyone to join us at a reception after question period on the first floor of the rotunda.
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Hon. P. Ramsey: Joining us in the members' gallery today is Brenda Makeechak. Brenda is a personal friend of mine and works as a representative for the Canadian Labour Congress. She joins us here on a good day for her; it's her birthday. Would the members please join me in wishing Brenda a welcome to our House and a happy birthday.
Hon. I. Waddell: On behalf of the Premier, I'd like to welcome to the House a school group of grade 11 social studies students located in the Premier's riding, Vancouver-Kensington. It's Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, a great school in Vancouver. There are 170 students here with their teachers Mr. David Dougall and Mr. Rob Ferguson. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. M. Farnworth: In the gallery is a constituent of mine. I'd like the House to make welcome Margaret Tones, who is visiting us here today and also visiting her grandson, who works in these buildings. Would the House please make her most welcome.
G. Mann Brewin: I have two introductions to make today. First, there are three constituents of mine here in the gallery to watch question period and enjoy the fun of all of that. Their names are Ross Cameron, Hector Cameron and Sidney Dillon. I'd like the House to please make the three of them welcome.
The second introduction is on your behalf, Mr. Speaker. Ms. Dianne Brydon is here, and she is the director of parlia-
[ Page 17488 ]
mentary public programs at the House of Commons in Ottawa. She's been offering some briefings to your staff and the legislative staff on public education, outreach projects and the kinds of things that they've been doing in the House of Commons. Would the House please make her welcome.
J. Cashore: In the gallery is my wife Sharon. We've been married 40 years. The last 15 of those years I've been an MLA, and she can tell you some really good stories about that.
K. Krueger: With us in the House today are two representatives of the city of Kamloops: councillor Sharon Frissell, who is the chair of the water filtration plant committee, and Mr. Ernie Kurtz, the city engineer and assistant administrator. I'd ask the House to please make them welcome.
Introduction of Bills
ADULT GUARDIANSHIP STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2001
Hon. G. Bowbrick presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Adult Guardianship Statutes Amendment Act, 2001.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
Motion approved.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Hon. Speaker, I'm proud today to introduce the Adult Guardianship Statutes Amendment Act. The adult guardianship statutes were passed with all-party support in 1993, and selected parts came into force on February 28, 2000. Since these acts came into force, the government has identified a number of minor changes that will greatly enhance the clarity, workability and focus of these statutes as well as increase access to certain features -- in particular, representation agreements. The adult guardianship statutes remain a high priority for the government, and it is with the goal of enlarging upon their success that these amendments are introduced today.
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The government has been greatly assisted in making these changes by many organizations and individuals in the community who have gained experience with these acts over the past year. The office of the public guardian and trustee has headed up a consultation process aimed at reaching consensus on the amendments proposed here today. The government would particularly like to acknowledge the contributions made by members of the Representation Agreement Act Review Committee of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, representatives from the Canadian Bankers Association and Credit Union Central, members of the B.C. Coalition to Eliminate Abuse of Seniors, representatives of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, staff from the Representation Agreement Resource Centre, plus many other community-based groups and organizations around the province.
In addition, the government would like once again to acknowledge the efforts made by Dulcie McCallum, whose report to the public guardian and trustee last summer recommended that specially trained notaries public be given the opportunity to assist British Columbians in preparing representation agreements. Her report was aimed at ensuring that representation agreements remain accessible, affordable and of high quality. The amendments contained in this bill implement the key recommendations of Ms. McCallum's report.
Among the amendments I'm introducing today are changes to the Representation Agreement Act that will streamline the witnessing and execution requirements for representation agreements while preserving safeguards, increased clarity about the roles and responsibilities of both representatives and monitors, enhance the flexibility of representation agreements by giving capable adults more options about how they wish their representatives to act and reduce risks to third parties who act in good faith on the basis of representation agreements.
There are, as well, changes to several other related statutes. Almost all of these changes are aimed at increasing clarity about various matters. Many are generally termed housekeeping amendments.
I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Bill 6 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Oral Questions
ICBC AND CROWN CORPORATIONS
BUDGET PROJECTIONS
G. Campbell: It's now clear that the Minister of Finance artificially inflated revenue projections from B.C. Hydro for this year's budget. In the same budget, the minister estimates a $75 million contribution to the revenues of the province from ICBC. My question to the Minister of Finance is simply this: did he use the same methods to estimate ICBC's revenue contribution, or did he actually follow the advice of ICBC's professionals in this case?
Hon. P. Ramsey: We set targets for Crown corporations, and by and large they meet them. Given the member's interest in this, I actually reviewed what we'd set in Budget 2000 as far as targets for Crown corporations to see how we'd done in setting them and see how they'd done in meeting them. Last year, hon. Speaker, we set targets for Crown corporations at a bottom-line impact of negative $178 million. Those were our targets. Did they hit those targets? No, they didn't. In fact, for the year, Crown corporations in total recorded a profit -- a positive number -- of over $680 million. We set prudent, reachable targets in Budget 2000. Crown corporations met them. We have done the same thing in Budget 2001.
The Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Official Opposition has a supplemental question.
G. Campbell: The opposition has obtained a document prepared for the minister. It's a ministerial positioning note
[ Page 17489 ]
dated March 21, 2001. I'd like to quote from this note: "The provincial government has given ICBC a target of $75 million net income for 2001-02, when ICBC's Treasury Board submission provided a most optimistic projection of $30 million." Can the minister explain why he decided to more than double the most optimistic projection of ICBC's professionals?
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Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, the good news is that our government is investing more dollars each and every day in traffic safety initiatives that prove, dollar for dollar, to be an investment that's beyond the record of any other jurisdiction in Canada. And the reason we can do that is because ICBC is a publicly owned corporation, unlike what the opposition party would have it be if for some reason they get to control any finances in this province.
Yes, it's true: we have set a target of $75 million for ICBC. Is ICBC working
on putting in place new traffic safety initiatives, investing about $60 million
in road safety improvements? Yes, they are. Let me just list some of them.
Perhaps we could see whether the opposition believes that this is good public
policy or not, or whether they would just open up ICBC to competition. They're
investing money in a community safety strategy program. They're going to invest
more money, almost $35 million, in a highway safety program. They're going to
work with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways
The Speaker: Minister. Thank you, minister.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, they asked, hon. Speaker. I'm sorry. I guess they don't actually want information.
The Speaker: Thank you, minister. I think you may get an opportunity to follow up on this question.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Oh, I was only halfway through the list.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
G. Campbell: This briefing note shows that the Minister of Finance
imposed an extremely high revenue projection that he put into his budget. The
positioning note states: "ICBC's submission to Treasury Board
Hon. P. Ramsey: Let's review the record. Back in 1998, ICBC said their target was going to be minus $80 million. They actually exceeded that target by $201 million. In 1999 their target was minus $7 million. They exceeded that target by $103 million. Last year they set a target, which he accepted, of $3 million. They actually achieved a profit of $350 million and missed their target by $347 million.
If ICBC achieves a target this year of $75 million, that will be its lowest profit figure in the last four years. It is reasonable; it is attainable. This well-run Crown corporation will achieve it.
G. Farrell-Collins: I hope the minister isn't counting on ICBC's investment revenue to be near what it was last year, because the markets aren't looking as good for ICBC as they were last year.
Interjections.
G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Speaker, I hear the minister of ICBC shouting:
"Road safety, road safety, road safety." Well, we have another letter.
This went from the Minister of Finance to the minister responsible for ICBC, and
it was dated March 14 -- the day before the budget was introduced, as amazing as
that is. And it says: "ICBC should continue to suspend expenditures and
public announcements on the road safety fund
Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister hasn't had time to get the letter. It was only sent last week. Can the minister responsible for the budget tell us how on earth he expects to hit those revenue targets that he knows are way outside the range put forward by ICBC?
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Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually, hon. Speaker, the fact that there's
prudent planning going on with ICBC and this government seems to upset the
opposition. On one hand, they're objecting to the fact that there is no planning
going on for the targeting, and then the next minute that the Minister of
Finance suggests to me as minister responsible that we bring forward to Treasury
Board exactly how the road safety initiatives are going to meet the target
You know what they really object to? Here's what they really object to. They really object to the road safety initiatives that this government has put in place, because you know what it means? It means that we have a financially sound public auto insurance that for six years has frozen rates. In fact, this year there was a safety dividend -- the second year in a row, hon. Speaker. Our road safety record not only continues to increase with lives being saved, but the Treasury Board will be working with the Insurance Corporation to put fully tens of millions of dollars of road safety initiatives in place once again.
The Speaker: Thank you, minister.
Hon. J. MacPhail: And that's the work that's taking place now. On behalf of the people of British Columbia, they should join with us on this initiative.
The Speaker: I will remind members that open-ended questions will lead to longer answers.
G. Farrell-Collins: It's amazing to hear the minister of ICBC talk about the road safety initiatives and that the opposition is opposed to them when the letter comes from the Minister of Finance directing the minister to suspend the road safety initiatives.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance, because I've heard both the Minister of Finance and the minister responsible for
[ Page 17490 ]
ICBC talk about reasonable and prudent planning and budgeting
Mr. Speaker, that's not prudent and reasonable. You don't set the budget and then decide on what the plan is or how to hit it. How does the Minister of Finance ever expect to hit these targets?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Well, let's look at what happened last year and this year. Let's do it again. Last year we had a summary accounts balance for the Crown corporations of negative $178 million. Guess what. They achieved $850 million better than that -- $850 million better.
So what did we do this year, hon. Speaker? Did we set a higher target for them? In fact, no. The combined targets for Crown corporations in Budget 2001 say negative $290 million, below last year's targets. The only way the Crown corporations won't meet these targets is if this Liberal opposition ever became government and actually carried out its plans to review and sell Crown corporations. Last time it was B.C. Rail. This year they know very well -- it's exactly the Crown corporation that they stand up here and ask about -- that their friends in the insurance industry have funded them well to do away with the very Crown corporation they now question.
G. Plant: The status quo as of now is that the Minister of Finance has picked a number out of the air which he's entirely unwilling to defend, and the minister responsible for ICBC says she's going to save the money by spending it on a program that she was expressly directed by the Minister of Finance not to spend any money on. Well, that's a really good start towards achieving reasonable budget predictions.
I want to read this passage again from the letter, because I want to make sure that the Minister of Finance gets the point. ICBC is required to provide the following additional information by March 31, 2001: a revised 2001 budget showing how the $75 million net income target will be achieved. In other words, the Minister of Finance picks a number out of the air and says to ICBC: "Here's the deal. You come up with the money, and you tell us how you're going to do it." How on earth should anyone believe any single revenue projection in this minister's budget?
[1435]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The issue here is that it makes prudent sense for us
to work together on the road safety initiatives that this government's record is
unprecedented on. There have been four years -- almost five years now -- of road
safety initiatives put in place, all of which have paid off over and over and
over for the premium policy holders, for the corporation at large and for the
potential victims of crashes in this province. What we will be doing, and we are
doing right now, is taking the fund for road safety initiatives that we have
The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental.
G. Plant: We know that B.C. Hydro is expected to make its revenue
targets by starting up a plant that it shut down. We know that ICBC is supposed
to make up
I have a question for the Minister of Finance. A week ago he told us that the B.C. Lottery Corporation was going to cough up $585 million. That's an 11 percent increase this year over last year. Can the Minister of Finance explain: what were the figures that the Lottery Corporation gave to Treasury Board before he tabled his budget? And while we're at it, will the Minister of Finance not commit to some measure of accountability and table each and every single submission by each and every Crown corporation in this House right now?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members. Order.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The budget that we tabled has been prepared in accordance with the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. All assumptions have been attested to by senior public servants who worked with me in preparation of it.
If we want to talk about accountability, when will this opposition come forward and tell how it intends to pay for its dramatic and reckless tax cuts? Having ducked budget debate, having refused in this House to admit that they intend to either drive this province back into deficit or slash health and education spending, when will they come forward and actually come clean with the public about the impact of their tax cuts on the services in this province?
The Speaker: The bell ends question period.
Petitions
J. Pullinger: I have the honour today to present a petition signed by approximately 2,800 citizens and workers of the Cowichan Lake and Cowichan Valley communities who are asking every member of this House to support the petitioners' efforts to purchase the Youbou sawmill from TimberWest and enter into a purchase agreement with TimberWest for the long-term benefit of the community.
Tabling Documents
Hon. C. Evans: I have the honour to present the Ministry of Health and Ministry Responsible for Seniors 1999-2000 annual report.
The Speaker: Members, I have the honour to present the annual report of the British Columbia Legislative Library for 1999.
[ Page 17491 ]
Orders of the Day
Motions on Notice
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO APPOINT
A CHILD, YOUTH AND FAMILY ADVOCATE
Hon. G. Janssen: I move Motion 2 standing under my name on the order paper.
[That a Special Committee shall be re-appointed to select and unanimously recommend to the Legislative Assembly, the appointment of a Child, Youth and Family Advocate, pursuant to section 3 of the Child, Youth and Family Advocacy Act, and that the Special Committee so appointed shall have the powers of a Select Standing Committee and is also empowered:
(a) to appoint of their number, one or more subcommittees and to refer to such
subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee;
(b) to sit during a period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;
(c) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient;
(d) to retain such personnel as required to assist the Committee; and shall report to the House as soon as possible, or following any adjournment, or at the next following Session, as the case may be; to deposit the original of its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly during a period of adjournment and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, the Chair shall present all reports to the Legislative Assembly.
The said Special Committee is to be comprised of the following members: Ms. Priddy, Convener; Mmes. Mann Brewin and Sawicki, Messrs. Cashore and Lovick, Ms. Reid, and Messrs. van Dongen and Neufeld.]
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G. Farrell-Collins: I want to inform the House that we'll be voting against this motion. The reason for it is quite simple: it's not unclear -- the Premier has said -- that this House will be going to an election within the next few weeks or so. I think that given the status and the amount of work that needs to be done, including criminal record checks for that position, it is virtually impossible for the committee to get their work done in that period of time. The incumbent commissioner has indicated her willingness to stay on until such time as a proper process is gone through. As a result, the opposition will be voting against the motion until a new parliament has an opportunity to deal with this issue.
Motion approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 37 | |||
| Zirnhelt | Doyle | Gillespie | |
| Kwan | Waddell | Hammell | |
| McGregor | Giesbrecht | Farnworth | |
| Lovick | Petter | Mann Brewin | |
| Pullinger | Randall | Sawicki | |
| Priddy | Cashore | Orcherton | |
| Stevenson | Robertson | MacPhail | |
| Dosanjh | Bowbrick | Janssen | |
| Evans | Ramsey | Smallwood | |
| G. Wilson | Streifel | Miller | |
| Sihota | Calendino | Walsh | |
| Boone | Lali | Kasper | |
| Goodacre | |||
| NAYS -- 33 | |||
| Whittred | Hansen | C. Clark | |
| Campbell | Farrell-Collins | de Jong | |
| Plant | Abbott | L. Reid | |
| Neufeld | Coell | Chong | |
| Sanders | Jarvis | Anderson | |
| Nettleton | Penner | Weisgerber | |
| Weisbeck | Nebbeling | Hogg | |
| Hawkins | Coleman | Stephens | |
| J. Reid | Krueger | Thorpe | |
| Symans | van Dongen | Barisoff | |
| J. Wilson | Roddick | Masi | |
[1445]
SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW
THE POLICE COMPLAINT PROCESS
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I move that Motion 3 standing in my name on the orders of the day be moved now. The motion would appoint that a special committee review and make recommendations respecting the police complaint process in part 9 of the Police Act. The appointment of this committee is in accordance with a provision of the Police Act, which requires that a special committee begin a comprehensive review of part 9 within three years of its coming into force, which was July 1, 1998.
[That a Special Committee to Review the Police Complaint Process be appointed and empowered to examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to the police complaints process in accordance with section 51.2 of the Police Act (RSBC 1996, c. 367) and in particular, without limiting the generality of the foregoing to:
1. review comprehensively Part 9 (Complaint Procedure) of the Police Act and the work of the Police Complaint Commissioner;
2. solicit and consider written and oral submissions from any interested person or organization by any means the committee considers appropriate;
3. submit a Report including any amendments to Part 9 that the committee recommends to the Legislative Assembly arising out of the results of the committee's inquiry within one year of this resolution being adopted by the House.
The Special Committee so appointed shall have the powers of a Select Standing Committee and is also empowered:
(a) to appoint of their number, one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee;
(b) to sit during a period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;
(c) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient;
(d) to retain such personnel as required to assist the Committee; and shall report to the House as soon as possible, or following any adjournment, or at the next following Session, as the case may be; to deposit the original of its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly during a period of adjournment and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, the Chair shall present all reports to the Legislative Assembly.
That the Special Committee of Selection be empowered to compile the list of Members for the said Committee.]
G. Farrell-Collins: As I have advised the Government House Leader, we'll be voting against this motion as well. This act, under section 51(2), says that this must be reviewed after three years of the act coming into force. That was July 1, 1998.
[ Page 17492 ]
That would be July 1 of this year. This parliament won't exist on July 1, 2001. There will be a new one, or else we will be in the middle of an election campaign. So it's not required that that be done at this point in time. Therefore the opposition will not be supporting it.
The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, would those in favour of the motion please say aye. The ayes have it.
Interjection.
The Speaker: On division.
Hon. G. Janssen: I call second reading of Bill 17.The Speaker: I'm sorry; I didn't see that the member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca rose.
R. Kasper: It should be noted that I would change my vote, and I would not support the motion. So "on division" should not stand.
The Speaker: Member, the motion was passed on division.
An Hon. Member: He wants division.
The Speaker: Well, he's a little late. The member wishes to call division now? Okay. Division's been called.
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Motion approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 36 | |||
| Zirnhelt | Doyle | Gillespie | |
| Kwan | Waddell | Hammell | |
| McGregor | Giesbrecht | Farnworth | |
| Lovick | Petter | Mann Brewin | |
| Pullinger | Randall | Sawicki | |
| Priddy | Cashore | Orcherton | |
| Stevenson | Robertson | MacPhail | |
| Dosanjh | Bowbrick | Janssen | |
| Evans | Ramsey | Smallwood | |
| G. Wilson | Streifel | Miller | |
| Sihota | Calendino | Walsh | |
| Boone | Lali | Goodacre | |
| NAYS -- 34 | |||
| Kasper | Weisgerber | Penner | |
| Nettleton | Anderson | Jarvis | |
| Sanders | Chong | Coell | |
| Neufeld | L. Reid | Abbott | |
| Plant | de Jong | Farrell-Collins | |
| Campbell | C. Clark | Hansen | |
| Whittred | Weisbeck | Nebbeling | |
| Hogg | Hawkins | Coleman | |
| Stephens | J. Reid | Krueger | |
| Thorpe | Symons | van Dongen | |
| Barisoff | J. Wilson | Roddick | |
| Masi | |||
Hon. G. Janssen: I call second reading of Bill 17.
HUMAN RIGHTS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2001
(second reading)
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I move that the bill be read a second time.
Pay equity is, we believe, a fundamental human right. The purpose of this bill is to recognize that fact by enshrining the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the British Columbia Human Rights Code.
On average, women in British Columbia earn 27 percent less than men. This means that for every dollar that a man earns in this province, a woman will only earn 73 cents. This gap between men's and women's earnings results from a number of factors, including supply and demand, training, seniority and systemic barriers to hiring and promoting women.
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This pay equity amendment addresses the 8 cents of that 27-cent gap that is due to the historic undervaluing of work traditionally done by women. This type of discrimination is rooted in the past when women in the workforce either were, for the most part, single and without families to support or were working outside the home to provide the family with what many refer to as extra income.
Those times are long past. Many women in the workforce are single parents, and many families require two incomes to meet their needs. Indeed, I would suggest that most families need two incomes to meet their needs. Moreover, attitudes have changed, and people expect to be paid for the value of the work that they do.
The public sector pay equity policy, which has been in place in this province since the early 1990s, has been successful in reducing the wage gap in the public sector. Unfortunately, for the most part local government and the private sector have not voluntarily followed the government's lead. It is clear that market forces have been unable to eliminate that portion of the wage gap which is caused by this historic undervaluation.
The Human Rights Code already prohibits an employer from discriminating between male and female employees by paying them differently for similar or substantially similar work. This bill amends the code to prohibit an employer from discriminating between male and female workers by paying them differently for work of equal value. This is a logical extension of the code and is entirely consistent with our human rights policy.
What this means is that workers of one sex who believe they are being paid less than their fellow workers of the other sex for work of equal value will be able to file a complaint against their employer with the British Columbia Human Rights Commission. The commission already has responsibility for administering the code, and the commission and the Human Rights Tribunal have the expertise to deal with complaints of discrimination. If the complaint is founded, the Human Rights Tribunal will be able to order the employer to address the pay inequity by paying wage adjustments to the affected employees at the rate of 1 percent of the employer's payroll per year until pay equity is achieved. Or if the tribunal determines that it is in the public interest, the tribunal can order a pay equity plan for all of the employer's employees, under which they will receive wage increases equivalent to 1 percent of the employer's total payroll per year until pay equity is achieved.
The bill also includes provisions designed to encourage employers and their employees to reach agreements on a plan for achieving pay equity in their workplace. It provides that if the employer and employees agree in good faith to a plan to
[ Page 17493 ]
achieve pay equity for all of the affected employees through increases totalling at least 1 percent of the employer's payroll per year, those employees will not be able to make a successful pay equity complaint. So the incentive for the employer is to come up with plans in order to provide an absolute defence to any complaint that may be made to the commission.
The bill also provides that in making a plan, the employer and employees may agree to look at outside comparators where no comparable position exists within the company.
To allow employers and employees some time to work on pay equity plans for the workplace, this bill provides that the amendments come into effect on June 1, 2002.
When work done by women and men working in jobs traditionally done by women is undervalued, this has a very significant impact on women and their families. It also affects employers and the economy as a whole by leading to employee dissatisfaction, low morale and low productivity. Low wages for women and men working in jobs traditionally done by women have been subsidizing employers and other employees. Adjustments to wages for work traditionally done by women are the right of employees who have not been paid fairly in the past. This government is committed to economic equality and security for women. We believe that achieving pay equity is essential to the prosperity of all workers, to successful and competitive business and to long-term economic growth.
[1500]
We believe it's time to end the form of discrimination that has existed for years in the form of pay inequity in this province. It's time to pass this amendment. Every woman in British Columbia should have the right to work in an environment that's free of this form of discrimination. Our Human Rights Code prohibits many forms of discrimination in this province, and we think it's time that this was added to the list. If women are facing such discrimination, it's time for the law to back them up when they make that complaint.
I think it's important to note that there are, of course, employers who have voluntarily implemented pay equity. As I mentioned earlier, in the B.C. public service we've had pay equity employees for a number of years now, and we've been working towards it through most of the 1990s. The result has been that the wage gap in the public service is far less than it is in the population at large. Now we're anywhere from 89 percent to, I believe, 92 percent. Women are getting 89 to 92 percent of the wages of men in the B.C. public service. When we consider that the remainder of that gap could be due to other factors such as lower education levels, less experience, less seniority and less responsibility in various jobs, this means we've made great strides, and we have essentially achieved pay equity in the public service.
However, it's important to note this bill does not apply just to the private sector; it applies to all employers in British Columbia, including government. So if we have overlooked public service employees in this province, or if they feel we haven't gone far enough, it's certainly open to them to make a complaint as well. It's also worth noting that in addition to the B.C. public service, there are municipalities in this province that have voluntarily implemented pay equity, and there are private sector employers in this province who have voluntarily implemented pay equity.
I want to outline again a few of the important elements of this legislation. As I've said already, it applies to every employer in the province. This is sometimes characterized as a debate only about asking the private sector to implement pay equity. In fact, it's about every employer. Certainly I feel that it's incumbent upon government to show leadership. That's why we've been implementing pay equity for most of the last decade. Unfortunately, our leadership hasn't paid off to the extent that we thought it would, and we haven't seen as many other employers follow as we would have liked, so it will apply to all employers.
Secondly, this is a complaint-driven model. Pay equity will be enforced on the basis of complaints made to the Human Rights Commission and ultimately, if necessary, adjudicated upon by the Human Rights Tribunal. This is not a model like that which exists in Ontario, which is a stand-alone piece of legislation and is more, some would say, proactive. It is complaint-driven.
Also, it's important to note that pay equity plans under this amendment are not mandatory, which again is unlike some other jurisdictions such as Ontario. But as I indicated earlier, there is an incentive for employers to develop pay equity plans. I would like to see employers do all of this voluntarily, as this government would. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that thus far. But again, by amending the act in this manner and providing an additional incentive, perhaps we'll see more employers do this voluntarily with the incentive of being able to develop a plan as an absolute defence to a complaint against them made by employees under this amendment.
It's also important to emphasize again, on the issue of costs, that costs under this amendment are capped at 1 percent of total payroll per year until pay equity is achieved. The legislation does make it possible for employers to do it voluntarily -- do more voluntarily if they wish -- but under this amendment no employer will be forced against their will to contribute more than 1 percent of their total payroll per year towards pay equity.
[1505]
Finally, as indicated earlier as well, this amendment comes into force on June 1, 2002, which I think is sufficient time for employers to be able to prepare for the advent of pay equity as being the law in British Columbia.
There have been a number of criticisms levelled at this amendment and what we're doing, and I would like to take a few moments now to address some of those concerns that have been raised. One is that there hasn't been enough consultation on pay equity and this amendment. I know that my colleague the Minister of Women's Equality can likely outline in much more detail the consultations undertaken by her ministry, and so I won't do it at great length here.
But it's important to note that we've been talking about pay equity in this province for the better part of a decade now. We have been not just talking about it but walking the walk on it in the public sector, and so there has been that discussion that has gone on. And then last year the Ministry of Women's Equality put out a document on economic security for women and began province-wide consultations on that, including, I am informed, conversations and discussions about pay equity at that time.
So that took place last summer, and we heard a number of things. What we heard was that there were some who didn't want a heavily bureaucratic model. They rejected what in this country would be characterized as the Ontario model.
[ Page 17494 ]
Unfortunately, many of those who took that position just didn't want any legislated pay equity at all, but they certainly objected first and foremost to a heavily bureaucratic model like that in Ontario. There were others, of course, who said that they wanted something much more like the Ontario model. They wanted a stand-alone piece of legislation. They wanted it to be more proactive. They wanted mandatory pay equity plans on all employers in British Columbia, or at least employers of a certain size in British Columbia.
Those were some of the other things that were heard during that consultation process. Now, I have to emphasize that sometimes when we talk about consultation, people for some reason think that consultation means that they get whatever they ask for. That isn't what consultation means. Consultation means that they're asked for their opinions, their opinions are solicited and listened to, and at the end of the day it may result in their views being reflected in the final decision, or it may not, or it could be varying degrees in between.
We listened to everyone. That meant that no one group got every single thing that they were asking for. To my knowledge, nobody came forward and asked for exactly the form of amendment that we have in this House today. They asked for something more, or they asked for something less, and I think it's evidence of the fact that we listened carefully and took into account all of those different views that we have the amendment in this form today.
There are also those who are concerned that this could harm our competitive position in this province. I have to say that I'd like to see some more evidence of that perhaps offered in this debate, especially now as we get so close to an election. I'm afraid that this debate won't get its due. There is far too much rhetoric, and there aren't enough facts infusing this debate.
Pay equity legislation exists in Quebec and Ontario and the federally regulated private sector, with regard to the private sector. We are not the first province to do this; we're not the first jurisdiction to do this. Ontario did it in the early 1990s. Quebec did it as well. And even the federal government has done it with regard to all employers following in their federally regulated jurisdiction.
I have not seen the evidence that those pay equity statutes have harmed the competitive position of those other jurisdictions. So I think it's important to note that we aren't the first ones to do this. It's not the first time ever that this has been done anywhere. In fact, some would say that we've been too long coming to this point.
On the issue of cost, again we hear all kinds of numbers thrown about. I haven't seen how they've been substantiated to this point, and I certainly would like to see them, if that's going to be part of this debate. I think it amounts to an overblown level of rhetoric and not a thoughtful debate when we hear costs in the billions or what have you. We put a 1 percent cap on this legislation to make sure that this wasn't too onerous on employers. I happen to be very sympathetic to the view that it's important to achieve an important principle, but it does take time to do that. This legislation reflects that.
[1510]
When we talk about costs, all too often critics of pay equity only talk about the costs to employers, but we never hear about the costs to women. I don't think there's any dispute that pay inequity exists. We're debating second reading right now; we're debating this in principle. If there's a dispute about whether pay inequity exists, then we should hear it during this debate if at any time at all.
There isn't a dispute about whether pay inequity exists. So if we all agree that pay inequity exists, then who bears the burden of that inequity? That's the fundamental question. Should it continue to be women, as it has been for so many years? I would suggest that those who say that it all has to be done voluntarily and that everyone can take their time are saying: "Yes, women will have to continue to bear this burden until market forces correct this." And thus far, women have been in the workforce in this country in a significant way for decades, and we haven't seen a substantial decrease in that pay inequity.
Hon. Speaker, the fundamental question that I have to ask -- and I hope others in this debate might answer it -- is: what about the cost to women? They're the ones who've been bearing the brunt of this for decades. They continue to bear the brunt of it. We have to find a way, as a society, of addressing this. It is not fair that only women should bear this burden.
On the other hand, we've made a policy decision that says it's also not fair to ask business to fix this overnight. It's not fair to ask every employer out there to fix this overnight. That's why there's a 1 percent cap on costs on an annual basis, so this can be done in a measured and reasonable way to achieve what I hope we'll all agree is a fundamentally important principle.
Now, as I've suggested, there are also people who say that legislation just isn't required. In fact, I think the hon. member who may be speaking on this shortly called it a goofball idea. Perhaps he might like to expand upon that a little, because that's open to terrible interpretations. I'm sure the member wouldn't want that to happen. He can expand upon what pay inequity legislation being a goofball idea means, and I'm very much looking forward to that.
For those who say that legislation isn't required and that pay equity can be achieved voluntarily, I guess the question is: how much longer will it take? Are there any estimates? Do those who argue for a voluntary approach have an answer for the women of this province? Can they go out to those women and say: "Hold on. Legislation isn't required because we estimate, at the current rate, that in ten years there'll be pay equity in this province"? I haven't heard that. If that can be added to this debate, I think it would be a useful thing.
I'm looking forward to hearing it, if there's been any thought or analysis given to that position other than just: "Wait a little longer; we can't tell you how much longer. Things are going to get better at some point in the future; we just don't know exactly when. In the meantime, when you're worried about your paycheque and how much you're bringing home to your family, we just don't have an answer for you when you say that there are some men in traditionally male-occupied positions with your same employer who are getting paid more than you. Sorry, it will be taken care of voluntarily."
Well, it has taken us a long time to get to this point where we say that there's a 27 percent gap right now. Eight percent of the gap, or about just over a third of the gap, is directly attributable to this form of discrimination. Women have been in the paid workforce in this country for at least the last 40 years, in very significant numbers, and of course women have performed work of great value to society since long before
[ Page 17495 ]
that. Here we are with a 27 percent gap, 8 percent of the gap is directly attributable to discrimination, and they're being asked by some to wait even longer to address that discrimination.
[1515]
We think now is the time to do this. Now is the time to pass this amendment. It's not the time to try and sidestep this issue. Right before an election is the time for all parties to indicate exactly where they stand on these issues. With all due respect, to sidestep this issue by saying that we're going to refer it to a task force is a dereliction of duty. The women of this province deserve better than that. They really do deserve better than that.
I hear the member asking where we have been for the last ten years. We've been implementing pay equity in the public sector for the last ten years, because I know what would have happened. If we hadn't implemented pay equity in the public service before we did this, we'd be criticized for not doing it ourselves. So that's where we've been. We've been busy making sure our own house was in order for the last ten years. We have a very clear position on pay equity. We've demonstrated as an employer our commitment to pay equity, and now we're saying that since we've got our own house in order on pay equity, it's time for the private sector and other public sector employers in this province to do this as well. We're not going to be cute. We're not going to say that this should be referred to a task force, that we don't have a position at this time, that we're in favour of the principle. What does that mean? We're in favour of the principle, but we don't have anything to offer the people of this province who are concerned about this issue about how exactly we're going to achieve pay equity. No.
"We favour the principle; we're going to have a task force. Don't worry; it'll all be voluntary. Everything will work out somehow." The people of this province have a right to expect better than that from everyone concerned.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
I hope that we'll have a good debate on this. I hope the women of this province will get some answers in terms of where the official opposition stands on this issue besides that they're in favour of the principle and that there will be a task force. They've had an opportunity now to view the legislation and can offer some specifics on the legislation.
Hon. Speaker, I'm sure I'll have more at the close of this debate. But I'm very pleased to be supporting this bill in second reading.
G. Plant: The official opposition supports both the principle and the practice of pay equity. Women and men doing the same work should receive the same amount of pay. The law of British Columbia already protects that right in section 12 of the Human Rights Code. I think it's important as part of the context of this debate to read section 12(1) of the Human Rights Code, since that's the first section that this bill would amend. In its present form it reads: "An employer must not discriminate between employees by employing an employee of one sex for work at a rate of pay that is less than the rate of pay at which an employee of the other sex is employed by that employer for similar or substantially similar work."
I contend that that is a significant and important statement of public policy. It is clearly an important part of the Human Rights Code of British Columbia and a provision of that code which we in the official opposition fully support. Bill 17, however, the bill that we're now debating, would rewrite this requirement to create a new test for discrimination: the idea of equal pay for work of equal value. This test has been imposed by legislation elsewhere in Canada with, at best, decidedly mixed results. Bill 17 does not simply follow a model already adopted in other jurisdictions. Bill 17 charts a new course based only in part upon legislation enacted elsewhere. That course, the course charted by Bill 17, is flawed for the reasons that I will elaborate on in due course. But in sum the position is this: Bill 17 will create uncertainty and instability, not social justice.
[1520]
The inquiries that it will permit are more likely to be arbitrary than principled, and the results of these inquiries will be unpredictable. Dollars, years and much human energy that could be spent improving the lives of workers and the conditions in which they work will be spent instead upon litigation and consultants.
The process of collective bargaining in British Columbia will be undermined by this bill, because collective agreements will be attacked by complainants who will be entitled to invoke the whole of the human rights investigation process to raise issues that could have been resolved at the bargaining table.
In the final analysis, this bill will do nothing to help women who work for low wages in single-sex jobs -- women who work as domestics or piece workers in the garment industry. Bill 17 won't help them. In short, the goal of pay equity will not be met by Bill 17.
We support the goal of pay equity, but we oppose this flawed and ill-conceived legislation. I repeat, Mr. Speaker: we support the principle and the practice of pay equity. To meet our commitment to pay equity, we have stated that if elected, we will appoint a task force headed by a judge or a retired judge to review the economic impacts, the various models and options of pay equity that exist, and to report. That proposal -- the proposal to appoint a task force -- offers, I think, a way forward which ensures that the legitimate question of gender-based wage discrimination will be kept before us as a public policy challenge while ensuring that all voices will be heard in the dialogue that lately has been driven by political imperatives rather than public policy principles.
I want to speak for a moment about the process that has led us to this point, since that was the subject of some of the remarks of the Attorney General in introducing second reading. On April 6, 2000, the Premier of British Columbia was quoted in the news media as having said this: "There is going to be no legislation on pay equity, private sector or public sector. That's a decision that has been made." Those were the Premier's words. Well, the bill before us today is, to put it plainly and simply, legislation on pay equity, private sector and public sector. In short, Bill 17 represents a complete abrogation of the promise made by the Premier just a few short months ago.
There is little prospect of economic prosperity or social justice in a political jurisdiction where the Premier says one thing one day only to do something completely different the next. Stability and certainty are preconditions to good government and healthy democracy.
Interjections.
[ Page 17496 ]
An Hon. Member: I'm having trouble hearing.
G. Plant: I'm having trouble hearing myself think.
Deputy Speaker: That's a good point, hon. member. Members, Richmond-Steveston has the floor. The Speaker's having a difficult time hearing the remarks as well, so if the government side would just lay down the heckle a little bit, we'll get through this debate.
G. Plant: The decision to introduce this bill represents the antithesis of stability and certainty. It's no wonder that employers and citizen groups across the province reacted to the announcement of this legislation with dismay. Last April the citizens of British Columbia were expressly encouraged to believe that whatever this government's legislative intentions might be, they did not include legislated pay equity. By introducing this bill, the government mocks that belief and insults all those who -- na�vely, as it turns out -- thought they could rely upon the word of the leader of this government.
[1525]
It's impossible to believe that last April the Premier was inadequately informed about the public policy implications of comparable-work legislation. After a half decade as the Minister Responsible for Human Rights, no one in this government could have known more about the issue of wage discrimination than the Premier. No, last April the Premier knew exactly what he was saying when he told the people of B.C. there would be no legislation on pay equity. He put his credibility on the line. He said -- and I think it's worth quoting again: "There is going to be no legislation on pay equity, private sector or public sector. That's the decision that has been made."
An Hon. Member: Why would he change his mind?
G. Plant: Well, he put his credibility on the line last April, and last week he introduced pay equity legislation. The prospect of electoral defeat causes all kinds of strange machinations in the hearts and minds of Premiers.
Members of the government, including the Attorney General just a few minutes ago, have commented on the issue of consultation over the last couple of weeks. They have argued, as the Attorney General just did, that public consultation over the issue of pay equity has taken place over many months. To answer this argument, and to answer it completely, it is only necessary to point out that from last April until March 2 there was no need on the part of any single person in the private or public sector to think or talk or write or debate about the challenges of pay equity legislation because, in the Premier's words, there wasn't going to be pay equity legislation.
All that changed when on March 2, the Attorney General told the public that there would be pay equity legislation and that there would be a grand total of 13 days for people to offer their comments. Actually, he didn't even mean it when he said that, because he told people he had already made up his mind that there would be pay equity legislation.
I respectfully suggest that anyone from the government benches who dares
defend the government's process on this bill must answer this question: what did
the Premier mean when he said last April that there would be no legislation on
pay equity? I haven't heard an answer to that question, but I look forward
Interjections.
G. Plant: Mr. Speaker, the official opposition supports the principle of pay equity, but if pay equity is to be imposed by legislation, it can only be imposed by result of a process of consultation in which the people of British Columbia are actually listened to rather than insulted.
I want to turn for a moment to the experience with pay equity legislation in two other jurisdictions, Ontario and the federal government. The first is Ontario. Ontario introduced private sector pay equity legislation as long ago as 1987. Now, in fact, if you try to get a printout of the Ontario Pay Equity Act, it's 56 pages long. It's pretty careful; it's pretty articulate; it's pretty detailed. And I'll have more to say about the significance of that detail when I speak to parts of the provisions of Bill 17.
[1530]
But the point I want to make is that we've had a chance -- all of us, as observers -- to determine whether or not the Ontario model of pay equity legislation has worked. And that's the question that I think needs to be answered. That is: if we support the principle of pay equity, then we look at legislative models that are intended to give effect to that. Have they made a difference? Have they actually improved the situation of gender wage discrimination either in the private sector or in the public sector?
Well, there's been a study done on the Ontario legislation by an economist from the University of Toronto and an economist from the University of British Columbia. The study is the first to take a comprehensive look at the impact of Ontario's Pay Equity Act. There are a few comments from that study that I think are worth putting on the record in the context of this discussion about whether or not legislated models of pay equity have been effective. Here is a quote from that study:
"Whether viewed positively or negatively, to be effective pay equity must be practical. This issue is less important for other labour market regulations such as minimum wages or overtime rates. In each of these cases, the regulation is conceptually simple and external to the firm. Therefore lapses in compliance are primarily the result of an employer malfeasance. The difference here is that comparable worth involves the conceptually difficult step of making male and female jobs commensurate."
I want to stop there. That is what pay equity legislation is about. When you introduce this idea of equal pay for work of equal value, you're now introducing the idea that two jobs which on their face appear to be different may nonetheless be valued equally, and that analysis may form the basis of an argument of gender discrimination.
So you're trying to compare what may look like apples and oranges. It's not an easy task. I must point out, although we'll get to it in more detail later, that there's almost nothing in Bill 17 to help anyone in the discharge of that difficult task -- what the authors of the study refer to as the conceptually difficult step of making male and female jobs commensurate.
I want to continue. "The legislation" -- that is, comparable-worth legislation -- "can prescribe the principles by which these jobs should be compared but not the specifics of the mechanism or the awards without assuming a domi-
[ Page 17497 ]
nant role in the firm's wage determination process." I'm pausing there for a moment. What that means is that the legislation can go a certain distance; but if it goes too far down the road, then what happens is you have government assuming a dominant role in deciding the wages that people earn. That's generally considered to be inconsistent with free market economies.
I want to continue. "Many previous applications of this policy have been to single employers or to labour markets with centralized wage determination or strong centralized unions. We know very little of how this policy functions in a decentralized labour market."
What that's talking about is this: for the provincial public sector in British Columbia -- it's a large market -- the government essentially, as the employer, has significant control over the wage determination across the entire public sector. For the vast majority of the rest of the economy, people work in job settings with one employee, two employees, 50, 100, 1,500, 5,000. The entire job market is highly decentralized, and terms and principles which attempt to regulate that run into significant problems.
[1535]
Here is the first significant finding of that University of Toronto study: "Comparable worth appears to be a complicated and unwieldy labour market regulation." "Complicated and unwieldy" -- I think those words are significant when we examine the model of comparable worth legislation that has been presented to us by Bill 17.
And then the study goes on, on the basis of statistical analysis, to draw three further conclusions that I think are important to the issue before us.
The first finding is that there were substantial lapses in compliance and implementation in small firms. The reason is, quite simply: small firms just don't have the money to construct the complicated job evaluation systems and to undertake the analysis and hire the consultants and pay for the lawyers, which you need to do in order to make the premise of comparable worth legislation work. So the study concluded that the Ontario law has had "little effect in a sector of the labour market that employs roughly 65 percent of working females." The policy, the Ontario approach, has simply had little effect in virtually two-thirds of the female workforce in Ontario.
Secondly, "Because much of the Ontario labour force was untreated by the law," the authors of the report conclude, "we find no robust evidence that the pay equity legislation transferred a general benefit to women in Ontario over a six-to-eight-year period." In other words, it didn't work. Over the six to eight years that these people did the study, the legislation in Ontario didn't work. It didn't actually transfer any money in the way that it was supposed to.
The third finding that's important is this: any direct positive effects on
the wages of females working in female jobs are modest and typically
statistically insignificant. Well, there it is again. The Ontario model, which
is clearly a long-established model and frankly, notwithstanding the Attorney
General's submission, is the conceptual basis of the approach taken here in
British Columbia
I want to speak for a moment or two about the federal model. I really only want to speak for a moment or two, because we know about the federal model, and we know about the disputes in the federal model that have gone on for 12 or 13 years. We know about the litigation that started in the late 1980s and has continued. We know about the fact that the government has itself commissioned a study into the federal model which determines that complaint-based models don't work very well.
So there's the evidence from the federal system. In fact, if we look across Canada at these two leading examples of pay equity legislation, and if we're prepared to stand back long enough to be objective, we'll see that pay equity legislation in other parts of Canada may be well motivated. It may speak from an important social justice imperative, but it has not achieved the objectives set out for it. And if it doesn't achieve the objectives set out for it, then we need to ask questions about whether it's the right way to proceed. So in that context, I want to say a few things about Bill 17 and the Human Rights Code Amendment Act.
One of the things that I think needs to be said to follow up on a point made by the Attorney General during his remarks has to do with the issue of costs. He expressed interest in knowing something about the issue of costs, and I want to say that my best source on the issue of costs is his ministry's backgrounder. It was released at the same time as the legislation was introduced last week. The figure used there is $2.9 billion per year. That is, his ministry, his government, estimates that the introduction of this model of pay equity legislation would cost the economy of British Columbia $2.9 billion per year. That's how I read that sentence in his backgrounder.
[1540]
However, there was an interesting sentence that followed that. I wish I had it in front of me; I could quote it exactly. The sentence which followed that statement pointed out that for a variety of reasons, that figure was unlikely to be achieved. When you read those reasons -- people not filing complaints, people in small workplaces not choosing to file complaints, and so on -- it was actually a pretty good list of criticisms of this model. In other words, the government said: "If our model of pay equity legislation worked, it would cost $2.9 billion a year. But it won't work, so it won't cost that much." That was really the most compelling part of the government's backgrounder on this issue. That is, they have their own number for the cost, but they say: "Don't worry. It won't cost that much, because our model of pay equity legislation won't work."
Well, let's have a look at their model of pay equity. The first point to make about their model of pay equity is to note an important distinction between the approach taken in Ontario and in virtually every other model of pay equity that I know of compared to the approach taken in this jurisdiction by this bill. The Ontario act, and this is just by way of example, reads as follows: "The purpose of this Act is to redress systemic gender discrimination in compensation for work performed by employees in female job classes."
There are a couple of significant points. First, the purpose of the act is directly related to systemic gender discrimination performed on employees in female job classes. So it's focused on women and the issue of systemic gender discrimination. The second point is that it's not focused on women as individuals. It's focused on the work performed by employees in classes of jobs. The reason that distinction is relevant is because the project of attempting to determine whether work
[ Page 17498 ]
done by one set of people is comparable to work done by another set of people
works if you focus on
If you were to focus on the work actually done by the employee, then you would have a number of risks, only one of which I need trouble you with, Mr. Speaker. That is, what happens when the employee leaves? If the focus is on the employee and the employee leaves or changes jobs, then you've lost your point of comparison -- you've lost the comparator.
So what does this bill do? This bill says this, in what will become section 12(1): "An employer must not discriminate between employees by employing an employee of one sex for work at a rate of pay that is less than the rate of pay at which an employee of the other sex is employed by that employer for work of equal value." Two significant points -- first of all, no focus on gender discrimination as it applies to women. The section backs away entirely from the situation of women in particular and focuses on systemic discrimination as it may apply either to men or to women. Now that may be, in fact, the public policy intent of the government, but I must say that it has not been the statement of their intent over the last couple of weeks.
They have been talking, as the Attorney General did in his own remarks, about the wage gap that exists between men and women and saying that they want to remedy that. They want to bridge that wage gap. So they introduce legislation which does not limit itself to the question of the traditional inequity experienced by women in traditionally female job classes. They open it up to all employees in any job anywhere in B.C. who can point to somebody else at their worksite who is of a different gender and say: "I think I should be paid the same as you. I know you're a woman and I'm a guy, but I think I should be paid the same as you, so I'm going to file a complaint." That's what this bill would permit. It certainly would permit men to file complaints of systemic discrimination in the workforce. I say, with respect, that it's hard to describe that as being a bill that's directed at the issue of traditional systemic discrimination experienced by women in the workforce.
[1545]
The second point that needs to be made here is that the legislation does not focus on the classifications or classes of jobs but rather on the employees themselves. That is, the section is directed not at job classifications but at the work done by employees. That has at least this significance: all of the work done everywhere else in North America that has examined the issue of female job classes will be of no use in British Columbia. So every little bit that we could have saved here, by using models that might have worked a little bit elsewhere, we've decided not to do. We're going to create a different system that will require the creation of a completely new set of principles for determining these issues in the workforce.
Another point I want to make is the relationship between subsection (2) and subsection (3). One of the things that people always talk about in the context of equal pay for work of equal value is the relevance, if any, to this inquiry of things like market conditions, the demand for certain categories of employment and ability to pay. Those are sometimes considered to be relevant and sometimes considered not to be relevant. What we know about this bill is that it's completely unclear whether those things will be relevant or irrelevant.
In subsection (3) what the code will do is simply hand that question over to the tribunal to determine, because the issue will be whether or not a difference between the salary for one person's work and the salary for another person's work can be reasonably justified. That exercise, in an attempt to reasonably justify the difference, is an exercise that -- I can assure you -- thrills the hearts of every employment law lawyer in British Columbia. Legions of consultants will be lining up to attempt to develop principles to fill in this empty vessel created by this provision.
The point is that we simply don't get any guidance from this bill as to what will constitute discrimination and what won't. And when you don't get any guidance, you've created the uncertainty and instability which is antithetical to the creation of economic prosperity and social justice.
This particular subsection is, I think, way too broadly worded. And I think it's particularly problematic given the purpose of rules of interpretation that tribunal officers are required to apply when they look at the code. That is, they're going to look at this, they're going to listen to arguments about what might reasonably justify the difference, and they're going to be as narrow as they can, because the Supreme Court of Canada has told them that they should construe those exceptions fairly narrowly.
[1550]
All of that happens, of course, at the end of a long process that begins with the filing of a complaint. And there's no limit to how many complaints can be filed. At the end of the collective bargaining experience between a large employer and a large union, every single person in the workforce can line up and file a complaint and ask to have their job examined. And there is nothing in this that will permit the union to say: "Hold off a minute. We dealt with that issue." There's no mechanism to allow the union to control or limit or be cautious about whether they want to fight again in front of the Human Rights Tribunal on an issue that they maybe had to take to arbitration.
All of this, I say -- and this is really a third point -- is quite corrosive of the basic principles of collective bargaining. You take a system of collective bargaining that's supposed to create certainty in the workplace and then allow anyone who doesn't like that result to file a complaint. That seems to me to also be a problem.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Now, I may be wrong about that. It may be that these things can be explained.
But we're not going to have a whole lot of time to look at that question,
because even when this government said, "You've got 13 days," they
didn't tell us what the model was. They didn't say: "Here's the model; now
think about it for 13 days." They said: "You've got 13 days, and
that's it. Put up or shut up. Say anything you like. We're not interested; we
don't listen. And in any event, we're going to do whatever we want, and we're
not going to tell you." But here we are today doing it. So I'm asking
questions
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members, order please. The member for Richmond-Steveston has the floor.
G. Plant: I've been going through, in detail, some of the concerns I have with some of the provisions in Bill 17, and I
[ Page 17499 ]
want to continue that. I want to point out again that the way the remedy mechanism is triggered is not by reference to job classes. It's not by reference to descriptions that could apply to people who may be in that job category. It actually is limited to people who are the subject of the complaint. I think there's a problem there, because what the process seems to do is encourage the making of multiple complaints. And then it means that, at least in the first instance, the issue is not whether there is, by category, systemic discrimination in the workforce but rather whether the employees who are the subject of the complaint have had their rights infringed upon.
I understand that there could be a legitimate objective in achieving that. The question is whether, by implementing this scheme in that way, you're actually, in the long run, going to be undermining the objective of principled pay equity and also making it just too darned expensive and time-consuming to achieve.
One of the things that the people who have talked about this bill have spoken about is the idea of an employer entering into a plan that may adopt or make reference to job classifications. And it's right to point out that in some circumstances a plan entered into as an agreement between the employer and the employees could work as an answer to a complaint.
Note where the plan becomes effective. The plan does not have any effect in answer to the complaint at the commission stage. The plan does not have any effect in answer to the complaint as the complaint is being investigated for the months and months and years and years that these complaints will be investigated. The plan does not have any relevance in the context of an attempt to mediate the dispute between the complainant and the employer. It's only if the complaint gets to the tribunal that the tribunal at that stage may look at the plan as an answer to the complaint.
[1555]
What is the reason for an employer to enter into a plan when it doesn't prevent any of the investigative, mediation, reporting work from happening? The plan doesn't allow the employer to say: "Well, I've reached an agreement with my employees, so I'm not going to have to worry about this issue." No, no. The plan means that the employer may still have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending or resisting or dealing with or responding to the investigation as it works its way through the system. And only when the case finally makes its way to the tribunal for determination by adjudication will the plan become relevant. When it does, there is no guidance in this bill as to the basis upon which the plan should be considered to be relevant. So even after doing all that work, there is no certainty in this bill about the extent to which particular arrangements made in a plan will help or not. It's an invitation to litigation; it's a recipe for litigation. There is nothing in this bill that will encourage employees and employers to resolve these issues.
There are some interesting comments about the 1 percent per employee thing which the Attorney General focuses on. Well, it is 1 percent -- that is, 1 percent of the total payroll. So if one person in a company that has 5,000 people has a complaint of wage discrimination, then the maximum amount available to satisfy that claim in the event that it's upheld is 1 percent of the payroll of the other 4,999 people. Now, it's unlikely that the discrepancy in any case is ever going to be that much, but the point is that you're going to get right to the end of the problem in the first year. For a huge number of employers there's no gradual phase-in of this. The 1 percent rule isn't going to slow things down. Employers are going to be faced with the full rigour of this in the first year of its operation. I think the Attorney General should admit that.
Secondly, what does the act say about multiple complaints? Does each complainant get their 1 percent? So what happens if you have 100 complainants? There's nothing in the bill that says the complaints can be merged or amalgamated. Each complaint will have to be dealt with on its own terms. Again, it's a recipe for uncertainty, a recipe for instability, a recipe for litigation and delay.
The last general point I want to make is this: Bill 17 will do nothing to
help women who work for low wages. It's an argument that has been made to me.
The argument is made that the only way an employer can avoid the substantial and
ongoing threat of section 12 complaints is to ensure that it has a single-sex
workforce or that it only has one job. So how do you get there? Well, I know
that in the world of the Attorney General and the government, the assumption is
that when the government comes along to the private sector and says, "We
know what's good for you. Take your medicine and behave
In fact, in the marketplace, employers who will be concerned about the impact of the costs of delay in litigation will look for ways to mitigate those impacts. And some of us might not be very happy about those mitigation strategies, and some of them might make perfect sense. We all know the story of Bell Canada -- I'm sure that the minister himself does -- where the end result of a longstanding complaint by certain employees in Bell Canada was that Bell Canada simply stopped employing those people. They instead contracted out that work, and the people who were doing the telephone operator service ended up being paid $7 an hour less after pay equity than they were before.
That's what happens when governments impose unworkable, inefficient, arbitrary, unprincipled schemes of pay equity. They don't get the support from the employer sector that they need to make these schemes work. There's nothing in this bill, that I see, that will preclude that result. In work that's contracted out we know this. It tends to attract even lower wages. Currently some of the most poorly paid groups of women tend to work in single-sex jobs. They're domestics, or they're pieceworkers in the garment industry. My concern is that Bill 17 won't improve their situation. There aren't going to be any comparators in those single-sex jobs. The bill will likely create more of those ghettos rather than fewer, because it simply won't apply. That's been the experience in other situations, in other circumstances, in other jurisdictions, and I see nothing in this bill that is responsive to that situation as it may arise in British Columbia.
[1600]
Mr. Speaker, when I look at the bill in its detail, I think that it is flawed. I think that its approach is, generally speaking, wrongheaded, and I think it is not likely to make things better for women in British Columbia. In some limited circumstances it may even make things worse. So we need to look at this situation. If the minister is right when he says that 8 cents of every dollar in the workforce is a gap in the wages that exists between women and men for reasons that have no legitimate basis, then we have a public policy problem that we need to solve. We need to be open-minded about the ways to solve it, although I want to tell you that I think we also need to
[ Page 17500 ]
be skeptical. We need to be scrutinizing, and we need to be prepared to acknowledge that if a scheme doesn't work, it won't work unless there are ways we can fix it.
What we see is that pay equity is a great idea and a noble principle, but attempts by government to implement it in Canada have met with, at best, indifferent success. That's a reason for caution. That's not an argument in favour of haste. That is an argument in favour of taking a step back and asking, in a principled and objective way, the questions that need to be asked and looking for the answers that we hope will be out there.
I'm sure that during the course of this afternoon we're going to hear the moral sound and fury from the members of the government who will stand up here and make speeches about fundamental human values. I have to say that I will probably agree with some of what they say. But I also want people who listen to those words spoken at the end of March, in the year 2001, to ask themselves: where was that moral fervour last year or the year before that or in all the years in which the people on that side of the House have had the opportunity to introduce pay equity by legislation and have not done so? Where was that moral fervour when the people on the other side of the House controlled the agenda in this assembly, as they have for nearly a decade, and introduced no end of ridiculous pieces of legislation that have accomplished no purpose at all?
Why did they not say to themselves: "Instead of introducing this bill to amend a comma in a statute that no one cares about, why don't we use this opportunity to bring in pay equity?" Well, they didn't do it. You know, we can talk about what we believe, but eventually we're judged by what we do. And this government will be judged on its record on pay equity by what it has not done as well as by what it has discovered, in the last few minutes of its mandate, to be something that it wishes to do.
Pay equity is a noble goal. This bill is flawed, and the opposition will not support it.
[1605]
Hon. S. Hammell: It makes me very proud to rise to support this legislation. Having listened to the debate for the last hour almost, I can't imagine anything that defines the difference between the opposition and this government any more clearly. When it comes to paying women for the time they're out working to earn money to support their families, they cannot bring themselves to do it in a fair and equitable fashion.
When it comes to paying women, they say: "It's too complicated." They say: "Oh, no, no, let's leave it to chance." They say: "Let's think about it." They say: "It's a goofball idea." Paying women for work when they already hold up more than their share of the sky, paying them fairly and equitably for the time they're out there, "is a goofball idea." "But even more than that, it will cost too much money. No, no, no, we should not interfere; let's leave it to chance. Let the marketplace play it. Or if we're going to do anything, let's do a royal commission; let's do a study; let's do a task force; let's hire a judge. No, let's hire a retired judge. Nothing works anyway, so let's just look at it. Let's think about it."
Then they throw out and distort the facts. Never mind all this lawyer talk about this clause and that clause. To quote somebody: "I'm not as wise as these lawyer guys, but let's just look at the facts." In Ontario they have the second-smallest wage gap in the country. It doesn't work in Ontario, but Ontario is the second best when it comes to the wage gap. And you know where the worst is? Alberta. And it doesn't have any legislation. There's no legislation in Alberta, and it's worse. There's legislation in Ontario, and it's the second best, following another province that had pay equity legislation.
This is about fairness, this is about equity, and it is about paying women for work of equal value. Hon. Speaker, I do want to just take a minute and go back to the past. The Attorney General did mention that things have changed; our lives are very different now in this century. If we go back to when this topic began in any clear fashion, it was in 1967. Then a professor from the University of Toronto took the first snapshot of what is now called pay equity. In that time, in 1967, women in full-time, full-year occupations -- in other words, they're out there the same amount of time as men in full-time, full-year occupations -- made 58 cents of the dollar that men earned. They earned 58 percent of what men earned.
That snapshot was called the wage gap, and it is the single snapshot that we now measure everything against. Thirty years later women make 73 cents. In 30 years, 15 cents has been gained. In 30 years, we have gained half a cent a year. Although it must be a goofball idea, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you extrapolate that into the future, sometime around 2050 you will see that gap close. That's not good enough; it's not good enough for the women in B.C. When I have spoken of this issue in the community, women who understand this issue and understand the facts are horrified. Not only are they horrified, they don't accept the wage gap. They don't believe that the work they do is worth less than the work that a man does. It's just not on. Women are wanting to be valued for the work they do, and this is about work of equal value.
[1610]
When a woman gets up to face her day, she often gets up to look after the kids. Even today, though there are many, many men who are very progressive and out there assisting, women are still the primary caregivers. Not only do they have their work to do, they have their children to look after. But women still, despite the fact that many men are in there helping, do most of the chores around the house. In fact, not only do they look after the children and do most of the work in the house, most women are working. Never in the history of this country have so many women been working outside the home. So why, if they are outside the home spending the time doing their share and if they are also working in the home and looking after children, should they be paid less for the work that they do outside the home? It's patently unfair.
I don't know why the members of the opposition should think this is too complicated, too hard, too difficult to do. They want to do nothing. Leave it alone; let the marketplace fix it eventually. And if it doesn't, just leave it. It's much too complicated for mere legislators to try to figure out. When they did it in Ontario, they did it wrong. When they did it with the federal government, they did it wrong. I'm sure there's no perfect fix, and so just leave it.
We have never in this country chosen to just leave stuff when it's inequitable. We always have fought against injustices. What absolutely floors me about this opposition is that the previous administration prior to this government, in the 1990s, was working on pay equity. They began working on pay equity in the late 1980s, and here we are past the year
[ Page 17501 ]
2000, and we have an opposition that isn't even prepared to stand up with women and fight with the government for pay for work of equal value. It is astonishing.Research shows that about half of the overall gender gap can be accounted for by differences between men and women with certain wage-determining factors. I remember when I was talking about this to a crowd of women, saying that the best way to keep the gap closed between you and a man is to stay young and stay single. Young, single, well-educated women have a very narrow wage gap. But after that, it starts to spread out. Higher education, we know, can substantially reduce that wage gap. For every dollar earned by men, women with a university education earn 84 cents, while women with less than a high school diploma earn only 69 cents for every dollar earned by men. Other wage-determining factors include work experience, job responsibility, training and the length of time in the workforce.
Another half of the wage gap is generally considered to stem from discrimination. This includes the failure to hire women for some types of higher-paying employment or to promote women to higher-paying positions. This type of discrimination accounts for about 5 cents of the wage gap and is addressed through employment equity programs.
The other form of discrimination results from historic undervaluing of work traditionally done by women. Between one-quarter and one-third of the total gender wage gap, 8 cents, is attributed to undervaluing women's work. Pay equity closes the portion of the gap that arises from undervaluing work traditionally done by women. It goes beyond pay for work that is the same or similar. Pay equity is achieved when women and men receive the same pay when their jobs are of equal value, even if the work is different.
[1615]
This takes us right back to the notion of value. Do you value the work women do? Do you value the fact that they go out, they're in the workforce, and they are supporting their families by putting in the time on the job? Do you value the fact that they're out there just like men are? Do you value the fact that they're at home as the primary caregivers around their children? Do you value the fact that they're still the primary house-carers? If you value all that, why would you not argue and support the notion that women should be paid for work of equal value?
When you come back and look at these categories, this legislation is focused
on one sector of the area that needs to be worked on -- one sector. We're not
saying for one minute that you bring in this legislation and bang, magic -- the
world's fixed. What we're focused on is 8 cents of the 27-cent wage gap. What
we've got is an opposition who is opposed to trying to lever one portion of a
27-cent wage gap and an 8-cent portion of it, and they're not prepared to do
anything. They're not going to support it. It's too complicated; it's too hard;
it's litigious; it'll cost too much money; nothing works anyway. It's all too
complicated, so let's not do it. Let's do nothing. Let's let the marketplace
As I said before, the previous administration has done something. The previous speaker also went on and on about: "If you're going to do this in the private sector, why haven't you done something yourself?" Well, it really is a great moment when you can stand up and be accountable and actually say: "Here's what we've done."
The previous member suggested that this is going to hurt domestic workers. This is going to hurt piecemeal workers, because it doesn't focus on them. Maybe that's for next time -- right? Right now we're focused on 8 cents of a 27-cent wage gap. We are going to apply some force and some focus to move that, to narrow that gap.
We have done a lot in the previous years, because we picked up from where the previous Social Credit administration started. It is actually amazing that we have an opposition who's not prepared to be even as progressive as the last administration. That takes us way back to probably the early eighties or the seventies in terms of a mind-set about what this issue is about and what a government that is responsible to its citizens should be doing and is in fact responsible to half the population.
And we should mention -- and I do this with the deepest reservations -- that most women care about this issue. They do not believe that they should be paid less for work of equal value. They think that they should have every opportunity that any man does. They are in the workforce; they're in it everywhere. Almost as many women who can work are working, and they expect to be valued. They expect to be treated with respect and dignity.
British Columbia's public sector pay equity policy has been successful in reducing the gender wage gap in the public sector, the part that we are responsible for. Initially achieved through the collective bargaining process in some of the broader public sectors starting in the mid-nineties, it became provincial policy in the early 1990s. The female-to-male earnings ratio for unionized employees in British Columbia's public sector has increased from 81 percent before pay equity, prior to 1990, to approximately 89 percent as of October 1995, when the last study was done.
[1620]
In education -- K-to-12, post-secondary and university sectors -- the male-to-female earning ratio with support staff bargaining units currently ranges from 80 to 94 percent, significantly better than the provincial average. The female-to-male earnings ratio with the health employees' union workforce within health care -- acute and long-term care -- has increased from approximately 86 percent before pay equity, prior to 1992, to approximately 92 percent as of March 1995, when the last study was done.
Interjection.
Hon. S. Hammell: Oh, of course -- I forgot. We were told it doesn't
work. There must be a mistake. There has been significant narrowing of the wage
gap in the public sector through political will, through the desire to value the
work that women do, embraced by the union movement
An Hon. Member: Who says it doesn't work?
Hon. S. Hammell: Well, it is just a puzzle. Even in 1995 it was clear that it was working, and I know that the numbers have moved since.
The member for Richmond-Steveston actually said that none of this works. In fact, I remember he said: "Do nothing. It's too complicated." Oh, he even said: "That's too simple. It's a goofball idea. It's too hard. It's litigious. It'll be nothing but litigious. There will be legal people all over this. We'll be
[ Page 17502 ]
arguing about it. So let's do nothing. Let's leave the wage gap as it stands. To heck with valuing women; it's not important. Let's get on with life. Leave it to the marketplace. Hire a judge. Set up a task force. Get a retired judge. And let's move on, because nothing works anyway." But with political will and focus in the public sector, we have seen this work.
Now, the other thing I really like about this notion is that in British Columbia over the past ten years we have moved in the public sector on pay equity. The job, in terms of the narrow public sector that we're directly responsible for, has been done. So it is fitting that at this point in time we turn our attention to the larger community, because women not only work in the public sector, here in government but also work in the private sector. I have spoken to women. They care about this issue; they want to be valued. They believe that when they go out to work, they should be paid for the time they're out there and they should be paid in a fair and equitable fashion. This is not one particular type of woman; this is every single woman, no matter who they are, no matter where they sit in terms of this society. It's a fundamental issue, centred on the dignity of women and the work that they do.
[1625]
It's shocking to me that the members from the opposition would not embrace this and stand up and cheer that we're now moving on. We've done one job, and we're now moving on. Only four provinces -- Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta -- have a larger wage gap than British Columbia. While Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have pay equity legislation covering the public sector and Newfoundland has a public sector pay equity agreement, none of them has pay equity legislation covering the private sector.
The gender wage gap has significant impact on women in terms of both real
wages and future considerations. This is one of the issues that really has made
me stop and think. Senior women, as a class, are some of the poorest people in
this country. Many senior women have been denied a pension because they stayed
home and supported their families. If we don't fix this, senior women will
continue
Hon. Speaker, we have heard much about the fact that "this legislation won't work, and here are all the reasons." In essence, although you can listen to all the complicated arguments of this and that, it comes down to really clear concepts: "It's too hard; it's too complicated, it's too litigious; we need to think about it; we need to do nothing; we need to leave it to chance. Let's leave it to chance; let's leave it to the marketplace, because it's just too hard." But then: "We could hire a judge, we could appoint a task force, and then we could put the piece of paper down and think about it. We could look at it, and we could wonder about it."
This side of the House is prepared to do something. We know that in the provinces that have been aggressive and taken action on this, the wage gap has narrowed. We know that even though we're only focused on 8 cents, there's much more to do. And this government has been doing it.
I did want very much to share with you one little notion before I conclude.
I'm not used to opening up my local paper and seeing showers of praise come down
on this government. To be quite honest, our local paper is not always
supportive. As this little article says: "So what else is new? The
provincial government enacts legislation
It just reminds me so much of Nellie McClung when she said: "Never retract; never apologize; never explain. Just get the job done, and let them howl." I mean, Nellie McClung was one of the people who actually argued that women were persons, so it does seem to be fitting that we're now talking about women again and making them equal. And we're now saying -- the paper's even saying, like Nellie did: "Just let them howl." And that's a lot of what we're hearing from the opposition corner.
[1630]
Whenever a government tries to level the playing field, there's always someone who thinks that things are just fine the way they are. It happened when women got the vote. I mean, the opposition would be up there arguing that women shouldn't have the vote. It happened when the Japanese were reimbursed, in a very token way -- not good -- for the injustices done to them during the Second World War. It happened when sexual orientation was added to the current list of human rights protections.
"Well, let them howl. We applaud the provincial government for enacting pay equity legislation which will hopefully one day cut down on some of the blatant pay discrimination women are forced to endure in the private sector." May I repeat: "blatant pay discrimination women are forced to endure in the private sector."
"Frankly, if we have one criticism of the government, it's that this legislation should have come earlier." As I said before, we were working on a number of other issues, but I agree that it is timely. "After all, how can anyone actually stand up in the twenty-first century and say that women don't deserve to be paid what men are being paid for doing work of a similar skill level and nature?"
So on this I do rest my case. Again, as I started, I don't think there is an issue that so clearly defines the difference between this government and the opposition. Hon. Speaker, I have to tell you that I am certainly pleased and very proud to be on this side of the issue rather than on that side. The government is amending B.C.'s Human Rights Code to prohibit gender-based wage discrimination for work of equal value. The legislation which comes into effect will enshrine the principle of pay equity within the B.C. Human Rights Code and keep employers' costs to implement pay equity to 1 percent of annual payroll. I know that's hard to take: 1 percent per year to bring women up to the same level as men when we're focused on just a small portion of the wage gap. I know it's hard to take, I know it's difficult, but that's what you're paid the big bucks for.
We will also negotiate equity plans and establish a pay equity coordinator and provide for a major public education campaign. Women in British Columbia earn 73 cents on the dollar. I think we should all get behind the wheel and push to change that and to turn things around. Pay equity is fundamentally a question of human rights. It is something that all of
[ Page 17503 ]
us in this Legislature should be able to get behind and support. I certainly know that I do, and I know that the women of this province do also.
Hon. E. Gillespie: It's my great pleasure to follow the Minister of Multiculturalism and Minister Responsible for the Public Service. Clearly she has demonstrated from her comments today her commitment over a lifetime to the issue of pay equity for women in this province.
I'm not expecting to hear from too many more members of the opposition, given their record to date. I believe we have heard their position, and I say that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we won't be hearing from more of their members about their position on pay equity for women in this province, because I think that there's a tremendous opportunity here to learn. We've heard today that pay equity is far too complicated for ordinary men and women to figure out. We must leave this to the lawyers, the judges, the specialists, the commissions, the studies. Ordinary working men and women and employers couldn't possibly understand how we get to pay equity in this province.
[1635]
I would submit to you that pay equity is not a new idea. It is not a new idea at all. We have been working in a very proactive manner in British Columbia over the last ten years to achieve pay equity in the public service, and there are many businesses and unions across this province and across this country that have bargained for pay equity. Pay equity is not something new. As a matter of fact, in 1977 -- good heavens, almost 25 years ago -- Canada enshrined the principle of pay equity in our Human Rights Code. Can you believe that, hon. Speaker?
I just want to give one of the many examples available about what pay equity might look like -- indeed, how one might measure it. I would submit that the first thing that needs to be done is that we need to have job descriptions within a workplace that are gender neutral. I've brought along a study that's been done by CUPE. CUPE has worked in this area for many, many years, and they have some, I think, probably very good suggestions that employers across this province might want to take a look at -- indeed, that employee organizations might like to take a look at -- in terms of a gender-neutral job evaluation plan.
What will a gender-neutral plan look like? It will be balanced, having an equal effect on female- and male-dominated jobs. It will be comprehensive, having a structure that will embrace as many aspects of the work done in the organization as possible. It will be workable and comprehensible to the union and the management representatives within the organization who will be in charge of making the internal equity effort work. And it will be flexible enough to be tailored to the conditions of the workplace concerned.
Gender-neutral job evaluation plan -- does it sound like rocket science? Does it sound complicated? Well, perhaps. So let's take a look at what some of those job evaluation criteria might be. How can one establish a job description that is gender neutral? Firstly, you might want to measure knowledge. What kind of knowledge is required for the particular job? Secondly, you might want to measure experience. What kind of experience is necessary for this job? Is there a period of training and adjustment on the job itself? You can establish a number of measures of how to establish what kind of experience -- up to a month, over five years. What kind of experience and how do you measure the value of that experience? Judgment -- what kind of judgment needs to be exercised in the task at hand and the job to be done? What kind of independence of judgment is required of the employee?
Here is another factor you might measure. The first three that I've mentioned -- knowledge, experience and judgment -- all come under skill factors. Secondly, you might want to measure effort. What's the mental effort required for the work? What kind of physical effort is required for the work? What's the dexterity required for the work? All simple, measurable efforts.
Thirdly, you might want to measure responsibility. What's the accountability structure in this job? What is the responsibility requirement of the job? What is the safety-of-others requirement? Does the person in this position have some responsibility for the safety of others? How do we measure that? How do we value that? How do we compensate for that? Is supervision of others required for this job? What kinds of contacts are required to be maintained in order to successfully do this job?
The fourth factor you might want to look at in a gender-neutral job description would be the working conditions factor. How agreeable or disagreeable are the working conditions?
There are many organizations across this province and across this country that have come up with such kinds of measures, gender-neutral job evaluation measures. Once again, I would submit that it's not rocket science. It is hard work to begin to measure effectively the skills, the efforts, the responsibility factors and the working conditions of any job in any organization in this province. But again, I would submit that to measure these in a gender-neutral environment is a true measure of the value for work, and it is a step on the road to pay equity.
[1640]
Today I stand here in support of pay equity legislation, and it's a great privilege to be the Minister of Women's Equality at this time as we introduce pay equity legislation into this chamber. The Ministry of Women's Equality has three major priorities: health care, stopping the violence and economic equality for women. We've been working for ten years now on stopping violence against women, on preventing violence from beginning in the first place, on improving access for women to appropriate health care and on working to improve the economic status of women in British Columbia.
Over those ten years several things have become clear. What we found out is that pay equity for women will not be achieved without legislation. I have received a number of letters that have indicated the support of businesses for voluntary pay equity, but they do not support pay equity through legislation. This human rights legislation that we are introducing does provide for voluntary pay equity. Businesses have one year from June 1 to establish a pay equity plan for that place of business, that place of work.
I would submit that voluntary pay equity is not the road to pay equity for
women in British Columbia. Again, I would say that since 1977, when Canada
enshrined the principle in our Human Rights Code, we have not seen a whole lot
of progress. As a matter of fact, I believe my colleague said
[ Page 17504 ]
paying work traditionally done by women is too firmly entrenched in our society. It's too entrenched to have it dismantled only by consensus building, negotiation and ongoing discussion. It is time to end the talking and to get something done, and I would submit that it's long past the time. This is not the time to talk about pay equity. This is the time to do it, to achieve it.
Women cannot participate equally in our province if they're being paid less simply because they're women, if they're paid less to do work that is of the same value as work done by men. When women are paid less, that means that families get less. That means that children get less. And how often in this chamber have we discussed and wrung our hands over the poverty of children in our province and in our country?
Today, in this very wealthy province -- British Columbia -- women represent a disproportionate number of the families living in poverty. The simple truth is that women cannot participate equally in British Columbia if they are discriminated against on their paycheque. Pay equity legislation will end that.
It's not a panacea to all the obstacles that prevent women's equality. But as we all know, it is an excellent start -- an absolutely important and necessary start. Government cannot legislate people's minds, but we can legislate behaviour enough so that women can at least be paid fairly for the work they do. We cannot legislate how people will think, but we can legislate how they will act. And the enshrinement of pay equity legislation in the Human Rights Code in British Columbia is just that.
[1645]
Narrowing the gender wage gap is essential to women's economic equality and their economic security, and it is a key commitment of this government. It has been a key commitment over the last ten years to achieve pay equity in the public service. And now we move forward into the broader public service, into local governments, into the private sector as well.
Over the last 18 months the Ministry of Women's Equality has conducted public consultations with British Columbia women. We have talked to many women about ways to secure economic equality and economic security, because women come from many walks of life, many different communities, many experiences. And they've all had a lot to say. We've talked with women with disabilities, women of colour, women of aboriginal descent, lesbian women, women from small communities, women from large communities, women from Quesnel, from Terrace, Nanaimo, Victoria, Cranbrook, Prince George, Kamloops, Cowichan. We met with women-serving organizations. We met with women from local government. We met with labour. We met with business. And we met with the education sector.
We consulted with all of them on women's economic security. Included in all of these discussions were the issues of wage gap and pay equity. Overall, these women supported legislated pay equity. And why not? Because we know -- we've heard how many times here today -- that women in British Columbia earn 73 cents on the dollar compared to men. So we know that women get paid less overall. Getting paid what you're worth is not a great thing to ask, but if you are a woman, it seems that it is. This legislation will correct this inequality.
Women tell me that being paid less is frustrating -- paid less because you are a seamstress, a secretary or a receptionist, paid less because you're called a manager while the rest of your colleagues who are men are called directors, although your work is of equal value to the organization. I would refer you again to my opening remarks, where I listed some of the factors that can be used to determine a gender-neutral job description.
It is extremely frustrating, because the absence of pay equity creates a significant block to women's economic security. It has serious implications in terms of women's pension, their ability to raise a family and, of course, to pay their child care bill.
We heard earlier today -- and I would like to raise it again -- that women who earn 73 cents on the dollar compared to men are going to have pensions that have the value of 73 cents on the dollar compared to men. That is systemic discrimination against women that entrenches the poverty women experience in their lives. The wage gap has a significant impact on women, both in terms of real wages and, as I've said, for their pensions. Market forces alone cannot eliminate the part of the wage gap that results from the undervaluing of women's work. And why should it? It's not market forces that created that part of the wage gap.
Hon. Speaker, I'd just like to speak for a moment about the free market system. I wonder sometimes what people mean when they talk about the free market system, because indeed I would submit that the free market system is a myth. Why, if we have a free market, do we hear the call for tax breaks for business? Why, if we have a free market, are we required to have health and safety laws to protect workers? And why, if there's a free market, do we hear a constant call for government grants, government subsidies to business? I would submit that there is indeed no free market.
[1650]
The undervaluation of women's work has gone on so long that it seems as if it is a truism. It reminds me of that saying that if you tell a lie long enough, it starts to become the truth. At this point in the game, who would be willing to eliminate a good and dependable pool of cheap labour?
So where does that leave us? It leaves us -- it leaves government -- with the obligation to act. This is not new, this legislation. Our friends at the federal level have introduced pay equity legislation. Ontario has introduced pay equity legislation. Quebec has introduced pay equity legislation which covers both the public and the private sectors. So what is the excuse not to act? There is no excuse. It's time to act. It's time to correct the wrongs of the past. Just give women what belongs to them, what is rightfully theirs.
Like my colleagues I know we have to work closely with all our partners in communities, in governments, in business for pay equity to succeed. We have to work together to make sure that no one is left behind. When this legislation is introduced and proclaimed, it means that resources will flow to the Ministry of Women's Equality -- resources to support our office for workplace equity which will provide support to employees and employers to ensure that they have good information and access to models of pay equity that establish a gender-neutral basis for job evaluation. That office will ensure that there is information and resources available to employers and employees as they move to build their pay equity plans.
It's our work in government to ensure that no one gets left behind. It's our work to ensure that every woman, her
[ Page 17505 ]
family, the community, business, and public and private sectors all experience the fruits this province has to offer. It can't be done at the expense of any one group. We want to work with business and with organizations by providing them with the resources, the information and the support that they'll need. But there's no going back on pay equity.
I understand that there is a great reluctance to do this. I have heard in this House today how complicated, how difficult, how impossible it will be to move forward on pay equity for women. There's always reluctance to fundamentally change the way we do business, the way we pay employees, but we cannot stand still and allow a wrong to continue. We cannot stay still and allow this pool of cheap, dedicated employees to continue to be exploited.
The facts are that women have helped to build this country. Women have already made and still are making enormous unpaid contributions to their families, to their communities, to our society. They have been subsidizing this economy for far too long.
Improving women's economic security doesn't mean the end of prosperity; it is the beginning of prosperity. When women are paid fairly, their families benefit, their communities benefit, and British Columbians benefit substantially. Pay equity is the right thing to do. It's the fair thing to do. We've got to move beyond hand-wringing about whether we can do it or how we can do it. It's the time to do it. It's the right thing to do. It's the fair thing to do. It is what we must do.
When this legislation was introduced into the House last week, there were some 40 women here in the legislative buildings to support that legislation -- women who have dedicated their entire adult lives to the achievement of pay equity in this province and in this country. So let's move past the hand-wringing, and let's work to achieve it. Let's do it now.
[1655]
Hon. T. Stevenson: I actually feel a little sheepish to engage in this debate today and a bit reluctant, I must admit, primarily because I'm a male and as such have been benefiting for all of my life in this system that brings about inequality for women. I am one who has not only benefited but probably over the years has also helped to uphold the system, because when I was in my twenties and probably thirties, I didn't see really any reason to change the system. Thankfully that has changed, inasmuch as I now look at what I've inherited and realize it is basically a no-brainer. Things have to change. There is basic inequality that is built right into our system. This bill on pay equity will go another step -- certainly not all the way -- towards equality for women.
I was interested to hear the opposition speak to the reasons they felt this bill shouldn't go ahead. And as I was listening, I thought of my three daughters and what they might think if they were here listening to the arguments that were being put forward. I know that the member from the opposition would have been into quite a discussion with all three of my daughters on probably every point that he was making. But mostly I think they would have been angry to hear from the opposition that this wasn't the right time, that we should do nothing, that we should relook at things, that we should leave it alone, that it was too expensive, that it couldn't be done.
Those who have been in positions of power have said that for all time, have always wanted to keep the status quo, to maintain the way things are. Things are always easier if we just keep things the way they are. But we can't do that any longer. I think that women nowadays are not simply frustrated, not simply upset but are angry and have a right to be angry. I commend the women who have been speaking so far for the way and manner in which they have spoken. I wouldn't blame them if they broke out into pretty strong feelings as they think back about their own lives and what they have been up against.
As I say, to me this is really kind of a no-brainer. All of us should be looking at this and saying this has been far too long. It's been too long for my government to act on this. We should have been moving on this previously. But at least we're moving on it now. I urge the opposition to join us and move on this.
I think all of the speakers before me have eloquently talked about the differences there are between the amounts that women are paid and the amounts that men that paid. There's no need to go over that. I don't think anyone disagrees. I don't think the opposition would disagree that there is great inequity and that women should be paid equal pay for equal value. But they're not willing to do it now, and we are. They say part of the reason is that we haven't consulted; we haven't talked enough with various groups. Well, I would maintain that this discussion has been ongoing for many years, and in the last year the focus has sharpened, and in the last few months even more so. A great many groups -- women's groups and other advocacy groups -- have put their voice forward and are very pleased to stand behind the government on this bill.
[1700]
You know, it's often been said that you can't legislate people's attitudes. I think that's probably true. But I do think that you need to legislate so that attitudes change later on. I think of issues like slavery; I think of issues like child labour. At one time child labour was merely accepted in society as commonplace. Most children went to work -- and worked very hard -- and there was an attitude that there was nothing wrong with that. Slowly the attitudes of society changed, and finally legislation was brought in. But the legislation that was brought in that condemned and outlawed child labour was still ahead of its time -- that is, the opposition of the government of the time disagreed with it. Many in society disagreed with it, particularly those that were in power positions. But thankfully that legislation was passed, and less than a hundred years later attitudes indeed have changed. You wouldn't get many people today saying that they agreed with child labour.
In my opinion, that's the same with pay equity. We have to bring this about at this time, even though the opposition is saying nay and there are some business groups who are saying that this is going to cost too much money, that this is not fair for them. Nevertheless, we must bring forward this legislation and pass this legislation, so that the daughters of my daughters will not even have this any longer as an attitudinal question. My daughters now have to struggle with the same issues as women have had as far as pay equity, but it's my hope that my granddaughters, as a result of this legislation and other legislation bringing about full equality for women, will change all that.
So I'm very pleased to be able to stand and speak today, even though I feel a little hesitant to do so, being a male. It certainly has been men who have put these structures in place,
[ Page 17506 ]
and therefore really it's incumbent on us to be working with women now, rather than trying to do it ourselves for women, to change that and to bring about equity right across the board. I recognize, as other speakers have, that certainly this doesn't go the whole nine yards, doesn't go all the way, but it does take a very, very important step.
It's not as if this step is one we'd say is blazing any trails in Canada at all. I mean, the federal government has done this already, and six other provinces and territories have pay equity legislation. Quebec, Ontario and the federal government provide for pay equity in the private sector also. So it's not as if what we're saying here today or what we're trying to do or the legislation we're trying to bring about is trail-blazing by any stretch of the imagination. In fact we're trying to do a little bit of catch-up, really, more than anything else.
So to listen to the opposition say how difficult this is and how onerous this is and how litigious this might be and how we should rethink it or appoint people to relook at it sounds basically like a huge smokescreen. And it sounds as if we're out there way ahead of anybody else and we've got to hold back and relook at it and rethink it and redo it, when in fact the trail has already been blazed. Many have gone before us, and we're just trying to catch up.
[1705]
I keep thinking to myself: How could anybody be opposed to this? This is so basic; this is so simple. This is a matter of basic fairness. We who now enjoy the fruits of all of the work that legislators have done before in human rights sometimes pause and wonder how it is that there are still those who don't grasp the basic idea of freedom and fairness. Yet there are many, usually for economic reasons, who say that we can't be fair right now and that maybe we shouldn't have been fair already, in a whole bunch of other areas. Thankfully, legislators such as we have pushed ahead anyway. Those before us have stood up and said: "No. There are principles that are too important, there are principles for which we must speak out, and we must bring laws in so that all members of society feel they have an equal part."
One individual said, "Oh gee, you know, this is going to be very expensive. We can't afford to do this right now. We can't afford the cost of bringing these wages up," which brought someone else to say: "Well, then, why don't we just bring men's wages down to that level, and that would just kind of equal it all out?"
Can you imagine if that was ever brought about? Men would be screaming about the inequality and the unfairness: "How dare you bring our wages down?" In fact I asked myself as I was listening to some of this debate today: if the shoe was on the other foot, would men sit by and be as easy about this as I've heard women be? Would men sit by and argue this so eloquently and almost dispassionately in order that the rest of us be convinced? I doubt it. I think men would be rip-roaring mad. They'd probably bring out the tanks or something. Have a war is what we'd probably do. We'd probably bring out the macho machismo and go into a fight. We wouldn't stand for it. But because it's women, that doesn't seem to happen. Women have been arguing and trying to put commonsense reasons before us.
I think that at the end of the day, obviously this is going to be passed, because on this side of the House we have the majority. But it's my hope that the whole House will rise and pass this bill and say: "Yes. There's not very many issues that we come together on. We seem to be so separated on so many. But this should be one that there should indeed be no separation on." So one has to wonder what that really is about. Just for once, on an area of equality and fairness, it would be nice to see us all rise together and overcome some of the wrongs that we've inherited. We didn't create the wrongs. I didn't create the wrongs; you didn't create the wrongs. They were in society long before we came along, and they date back to an old patriarchal system that goes well back into the Judeo-Christian culture. But we have certainly inherited them, and therefore it's our responsibility to do something about them, to right those wrongs.
Here we have a chance to right a little bit of the wrong -- not a whole bunch; we're not doing in the whole patriarchal system, believe me. It's still in there pretty strongly and has a long history. It's going to be a long time before that's changed. We do have a chance to change a little bit, to stand up and say: "Yes, we inherited this. Yes, it was wrong. Yes, we want to see it differently for our daughters and our daughters' daughters."
Hon. Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak on this, and I'll certainly be voting in favour of this legislation.
[1710]
Hon. J. Smallwood: As I've been listening to the debate today, I quite frankly can't believe we're finally here. It's been such a long struggle here in British Columbia. The women who have gone before us in this fight to bring about this legislation are many and have been working for a long, long time. I'd like to pay tribute to them and just simply touch on some of the points in history that have brought us to today.
As a young activist working with women's groups and learning about these questions, I confess that we felt that we were inventing the wheel. We were identifying the inequalities, we were analyzing the problem, and we were trying to articulate solutions. I look back on those days personally, because at that time it was that experience solely that I could reflect on.
I remember seeing an article. A friend of mine was an antique collector, actually, and she had a copy of a Ladies' Home Journal dated 1914. In that Ladies' Home Journal there was a full-page article on equal pay for work of equal value. I was absolutely stunned. I thought this was a debate and an issue that the women of my generation were working on and were in the forefront of. But clearly we were not. Back in 1915, Helena Gutteridge, a Vancouver trade union activist, convinced the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council to support equal pay for work of equal value in their constitution.
It may come as a surprise to a number of members, certainly those on the opposition side that are calling for more study, to find out that equal pay for work of equal value was a feature of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and was later included in the Treaty of Rome that established the European Union. The International Labour Organization has had, since 1951, its convention on pay equity, one that Canada was a signatory to.
In 1977, Canada enshrined the principle in our Human Rights Code. It was also the law in Quebec in 1977, in Ontario in 1987, in Manitoba in 1985, in New Brunswick in 1989, in Prince Edward Island in 1988, in Nova Scotia in 1989 and in the Yukon in 1987. Hon. Speaker, it's past time.
[ Page 17507 ]
The amendment that this House has in front of it simply acknowledges that the issue of equal pay for equal value is a fundamental human right -- nothing more complicated than that, simply the recognition of a fundamental human right.
We hear from the opposition that it is complicated, that it will be litigious and that the amendment we have before us does not spell out all of the complexities an employer or the marketplace will have to deal with. Well, we have an extensive history in this country. We have well over 20 years of experience, if you look at the dates, not only in particular jurisdictions but through provincial and federal courts in dealing with these questions and resolving them to the satisfaction of not only those other jurisdictions but of businesses and trade union movements and women alike. Many of the difficulties have been learned, and many of the solutions are already before us.
[1715]
I have the privilege of being part of a government that made a decision some ten years ago that first and foremost we would get our house in order. And in getting our house in order, we would learn about the experiences in different work classifications, in different categories and with different bargaining units, and through that experience we would be able to help others. The leadership that we provided helped to close the gap for women and men and to recognize and honour the work that those people do in the public service on behalf of taxpayers in this province. I'm very proud of that.
Again, let me reflect on a personal experience. Back in 1991, I had the honour of being the Minister of Social Services. At that time, some of the frontline workers who were issuing income assistance cheques were on welfare. Most people in this province would have difficulty getting their heads around that concept. But here it is. The wages that those individuals were being paid, many of them single parents with a number of children, were not equal to the amount that a person with the same number of children would get on income assistance. So the income assistance program that was in place in those days allowed individuals to top up their income so they could remain in the workplace and continue to support their children. Imagine the difficulty of an income assistance worker issuing cheques for people on welfare who were making more than they were by working a 40-hour week.
I am so proud to be part of a government that can say that because of our initiatives with low-wage redress and pay equity, there are no longer public servants who are working and having to have their paycheques topped up. We recognize the value of their contributions to British Columbia and we pay them appropriately. They are able to support their children with dignity.
Over that period of time, we've been able to close the wage gap in the public service to 90 cents on the dollar from 81 cents. That's a 9 percent gap. In the education sector the ratio within the support staff bargaining units currently ranges from 85 percent to 95 percent. Female-to-male earnings ratios within the health care sector, which includes acute and long-term care workers, was estimated in March of 2000 to be approximately 97 percent -- a significant increase from approximately 86 percent in 1991.
When the opposition says that these regimes -- bargaining pay equity, the kinds of workplace evaluations and the establishment of pay equity plans -- don't work, I'm here to say to you that they do work. We have demonstrated, through our leadership as a government, that not only do they work but we are able to recognize and support the men and women in those targeted areas.
[1720]
But I want to go a little bit further. The member for Richmond-Steveston quoted studies from Ontario. Now, he put forward the argument that there have been studies of a number of different regimes across Canada. He puts himself forward in that he does not know of a particular piece of legislation or scheme that has actually worked for women. I think that that is not only misleading but does not recognize that long and proud history, that struggle that women have had to have their work recognized and the improvements that have been made because governments have been brave enough and have had enough integrity to stand up and say: "We are going to put an end to wage discrimination. We are going to honour a basic human right and ensure that everyone in this province's work is valued, respected and paid appropriately."
Let me give a couple of examples of instances in Ontario that perhaps the hon. member who is the Attorney General critic can look into. At York University in Toronto secretaries went on strike in the 1980s because they received substantially less pay than male groundskeepers. When the member gets up and argues about the same job for men and women and makes the argument that value is subjective and that there is no way that you can compare the two, as I say, he has not done his homework. I'm taking it at face value, rather than accusing the member of having a particular bias. Here they argued that their work required higher skills, more training and greater responsibility. They won their argument, and ultimately their actions helped to pave the way towards the pay equity legislation in Ontario.
For an opposition that sees itself representing big business and the
interests of corporations in this province, you would think that they would have
more experience with human resource development. The issues with respect to
comparative value
When we in this province have the experience over the last decade and when we see other jurisdictions and other courts that have even longer experience, it's very clear to me that it is time to move. And we have the skills and the knowledge to do that.
I'd like to speak a little bit about why this is so important. We heard from the member for Richmond-Steveston, who said that this was a goofball idea, that it was complicated and difficult and that this legislation would not solve the problem. I want to say clearly and unequivocally that no one, given the history and the situations women find themselves in, expects that there will be a silver bullet, that there will be one answer that will solve all of the problems, one answer that will deal with decades and decades of struggle and discrimination which have been built into the way our society functions today.
[1725]
Let me talk about where women are today, who we are in this province, some of the issues around this legislation and
[ Page 17508 ]
this government's comprehensive plan to deal with inequity and to support women in their changing role. Women in British Columbia have many faces and many experiences. Just as an example, let me take an imaginary 100 women out of our population. Twenty-five of the 100 are under the age of 20, 14 of us are over 65, 18 of us are members of visible minority groups, 26 of us are immigrants, seven are lesbians, four of us are disabled, four of us are aboriginal, one of us is a francophone, and 59 of us participate in the labour force. Clearly many of us fall into a number of those different categories. But it gives you an image of who the women are that are being served by this legislation and served by the comprehensive plan that we have begun putting in place over the last decade. And while that gives you an idea of the many faces and the many experiences that women have in this province, let me go a little further, because even though we reflect the diversity, we do not enjoy the diversity of privilege that exists in British Columbia.
Disproportionately women are poor, and there are reasons for that poverty. Let me give you a snapshot of that poverty. Female lone parents in British Columbia currently live 52 percent below the LICO, or low-income cutoff; unattached women, 45 percent below; visible minority children and aboriginals, 45 and 44 percent respectively. In 1991 aboriginal women lived 28 percent below the poverty line, where the general population of seniors were 19 percent below, and non-aboriginal women were 17 percent below the low-income cutoff, living in poverty.
We've developed as a government and learned from our experience over the last decade. I reference our experience with pay equity, but we've used other tools as well. We've used low-wage redress tools, where we clearly picked out work that women were doing in this province who were being paid as public servants at minimum wage. We recognize that it was costing British Columbia too much -- not only the individuals that were doing that valuable work but British Columbia taxpayers. If you're living at minimum wage, if you are poor, it is very difficult to maintain that employment because of the cross-pressures that women have with their families. As soon as they had an opportunity to qualify through training support for a higher-paying job, those women moved on.
So through pay equity and low-wage redress we invested in those particular job categories, we stabilized the workforce. The investment that was being made in training opportunities for those individuals provided stability, and in many of the instances, particularly in the community sector, we saw women being able to stay in those jobs, providing continuity of care, often for the most vulnerable amongst us.
[1730]
I think that our plan to deal with women and poverty is more comprehensive than that. It also deals with minimum wage as a low-wage redress tool. By raising minimum wage, by being the highest-wage jurisdiction in Canada, it has allowed us to support and recognize women disproportionately, because women are earning minimum wage. I think it would be a shocking reality to most in this House and most British Columbians to understand that over the age of 25 a full 74 percent of those working at minimum wage are women. Disproportionately they're lone parents supporting children. So it's another very valuable tool to deal with the economic discrimination that women face.
Many of those individuals that went ahead of me talked about seniors poverty.
Well, it has everything to do with the fact that women, when they are working
and in the workplace, are making less money than men. The statistics bear it out
when we see the number of senior women that are living in poverty and we look at
the value of the pensions that those women are living on, to say nothing of the
lack of recognition of the work that women do in the home. Others spoke of that,
but let me give you some numbers simply to make the point. The studies that have
been done on hourly earnings of people doing similar activities in jobs
If we as a society just dealt with a few of these issues -- and our government has a proud record on these initiatives -- women's lives would be different. As seniors, women could look forward to the kind of retirement that would allow them to live in dignity, because their work would have been valued. It would have been recognized, and it would have been compensated for. This bill only begins to recognize a part of the discrimination. It offers a tool to begin that redress.
But let me speak a little bit more about the makeup in our society and where women find themselves. For young females aged 18 to 24, their earnings are actually a little bit better than the provincial average. I suppose we can all look on that as a positive indicator that youth have benefited from the struggles of their mothers, their grandmothers and their aunts in the past. But not everyone enjoys that reality.
I'd like to share a few other statistics just to help the House understand a little better why women are fed up waiting and why the structural discrimination has to end and governments have to act. Quite frankly, it's not acceptable to talk about the need for more studies. When we reference 73 cents on the dollar, it betrays the reality that many women experience. It's interesting that the Liberal opposition suggests that we need more studies to look at existing pay equity plans and that we need more studies to understand how it works, and then goes on to say that for women who are in the lowest-paid jobs this will not help.
[1735]
Let me identify for you some of the lowest-paid categories in British Columbia, and let me share with you the numbers that indicate the fundamental bias and discrimination that exist. For babysitters, nannies and parent helpers, women's average earnings are $12,662. Men's earnings are $15,106 for the exact same job. For artisans and craft people -- I'm going to round them off a little bit here rather than using too much of the House's time -- $13,000 for women, $20,000 for men; for general farmworkers: $13,000 for women, $19,000 for men; food and beverage servers: $13,000 for women, $18,000 for men; harvesting labourers: $14,000 for women, $18,000 for men. This is the same experience and the same job but a fundamental breach in the difference in pay.
Let's look at the highest-paid workers. I heard a lot of people talk about the fact that there may be a skill set issue -- that women are not as highly skilled and don't have the same tools. But let's look at the highest-paid. For judges in this province: women earn $117,000 and men earn $128,000; specialist physicians: women earn $86,000 and men earn $137,000; general practitioners and family physicians: women at $81,000, men at $116,000. Now, these are as of 1995, so the numbers have changed a little bit over the last six years.
[ Page 17509 ]
Dentists: $71,000 for women and $109,000 for men. Senior managers, financial communications carriers and other business services: women at $71,000 and men at $104,000.
We've got a long way to go. It's true enough that women have come a long way.
But until such time as we are able to deal with that fundamental human right,
the discrimination against women based on the simple fact of gender, when you
look at the details, when you learn about the issues
Let me go a little further and talk about some of the wage gaps by industry. I did talk about the annual income in some of these categories, but this is the average female weekly wage. For accommodations and food: $400; the average male, $483. For construction: the average female, $539; and the average male, $776. This is quite staggering. Forestry, fishing, mining, oil and gas: the average female wage, $683; the average male weekly wage, $1,006. And it goes on for each of the categories of industrial jobs in British Columbia. We have to recognize that women are not represented in equal numbers in those job categories, but where they are working in those particular sectors, those are the average weekly earnings.
It's interesting. Most women in this province that have worked for pay equity will often use comparators like child care workers. I remember that in the early days they used to talk about zookeepers. Well, there are not very many zookeepers in British Columbia. But let's look at the average salary for janitors in B.C. It's about $22,000, and the average salary for a child care worker is $18,000. When we hear from the opposition the glib remarks about children being our future and how important children and the care of children are to all of us, quite frankly, the wages and the remuneration for the people that dedicate themselves to children and to early childhood education simply betray those values that we talk about with respect to the work they do. And that needs to change.
[1740]
Over the years, I used to talk to young groups in my constituency; I used to talk to young people. I used to use the example of a family I knew. Both the young woman and her brother grew up in the community with the same kind of privilege, the same kind of experience and the same education. Both of them graduated from grade 12. The young man went on to work in the mills, and he drives a brand-new 4-by-4 truck. The young woman went on to continue her education, became a data processor and can't afford to keep an old, used little car on the road. You know, in some way that told the story for me. It was so clear -- the different hopes that male and female children can have as they're growing up.
I told that to my daughter. I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that the kid has grown up in the home that she's grown up in, but she said to me: "Mom, those aren't very good comparators. What says it even more is that a young man can go and work in construction and make $25 an hour, and for a young woman leaving high school to make anywhere near that money, she has to take her clothes off."
I think it's time that we came to grips with those realities. It's time that we came to grips with the fact that women have a great deal to contribute. I don't think we have to justify those contributions anymore; it makes me angry to think that we're still doing it.
I look at the education, the achievements, that women have made, especially in the last number of years. You see, that's been part of our plan, as well, as a government: to support equity of access and opportunities for women and young people in education. And what we're seeing now is that women are completing education, and higher education, at higher numbers than ever before. In fact, hon. Speaker, women are completing degrees in higher numbers than men.
I'm very proud of that as a government. It's part of the plan. It's part of a comprehensive approach that deals with that fundamental inequity that is engrained in our society and that says that all citizens -- men, women, old, young -- need to be recognized and valued for their contribution and given the opportunity to be the best that they can be. Where we can identify barriers we will, to the best of our ability, eliminate those barriers. And where we are unable to eliminate those barriers, we will, as a government, provide mechanisms for redress. And that's part of what this legislation is all about.
[1745]
I went through the numbers of jurisdictions that now have experience with pay equity. During our consultation it was enlightening. Now, we hear all of the old excuses coming up: "Gee, it's complicated. Gee, it's going to be litigious. Gee, there hasn't been enough consultation." And, of course, the big one is: "How much is it going to cost?" But I am just so offended that in this day and age, in the year 2001, we're still trotting out those tired, old adages. It is incumbent on anyone that puts themselves forward for public office to not only respect the contributions of all citizens but to understand the history of what has made this province great and who has contributed to that greatness.
When we went out in this province, when we met with women in British Columbia, I don't think there were very many meetings that were not attended by large numbers of women. What we tried to do was not only meet in these communities with that diverse makeup in British Columbia, but we went a step further to ensure that the meetings were not simply an opportunity for organized advocates. We actually invited -- at random, through the telephone book -- women to come and meet with us privately.
We talked about their reality. Many women in this province haven't had the privilege of actually analyzing the structures that are the barriers to their lives, but they very eloquently and articulately shared with us their experiences. You know, each and every community that we went into was a new community and a new learning experience. But at the end of the day, I can tell you with absolute conviction that there is a common condition in this province that women face.
It took a very short period of time, where women were sharing their experiences, to see in that room women's heads nodding, older women sharing their experiences with younger women and younger women learning from those experiences.
Let me share with you one of the women that made such an impression on me. I don't think I'll soon forget that consultation. Can you picture, going in this room, the brand-new faces? Most of the women that were at this meeting, even in a small community, did not know the other women that had attended.
There was one woman in the room that really stood out. She was an older woman. She was dressed as a business
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woman -- my mother would say well turned out. She was quite an incredible presence. As we went around the room, we invited each of the women to speak about their experiences and talk about economic security. Now, it came time for this older woman to speak, and she stood up, where just about everybody else in the room sat and spoke. The first thing that came to your mind was that that person had some public speaking experience.
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She took her time and presented herself, speaking to the room. She said: "I remember the very first job that I got, and I remember with my first paycheque buying a dress, and it took a full third of my paycheque. I remember how angry my mother was that I would spend so much money on a dress." And she said: "I remember when I married my husband, and we spent a great deal of time during the war outside of Canada."
She said: "I remember my very best job, how I wangled it." And that's actually how she talked about it. She said: "I wangled this great job where I was the public spokesperson for Butterick patterns." The penny dropped. Everybody in the room went: "Oh my God, I'll bet you she made her suit." And sure enough, she had. But she said: "I remember working for them, and one of the reasons it was so great is that I got a great wage. They paid for my expenses when I toured and spoke for the company." Then she went on to say: "I remember when I turned 65, and I found out that I didn't have a pension, and as a single woman at that time, because my husband had died, I had to go to welfare. Welfare said to me that I should consider selling my rings."
The story and the life that woman shared with the other people in that room was repeated in community after community after community. Even though it was the best job she ever had, she made it clear to all of us that she was not getting the same kind of money that a man who was a spokesperson for a major company would get for speaking as their public spokesperson. Had she been, she would have been in a better situation when she found herself alone, in her senior years, without a pension. We learn more from British Columbians.
I notice the time, hon. Speaker, and I have much more that I would like to share with the House, so I will move adjournment of the debate.
Hon. J. Smallwood moved adjournment of the debate.
Motion approved.
Point of Privilege
(Speaker's Ruling)
The Speaker: Just before I go to the Government House Leader, members, if I could, I have a decision that I had reserved to bring back today.
On March 19, 2001, the hon. Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations sought to raise a matter of privilege following the speech of the Finance critic for the official opposition in the budget debate. The essence of his complaint was that the critic had abused the privileges of the House by misleading members and the public.
Numerous decisions of Speakers of this House and other Houses have made it clear that only the deliberate misleading of the House constitutes contempt. I have examined the arguments of the minister and the material filed by both the minister and the Finance critic, all of which appear to support their arguments in debate and disclose a healthy disagreement with respect to budget formulation and economic forecasting. Nothing presented constitutes a prima facie case of deliberately misleading the House.
I would, however, characterize this matter as a disagreement between hon. members as to facts, and I would refer hon. members to the rulings of Speaker Lovick found in the British Columbia Journals of April 3, 1997, pages 19 to 21.
Hon. G. Janssen moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.
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