Legislative Assembly of Ontario

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'ÉQUITÉ EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI

UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA

CUPE -- ONTARIO DIVISION

BANGLADESH CANADIAN SOCIAL AND SETTLEMENT SERVICES

HUMAN RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO

FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE-FRANÇAISE DE L'ONTARIO

SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPORT AND INFORMATION CENTRE

DISABLED PERSONS WORKING TOGETHER

REGIONAL MULTICULTURAL YOUTH COUNCIL/MULTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO

SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN'S CENTRE

CONTENTS

Thursday 19 August 1993

Employment Equity Act, 1993, Bill 79

United Steelworkers of America

Brian Shell, Canadian legal counsel

CUPE--Ontario division

Sid Ryan, president

Irene Harris, CUPE national equal opportunities representative

Jim Woodward, legislative assistant

Muriel Collins, chair, women's committee

Joan Stephenson, chair, human rights committee

Bangladesh Canadian Social and Settlement Services

Abu Alam, president

Moin Ahsan, director

Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario

Mary Beth Currie, chair, government affairs committee

Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario

Margaret Dempsey, president

Teresa González, executive assistant

Ada Hill, executive assistant

Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario

Jacques Michaud, acting president

Ali Maachar, board member

South African Support and Information Centre

Maisela Kekana, representative

Patrick Cindi, representative

Disabled Persons Working Together

Bruce Wenham, executive director

Regional Multicultural Youth Council/Multicultural Association of Northwestern Ontario

Aaron Goldstein, press officer

South Asian Women's Centre

Sharmini Fernando, executive director

Continued overleaf

Continued from overleaf

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)

Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)

Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)

*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)

Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND)

Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)

Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)

Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)

*Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)

*Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)

*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Caplan, Elinor (Oriole L) for Mr Chiarelli

Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Mr Malkowski

Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Duignan

Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND) for Ms Akande

Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Mills

Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC) for Mr Harnick

Clerk / Greffière: Freedman, Lisa

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Bryce, Donna

Staff / Personnel:

Campbell, Elaine, research officer, Legislative Research Service

Kaye, Philip, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1003 in room 151.

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'ÉQUITÉ EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI

Consideration of Bill 79, An Act to provide for Employment Equity for Aboriginal People, People with Disabilities, Members of Racial Minorities and Women / Loi prévoyant l'équité en matière d'emploi pour les autochtones, les personnes handicapées, les membres des minorités raciales et les femmes.

UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA

The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I call the meeting to order. Mr Shell is here and has been here for quite a while. Welcome, Mr Shell. You have half an hour for your presentation. At times during the process, I remind the deputants around the 15-minute mark whether they want to continue with their presentation or leave time for the questions and answers. I leave it to you to decide how much time you want to leave for that.

Mr Brian Shell: I appreciate that.

The Chair: Please begin any time.

Mr Shell: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Mr Chairman. My name is not Harry Hynd. Harry Hynd is the union's district director, and unfortunately he is not able to be here today. He has asked me to convey his regrets to you but to assure you that the fact that he isn't here has absolutely nothing to do with the significance that the United Steelworkers of America places on Bill 79, both in supporting it and in seeking that it be revised.

I am the union's Canadian counsel and I had the interesting experience of serving as a member of the Employment Equity Commissioner's regulations development advisory group at the invitation of Elaine Ziemba. So I have an intimate, indeed a professional, involvement in the regulation development process, but I assure you that I take no responsibility for the product that was the outcome of that process.

For the Steelworkers it is an honour to appear before this committee again and before the government again to tell you about what we think of Bill 79. To start with, we believe that it is dramatic legislation, an important first step towards ensuring that Ontario workplaces provide equal access to members of designated groups in Ontario that have been the victim of systemic discrimination.

I'd like to stop there for a moment and say that what underlies Bill 79 is an acceptance that there is systemic discrimination rampant in Ontario's workforces and in decision-making that impacts on citizens and that this systemic discrimination is not countered by laws, in particular by the Human Rights Code and the administration of the Human Rights Code, notwithstanding that there is a section and provisions in the Human Rights Code as well as outstanding jurisprudence from our highest courts that deal with systemic discrimination.

The fact is that a case by case, piece by piece, individual by individual approach to eliminate systemic discrimination in the workplace does not, will not and has proven that it has not worked.

This fact, systemic discrimination, is what the media has failed to appreciate. They fail to understand that the issue about employment equity is to counter systemic discrimination. If media and business groups come to you and say, "We support employment equity, we support it, we support it," the question you must pose is, "What have you been doing about systemic discrimination in your hiring practices, witness?" When the witness waffles and fails to comprehend the issue of systemic discrimination in the workplace, then we can focus upon the question of mandatory versus directory versus voluntary employment equity.

If somebody says to you, "We don't have systemic discrimination in our workforce. After all, nobody has charged our company with a breach of the Human Rights Code. Nobody has said that we engage in adverse-effect discrimination. So let us voluntarily set goals and timetables" -- when somebody says that, you now understand exactly where they're coming from and you understand what they're saying and why they want to maintain a voluntaristic system.

As you'll see from these remarks, it is unfortunately our view that Bill 79 maintains a voluntaristic system of employment equity. While it is much more far-reaching than the federal regime and it has much more serious consequences for reporting and information gathering and it will be a wonderful playground for statisticians and future researchers examining the social fabric of Ontario in this decade, we have very serious reservations about whether it will actually cause results and that, after all, is what Bill 79, by its own stated principles, is supposed to achieve. It is supposed to achieve change. It is supposed to change the way businesses make decisions.

Many of you are very familiar with the Steelworkers. I should tell you that the Steelworkers represent approximately 75,000 employees in Ontario in virtually every sector of the province's economy. We deal with many, many hundreds of employers, not just a few large ones. We deal with mainly small ones. We administer and negotiate 600-plus collective agreements in Ontario that renew every two or three years so at any moment on any day of the week there are dozens of Steelworkers' bargaining committees dealing with employers and negotiating collective agreements. In that sense, we are without a doubt the most diverse and most significant general workers' union in Ontario.

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You may be surprised, however, to learn that the vast majority of our bargaining is with small employers covering bargaining units with fewer than 100, and I choose the number 100 because that fact means that the vast majority of workplaces that we deal with will have so-called modified requirements because they are workplaces between 50 and 100, and the overwhelming number of new employers who are generating the new jobs have fewer than 50, and they are exempt, as you know, from any requirement under this legislation. That is a major, significant, serious, overwhelming deficiency. In the submissions of Director Hynd, he calls it shortsighted. Depending on what we think will be the political climate in Ontario, this may have been our opportunity to implement the vision and we may be losing that opportunity.

We say without any hesitation that the benefits of this legislation should extend across the province. It can't be denied that pervasive, systemic discrimination has to be dealt with wherever it appears. It is not okay to seek to eliminate systemic discrimination in a big company and countenance it in a company that has 47 employees. That is simply not okay, and there is no policy justification for it. There must only be a political justification for it, and we cannot accept all political justifications.

There are fundamental political justifications with fundamental law-breaking; systemic discrimination in Ontario today is unlawful. Let's not forget that. So by exempting employers who have fewer than 50 employees, we are in effect saying: "We will countenance your law-breaking. We will not require that you deal with the systemic discrimination that you practise."

There is widespread confusion in the workplace and among our members. Our members are being told that this is an anti-white male bill; that's what they're being told. They are not being told by the media or by business organizations that this is a bill that seeks to eliminate systemic discriminatory practices of employers. There is an obligation, I submit respectfully, for those who defend and promote this legislation to get the message out. You cannot simply leave that job to the groups in the community.

That message, that we want to eliminate systemic discrimination, has to get out, or the confusion and the manipulation of the public opinion will continue and we will get on the caboose. We will not be anywhere near the engine of the train on the question of the elimination of systemic discrimination.

The Steelworkers has an enormous commitment to changing the face of Ontario's workforce. Our membership reflects Ontario's diversity and, realistically, our membership reflects systemic discrimination in hiring. The fact that our membership is very white and very male doesn't reflect anything about the union. It reflects the fact that employers where we organize workers have hired employees who are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. That's what it reflects. So we are a microcosm of Ontario, we are a walking example of the consequences of systemic discrimination.

We know, as our brother from the CAW said to you yesterday, that those who engage in systemic discriminatory practices do so for clear, unstated purposes and they will not stop, they will not hesitate to continue their practices, notwithstanding their nice words. They will not stop unless there is clear, effective, precise, enforceable legislation prohibiting unlawful conduct.

The Steelworkers believes that the workplace is a place where social change begins -- it is the place where change begins -- that the workplace mirrors the kind of society we have built, and that too many decisions about the workplace are taken by too few, without regard to the values in our society, such as that which underpins this legislation, namely, equal opportunity in employment.

We congratulate the government's resolve to turn the page on the past, to direct that change shall take place so that the disentitled and the disenfranchised, those systematically excluded from the fruits of our collective success, will find legislative support for their legitimate aspirations.

We applaud the recognition in the bill of the trade union as the key player in making employment equity a reality in the workplace, at least where employees are represented by a union. We look forward to negotiating employment equity plans with employers, even though the legislation doesn't call it that. Why doesn't the legislation call it what it is? They call it joint responsibility for the development of an employment equity plan. What does that mean?

We will welcome the opportunity to identify barriers to employment equity.

Some say this legislation is unequal. I say to you that as Madam Justice Rosalie Abella wrote in her important report on employment equity, this approach to equity is a new concept that we have finally begun to appreciate. Bill 79 accepts the principle that equality is not about treating people the same. That is not what equality is about. Equality is about treating people in accordance with their historical differences. That is what modern equality in a modern, welfare, capitalist state is about.

We're hopeful that Bill 79 will begin the process -- I emphasize "begin", and it may be a very slow beginning; with careful review of the bill and the regulations as you've done, you see it will be a very slow beginning -- of eradicating systemic discrimination. At the same time, we're concerned about the bill's deficiencies.

We are concerned that the bill will make it impossible for the government to really direct the change and to ascertain the results and, I say candidly, to take credit. I say candidly that if there's going to be fundamental change that changes Ontario and it's good change, by golly, the government that has ushered that in should take credit for it. What is the point of taking credit for something where there are no ascertainable results, where people are going to say in two years: "Mush. No results. Lots of numbers. Mush. No change. Mush. It's all mush"?

By the stroke of a pen, three quarters of the importance of this legislation can be removed without returning to the elected members of the Legislature. Why? Why is so much of what's important in this legislation relegated to regulations? It's unheard of. It's shocking. It's striking. It's wrong. It should be re-evaluated. You should reconsider it and in your considerations of the amendments that are needed, you should turn to the regulations and bring the regulations into the bill. Not by regulation: We should mesh the regulations and the bill in a very major and significant and important way.

Now, we're not so naïve to think this bill doesn't present enormous challenges to the trade union.

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The Chair: Fourteen minutes left, Mr Shell.

Mr Shell: I'll be four more minutes.

It will present enormous challenges to us, extraordinary challenges. We don't have a membership leaping up and down saying, "Terrific, this is just what we wanted." We have a membership that is confused. We have a membership that doesn't understand this very well. But we tell them, and we never forget to tell them, that they have brothers and sisters, that they have wives and husbands. Some of their family are able-bodied and some are not so able-bodied.

We don't forget that the vast majority of our members or their recent ancestors came to this land from far away, seeking a future with dignity and security as Canadians and as employees. They wanted to be free from bigotry and racism. They expected it and they're entitled to it. We don't forget that our members include aboriginal people, whose treatment over the course of generations by the immigrant majority must be redressed.

To employers who are sincere in wanting to enhance opportunities in the workplace for the designated groups, the Steelworkers says that it will serve as your ally in the workplace. But to employers who rub their hands in glee at the opportunity to mask their plan to strip their employees of rights gained through struggle and collective bargaining, behind their gentle words of support for the so-called principles of employment equity, we say that the Steelworkers will rise up in opposition to their deceit. We will not countenance any attempt to divide our membership along racial, gender, ethnic or any other line of demarcation.

I have reviewed, and Mr Hynd sets out, some of the concerns and our fundamental support for the bill. We submit that you should look carefully at what we've said, and importantly, you should examine carefully the detailed proposals that will be presented by the Ontario Federation of Labour. We want to work with the entire committee, or at least with those portions of the committee who have a concern for our concerns. We believe it is important that this bill be amended so that it will be effective.

There's some commentary here about the thorny issue of seniority. Somebody may want to ask me a question about that and I'd be happy to try to respond. It is a concern, but it is by far not the most important concern. The most important problem with this bill is the fact that there are no standards that will be determined by the Employment Equity Commissioner's office against which there can be a measurement of the results of an employer's employment equity plan. Because there will be no standards, the voluntary setting of so-called goals and timetables really means that an employer's plan is going to be compared to the employer's own conduct rather than to objective Employment Equity Commissioner standards that have been developed.

Some say it's impossible to develop those standards. Hogwash. It's difficult. It's time-consuming. It requires expertise. We would probably have to have real, live people with skills and ability in labour market analysis employed in the office of the Employment Equity Commissioner developing those standards. Of course, in the end, where an employer might fail to achieve the standards, the employer can explain to the Employment Equity Tribunal the reasonable efforts under the bill that the employer took. It's only where the efforts to achieve the standards would be not reasonable that the Employment Equity Tribunal would interfere.

There is nothing, I submit, in this bill that is even remotely similar to quotas; nothing. So to those editorialists and those business organizations that claim that Bill 79 imposes quotas, they should look at Brown v the Board of Education so they understand what a quota system is. Quotas are a dramatic effort to inflame.

Those are my submissions. I'd be very happy to entertain any questions and to assist the committee in any way possible.

The Chair: In the absence of the official members of the opposition, we'll accord five minutes per caucus. Ms Witmer to begin with and then Mr Tilson.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): As individuals who are sitting in this room in an attempt to come up with legislation that is going to create an environment in which there is equality of opportunity for all people in this province, I'm rather disappointed in your remarks. I found them somewhat divisive. I think you would have to agree with me that there are many, many employers in this province who have long ago embarked and made an attempt to ensure that there will be fairness and equity in the hiring process.

I also hear you saying that you're going to stand up. I don't hear you saying that you're going to work cooperatively with the employers, that you're going to work cooperatively with people in the province. I have to tell you that that frightens me, because this is a very sensitive issue. It's an issue that we need to work together on in order that, at the end of the day, everybody in this province will feel that the hiring process and promotions have been fair and equitable. Certainly, I would hope that you are prepared to cooperate. As I say, there are many employers who have made outstanding steps and are working actively and cooperatively with their employees in an attempt to have fairness in the workplace.

Mr Shell: I agree, Mrs Witmer, that there are many, many employers, and we have the pleasure of negotiating many, many collective agreements with many, many employers who sincerely want their workplace to be representative. To those employers, as I've said, we are and will continue to be their allies. But regretfully, there are many employers who systematically engage in systemic discrimination in the workplace.

Mrs Witmer: But you know, I think it's important to recognize that there are many individuals in this province, individuals probably within your union, people who I know, who discriminate as well. I think that's the larger problem we have to face.

Mr Shell: That is a larger problem, that's true. That's precisely why in recognizing systemic discrimination -- not the kind of discrimination to which you made reference, namely, direct discrimination. Systemic discrimination requires a systemic approach. That's why Bill 79 responds systemically to a systemic circumstance.

Mrs Witmer: I guess my question to you would be, what are you doing within the Steelworkers association? Do you have an employment equity plan?

Mr Shell: Yes. The Steelworkers not only has a plan, the Steelworkers has a process by which we engage actively in the negotiation of employment equity plans.

Many of you may have heard, for example, of the path-breaking, precedent-setting collective agreement with Placer Dome in Dona Lake northwest of Thunder Bay in Ontario, where for the first time in Ontario's history, a private sector union obtained affirmative action for aboriginal people, notwithstanding their lower seniority. It's important to realize that a white workforce agreed and accepted that there be employment equity for aboriginal people notwithstanding their lower seniority, that they would be entitled to engage in traditional economic activity and not lose their seniority status, that they would obtain preference for promotion and other benefits of the collective agreement, notwithstanding their lower seniority.

Unfortunately, for reasons that are completely unclear and that have to do with gold prices, Placer Dome has shut down its operation in Dona Lake and we haven't had the pleasure of renegotiating the agreement. But the fact is that we have policies and we seek to implement those policies, and we run into resistance because: "Hiring," say employers, "is the unilateral job of the employer. Don't talk with the union about it." In principle, for 50 years in Ontario, unions have not been able to encroach on that unilateralism.

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Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I listened to some of your comments and some of them I agree with; a lot I disagree with, with due respect. One of the concerns I have with what this government is doing -- and some of the things that you have said bring to mind, of course, the George Orwellian statement, if I could paraphrase him, that says all people are created equal but some people are more equal than others.

When you started talking you spent some time on systemic discrimination. There is discrimination against our seniors, because people are reluctant to hire seniors because of fears of pension, in particular senior women who may not have been in the workforce for a considerable period of time. There are already suggestions of more religious discrimination, particularly with the government's Sunday shopping legislation, which I know your union is concerned with -- maybe not your union but the union movement is concerned with and which completely contradicts what this government is doing. But there is discrimination with respect to the issue of people being forced to work on Sundays.

There's the issue of language. There's certainly the visible minority. I believe we will all agree in certain areas of English Ontario that there's discrimination against francophones. There's discrimination against --

Mr Shell: You know, Mr Tilson, if your point is --

Mr Tilson: Just let me finish. Just let me make my point.

The Chair: I should point out, Mr Tilson, I am leaving some flexibility of time, by the way, so don't feel that you're time-restrained.

Mr Shell: I was trying to hear the question.

The Chair: I will allow him to finish that, and we'll give you time to respond. Go ahead.

Mr Tilson: My point that I'm trying to make is that there are all kinds of discrimination that goes throughout our society and which hopefully is being dealt with by the Ontario Human Rights Commission -- maybe it's not, because we're talking about the lengthy delays. Yet this bill does remind us of George Orwell.

Mr David Winninger (London South): You.

Mr Tilson: Well, you're darned right I'm going to be reminded of you, because you in particular, how you vote on Sunday shopping is an absolute disgrace in this province.

Mr Shell: Maybe I've missed the question again.

Mr Tilson: But let me get back, Mr Chairman; the issue is that there are all kinds of people who are being left out as a result of this bill.

Mr Shell: I would like to comment on that.

Mr Tilson: The difficulty is: Are some people created less equal than others; are more people more equal than others?

Mr Shell: There are a lot of people who have the kind of simple view of discrimination that you have just espoused. Some people would say that when my son last night selected tiger tail ice cream over vanilla ice cream he engaged in an act of discrimination because he made a choice between two options. "Discrimination" is a word that is much abused.

Systemic discrimination pertains to prohibited grounds of discrimination. It is the turf of the Human Rights Commission, that's correct. But systemic adverse-effect discrimination is hidden; it's hard to uncover. People do not say, when they refuse a job to a woman, "I'm sorry, we're not hiring women this month." They used to. It used to be okay to say, "No women, no Jews, no Blacks." We used to have posters in this province that made it clear in the hiring halls. That's no longer okay. You can be caught for that.

The fact is that systemic discrimination requires a more sophisticated, a more deliberate, a more careful and more enforceable, a wiser statutory scheme to effect the change that, behind your question, I see you support. The change is that in fact there should be designated groups in the workplace. Older women should be present in the workplace. Persons with disabilities should be present in the workplace. Racial minorities should be present etc.

Mr Tilson: Do you agree that there's a whole group of people that are being left out of this piece of legislation?

Mr Shell: The designated groups are by far the most significant collection of people who were left out.

Mr Tilson: What facts do you have to rely on that?

The Chair: Mr Tilson, I've given plenty of time for that flexibility. We need to move on.

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I am indeed going to raise the question of seniority. I see there are paragraphs about that in your written presentation that you didn't in fact go through.

Now, we did have presenters yesterday before this committee who put very opposite views on this. One presenter said, "You don't need Einstein to run a machine." In other words, if an employee is good enough and qualified to do a particular job, then it doesn't matter that there are other people with higher educational qualifications and so on. So seniority should be paramount.

We also had the view from a different group that in order to compete, companies must be able to rehire the very highest qualified people so that we have the very best possible workforce.

Looking at your presentation here, you are very strongly saying that seniority rights are beneficial to everybody in the long run, and I think that is the case. But the problem is, as we make the change, there are more people in the designated groups who are going to be last hired and first fired, so that there may be problems when it comes to actually implementing employment equity -- getting over that hump, if you like. So I just wondered how you would suggest we deal with that problem or whether you would just leave it to time to take care of it.

Mr Shell: In an expanding economy, the question wouldn't be needed. What we have is a minimally expanding economy, I say graciously. In a minimally expanding economy, we have to balance competing rights. We all agree that employees in the workplace didn't do the hiring, and so we can't carry the burden of achieving change in the workplace and put it upon those employees. First of all, to do so would be to fundamentally interfere with contractual rights. On the other hand, where seniority systems contravene the Human Rights Code, and I will be the first to say that there are many seniority systems that may well contravene the Human Rights Code, we cannot enshrine those seniority systems and say they are insulated from employment equity principles and they are not barriers.

So as you will hear from the Ontario Federation of Labour and as you saw yesterday in Mr Hargrove's brief, the labour movement is of the view that the language suggested in that brief, which I've summarized to some extent in our brief, is in fact the position that we adopt. When it comes to hiring, people obtain seniority equally without regard to any distinction. They obtain it because they are there. We count time. It is statistically verifiable. Everybody is treated the same.

When it comes to promotions etc, where such systems might contravene the Human Rights Code because they are systemically discriminatory, they will and should fall. Unions may be dragged before the commission in trying to defend those systems and boards of inquiry under the Human Rights Code will rule as to whether there is adverse-effect, silent, insidious discrimination built into the collective agreement language, and if it is, those systems will fail. We support the protection of seniority as long as it is not contrary to the Human Rights Code. We do not support unlawful, improper, discriminatory seniority systems, period.

Ms Carter: But could this not be a cumbersome way of dealing with it, leaving it to the Human Rights Code? You were expressing strong support for systemic ways of dealing with problems rather than dealing with individual cases, and you seem to be to some extent contradicting that.

Mr Shell: We don't know how somebody can decide, without affording the party the opportunity to say, "No, you're wrong, it doesn't have a systemic discriminatory effect," that a collective agreement that may have been negotiated in 1963 and that may have been working quite fine since 1963 has an adverse discriminatory effect without affording perhaps the company, which may want to defend the language, and/or the union, which may want to defend the language, the chance to come and defend the language and to defend the statistical background. We don't know how one can just dictate, if you like, that this is bad language, unless the state wants to rewrite collective agreements. Lately they have been involved in that process. Our view is that collective bargaining and seniority questions should be left to the parties as long as the parties are capable of developing lawful and effective solutions.

Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Thank you for your presentation. I'm pleased to note that the Steelworkers are fully endorsing employment equity, whether this is the plan or not. I know the hard work that the Steelworkers have put into a lot of their employment equity, as you were telling us before. Unfortunately, with my job, I don't think I have the right to recall if I get laid off at the end of this term. There are a lot of things that were said --

Mr Shell: You need a bargaining agent, Mr Fletcher.

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Mr Fletcher: Darned right. Local 1 MPP, I know.

Mr Shell: Somebody who can negotiate a recall provision that's automatic.

Mr Fletcher: I'll talk to Leo about this. As far as Bill 79 being voluntary, as you say, it's voluntary, and a lot of your points I agree with, and coming from the labour movement I know exactly where you're coming from and I agree with you wholeheartedly on many of your points -- not all of them; on many of your points. The one about the voluntary sort of thing that you were talking about with the employment equity, and with the employers who have to set their goals to eliminate barriers and set up the qualitative goals, if they don't conform to this, if they don't do this, then the tribunal can ultimately fine the employer up to $50,000. There are other sanctions that can be put in place. I don't see this as being as voluntaristic as what you were just saying.

Mr Shell: Maybe I should explain.

Mr Fletcher: There is a little enforcement there.

Mr Shell: You set goals that you know you can meet. Nobody evaluates whether the goals which you've set correspond in any way to the labour market in which you are located. So you set goals that are relatively low. Indeed, you might say: "We're not hiring anybody. Times are tough; we're not hiring." At the end of three years, it turns out they do hire. They hire six people. They have exceeded whatever their goal was. Nobody, as I read this bill, evaluates the plan; indeed, under this bill, as you will see, nobody gets the plan. Nobody gets the plan, never mind evaluates. If you are a woman who was not one of the six hired, because they hired six white men, and you applied for the job and you were denied the job, you don't have access to the plan. It's not posted; it's not centrally maintained; you don't keep it; it's not analysed; and if you wanted to complain about it, you're then into a bureaucratic mess to try to get the plan upon which to make your complaint. If you are an employee already in the workplace, denied a promotion, there is provision for the plan to be available to you.

Mr Fletcher: Now, when a plan is put in place, I understand that the union --

The Chair: Mr Fletcher, I'm sorry to interrupt, I have been somewhat flexible because --

Mr Fletcher: Because the Liberals weren't here.

The Chair: -- the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition has cancelled out and the people who would be here at 11, CUPE, are not yet here, so we could start earlier. That's why I've been flexible. I've given some time to both caucuses. I would like to allow Mr Curling an opportunity to also raise some questions, if he would like. Are you interested in doing that?

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Very much so.

The Chair: All right. Before I do that, I will allow one more question on this side. Do you wish to follow up on that or to allow Mr Winninger to ask a question?

Mr Fletcher: Well, it's not a question. It's just a follow-up and then I'll pass the question.

The Chair: No, you cannot. Either you allow another member or we just --

Mr Fletcher: Oh no, I'll allow another member. I was just going to say to the witness that --

The Chair: Mr Fletcher, we need to move on.

Mr Winninger: He wanted to finish his question.

Mr Fletcher: No, it was just to finish my comment.

Mr Shell: I would just say, Mr Chairman, I'm happy to stay as long as people want to engage me.

The Chair: I understand that. Mr Winninger.

Mr Winninger: I'll be awake till midnight. I certainly found your presentation a riveting one. I did want to come back to the seniority issue that Mrs Carter also dealt with. Unlike the Steelworkers, seniority is no guarantee of permanency in our position as members of the Legislature, nor is merit necessarily; witness the longevity of some opposition members.

In any event, you've indicated a case in point, Placer Dome, where seniority was balanced against affirmative action for aboriginal people, so clearly you're a cosmopolitan person and you accept the fact that sometimes competing interests do have to be balanced.

I come back to your point about the exclusion of companies under 50. Aside from the argument of administrative inconvenience -- and I give you one example, the dry cleaner I go to, which might have two full-time employees and two part-time employees, will not have a human resources department in the back of the shop to administer what can be in some cases complex employment equity plans. So there is that argument, which I think you might give credence to.

Another argument is perhaps a statistical one. I was surprised to hear you say that the majority of companies that are unionized by your organization are under 100, yet I have reason to believe that those companies under 50 employees on the whole probably have the highest proportion of designated groups working in their workforce.

I wonder if you could come at some of the points I make and perhaps clarify how we might better resolve seniority rights with affirmative action initiatives, because my fear is that seniority preserves an unfair job classification system for the designated groups.

Mr Shell: There are at least four questions built into your comments. I will try to respond very quickly.

Yes, you're right that the Steelworkers is capable of distinguishing between and managing competing rights. In the Placer Dome agreement, notwithstanding lesser seniority, aboriginal people were credited with more rights except when you review that agreement with respect to layoff and recall from layoff. Job security rights, you will not be surprised to hear, are uppermost in the minds of employees. They appear to be uppermost in the minds of members of the Legislature as well.

With respect to your comments about the small employer: We do organize largely the 100 and less. That's where we are organizing, that's where we are having successes and that's frankly what's available to be organized. There are certain parts of Ontario, particularly areas in Mississauga and Toronto, where it is correct that some small employers paying sometimes minimum standard wages have employed large numbers of persons from designated groups, particularly women and very often visible minority women. That's true.

But one of the major issues is not only in Ontario in the south, in metropolitan Ontario but elsewhere in Ontario where wages are not low, in the high-specialized, high-skilled industrial and high-tech environments where we are not seeing that same representation of the workforce.

Just because an employer is hiring lots of designated group members is not, respectfully, a reason to exclude all employers from the obligation to comply with the employment equity bill. An employer who is doing it is going to have no problem filling out the forms.

Now, about the forms: "What a mess; what a mess the forms are; what a mess the obligation to report is; what a burden to the small employer." That's the argument. If they haven't made it yet, they're going to come in and tell you that it's going to cost and bankrupt all of them to have to comply. They all pay tax also. Right? They all fill out forms. That they have to measure and evaluate the workforce is simple if you're a small employer. If you have four employees, it's real simple to figure out how to fill out the forms for the four. I support the simplification of the reporting process. Our union doesn't think it should be a bureaucratic burden on employers. Where there's a will, there's a way.

The problem is not modified reporting. That isn't the problem in Bill 79. It's not that they report in a modified way; it's that they are free from goals, timetables, results, effects, evaluation. That's the problem, and if they're under 50, they're free from everything. That's the problem.

Finally, on your last comment respecting seniority: We think seniority is the most important equalizer in the workplace. If we tinker with it under the guise of employment equity, we can expect unilateral and arbitrary employer conduct to selectively impact on workers, number one. Secondly, the fact is that individuals have certain inchoate, now contractually bound, rights. They're called seniority rights. They are the property, if you will. They are of the interest of the employee. The employee has had it for 15 years. It's been bargained on his behalf, sometimes struggled, sometimes struck about.

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If we are to simply say with a pencil that because an employer elsewhere may have engaged in systemic discrimination, therefore your seniority rights no longer matter, we can expect employees to lose confidence in the contractual process that produced those rights to start with, and we can expect them to wonder about the validity of the bargaining agency process, about their union and about collective bargaining in principle. And that must not be the consequence, the legacy, of Bill 79.

The Chair: Mr Curling.

Mr Curling: I have the rest of the time, do I?

The Chair: The rest of the five minutes.

Mr Curling: I have no questions.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I have a question.

Mr Shell: I have a question for Mr Curling.

Mr Tilson: I assume that's said because we've been with this person for an hour, and I think there'll be other delegates --

The Chair: Fifty minutes.

Mr Tilson: -- who will be rather concerned that they haven't had the extra time as well. It's rather unfair.

The Chair: I did explain why we did that.

Mr Shell: Mr Tilson might view it as discriminatory.

The Chair: One committee cancelled and we could have recessed. One committee cancelled and the other delegation, CUPE, was not here. It may be out there, but was not yet here. That's why we extended the time to you and to them. We were going to give Mr Curling the rest of the six minutes that is still left to have that opportunity, if he wished. That's why we did that.

Mr Curling: I have a point of order there. I would like to make a suggestion that when we have a cancellation we could maybe bring the minister or the minister's staff forward for some of those questions we'd like to ask. Let me finish my point.

The Chair: It's not a point of order, though. I will allow you to continue if you think there are further points that you want to make, but it's not a point of order.

Mr Curling: I could direct a question to him and say the same thing. I'm just trying to be helpful. Why I say this is we didn't want to encroach on the presenters' time when they come to ask some of the administrative questions, and we went through this the last time, so I was just trying to suggest that when a time comes for cancellation, maybe this is an opportune time in which we could then ask some of the administrative questions to the bureaucrats.

The Chair: To be fair to you as well and to the rest of the people who are listening, you were not here to ask those questions even if you wished to ask them.

Mr Curling: I think that is all irrelevant. I'm just making a suggestion.

The Chair: It's not a point of order. If members did want to ask questions of ministry staff, we have done that already. We can continue to do that.

Mr Tilson: Let's do it now. I asked a question yesterday that I hope you will allow time for the ministry staff to come forward. I asked a question on the issue of excluding police services boards from this legislation. I'm still waiting for you to allow the ministry staff to come forward and discuss that issue.

There are other questions I've asked for an opportunity to speak to ministry staff on, and you've never given an opportunity for them to come forward and do that.

The Chair: Mr Tilson, you are being completely unfair. The other day you asked a question of ministry staff, and we allowed the ministry staff to come forward and the question was answered. I don't know what you're referring to.

Mr Tilson: That's not quite true. The answer to the question was, "I will get back to you tomorrow." Tomorrow has come and gone, and you've never given that person an opportunity to come forward.

The Chair: It isn't that I will get back to you on that tomorrow. I understand you may have asked a question for which an answer was to be supplied, and as it is prepared, we'll give that to you, but you didn't ask me to submit it to you.

Mr Tilson: The issue was that this individual was to come forward to this committee. It was asked by all members of the committee. Mr Wiseman asked similar issues. He wanted a copy of the section of the Police Services Act so that we can compare the two pieces of legislation, a very important issue, because this issue is being raised by many, many delegations. I think this committee should be informed on that subject, and I submit that members of this committee are not informed on it. We need to spend time on that issue.

The Chair: Mr Tilson, if you've asked something, we'll check Hansard to see what request you've made. We'll follow it up and provide that information to you.

Mr Tilson: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

Mrs Witmer: Mr Marchese, I'm extremely surprised at the action you've taken this morning. I was under the understanding that we had committed and shared with each individual or group making a presentation that they would have 30 minutes.

I believe it is totally unfair to all of the other representatives who are going to be making presentations to allow one individual or one group to go beyond 30 minutes, and I think it was most inappropriate. There was no consensus of this committee. When I've served on other committees, if there's a cancellation, we usually take a time out. It's most inappropriate that you would give this individual or any group more than the 30 minutes that we had decided each group could have.

The Chair: Ms Witmer, several points: I allowed your caucus 10 minutes. If you're saying to me I should not have, I will take that into advisement for the future.

I hear what you're all saying. The next time, we will advise every caucus of the time limitation. I will advise everyone in advance that there's a cancellation and that the next group is not yet here, and we will simply have a recess for that time. So I take your points into advisement and we'll do that for the future.

Mr Tilson: Point of order, Mr Chair: Just for clarification, you indicated to our caucus that we would have five minutes, not 10 minutes.

Mrs Witmer: Yes, you did.

The Chair: You are absolutely right that there were five minutes per caucus. I had allowed 10 minutes, of which you probably would have known that, but I will not do that in the future, given what you've all said, and I will announce in advance the cancellations and who is not yet here to make submissions.

Mr Shell, thank you for your submission. It was stimulating, and we welcome your participation.

Mr Shell: Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I apologize that some members appear upset.

The Chair: It wasn't your fault. It was the Chair's way of dealing with the matter that caused this problem.

Mr Curling: Mr Chair, may I raise a point?

The Chair: Mr Curling, we really have dealt with the matter. CUPE representatives are here --

Mr Curling: We have not dealt with the matter that I asked about. I have asked you to say that there may be cancellations, and questions were asked on the other side that we should not really interfere with the presenters who only have half an hour. Some take the full half an hour; sometimes we have no questions. When there's a cancellation, we could bring staff forward.

The Chair: Mr Curling, staff is here all of the time. There is a cancellation at the end of the day, which is the time we can use for that purpose, so you can reflect on the kinds of questions you want to ask the staff.

Mr Curling: You're saying you're refusing the time if there's a half-an-hour cancellation, and if we choose then to bring the staff forward, are you telling me that we cannot do that but at the end of the day?

The Chair: I'm going to repeat, if I can, and hopefully you'll be listening to what I'm saying.

Mr Curling: I'm listening very attentively.

The Chair: Ministry staff is here all of the time. If you have an urgent question at any time that you want to pose, you'll ask of the Chair that we do that. It's very likely that we'll do that.

If you don't have an urgent question to ask, but it does appear at 4 o'clock where there's a cancellation, we will do that. There's half an hour for that purpose.

CUPE -- ONTARIO DIVISION

The Chair: I'd like to call upon the CUPE members for their submission. I want to welcome all of you to these hearings. Just as a point, you have half an hour for your submission. You've heard a touch of the discussions we have had about time, so you may want to decide to take the whole half-hour for your submission or leave 15 minutes for questions and answers. Mr Ryan, you're familiar with the process.

Mr Sid Ryan: Yes, I am. We will attempt to leave some time at the end for questions.

Let me introduce, first off, the people whom we've brought today. On my left is Muriel Collins. She's the chair of CUPE Ontario's women's committee. On my right is Joan Stephenson. Joan is the chair of CUPE Ontario human rights. Irene Harris is the equal opportunities representative, and on her right is Jim Woodward, who is the legislative assistant. I'm Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario.

Before going into the reasons for seeking amendments, we want to give you some background on the members that we represent.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents over 160,000 working men and women in this province in all regions. CUPE's members are mostly employed in the broader public sector. Our constituency includes municipal employees, hospital workers, social service workers, educational support workers, workers in nursing homes and homes for the aged, utility workers, university support workers, library workers and day care workers. Our locals range in size from less than 10 members to greater than 20,000 members.

Many are members of the four identified employment equity designated groups. However, our members are employed in workplaces that are not fairly representative of the population makeup of their communities. Day care, nursing homes, libraries, social services and homes for the aged locals are almost exclusively female job ghettos. This is reflected in the statistics, which show that women are segregated into a small number of lower-paid occupations. Members of racial minorities are also segregated into few workplaces and in lower-paid occupations. In no areas are CUPE workplaces representative of the first nations population of this province. Disabled members are not evident in any workplace in any significant numbers.

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As a union, we do not have control over hiring practices which have historically segregated our members into jobs according to their genders and their race. We have limited influence over who gets promotions in unionized jobs. This influence only comes from collective bargaining rights which respect the length of time an employee has been with an employer. In most cases, these cases are affected by the employer's right to determine whether or not an individual is deemed to be qualified for a position.

CUPE has made workplace equity for its members of designated groups a priority. We've done this through organizing drives, bargaining rights for protection against workplace harassments, putting special influence on bargaining involving wage improvements and seniority rights for members on the lower end of the wage scales, bargaining training opportunities and being part of workplace employment equity committees.

Some general comments about Bill 79: Recognizing that broader public sector workplaces employ a large proportion of designated group members and a significant percentage of Ontario jobs, CUPE has urged this and previous governments to pass employment equity legislation. We want our workplaces to reflect our communities. We want to end the practice of excluding some groups and segregating other groups according to gender and race. We want current members to have discrimination-free workplaces. We want employers to put fairer hiring practices into place.

Instead of effective equity legislation, we've been given Bill 79, which, in our opinion, cowers to the pressure employers have applied for legislation requiring very limited demands on their management rights -- rights which have upheld discriminatory practices.

Instead of clear, user-friendly legislation, we've been given a complicated bill and complicated regulations which serve to weaken Bill 79 and give further rights to employers. Instead of mandatory goals and timetables based on percentages provided by the commission, we have very much a voluntary approach with no requirement to file plans. Instead of stronger bargaining rights, which we need to strengthen and increase employment equity gains, we've been given legislation which works against us at the employment equity and collective bargaining tables.

Bargaining rights in Bill 79 are significantly reduced from rights found in other pieces of legislation, for example, the Labour Relations Act and the Pay Equity Act. The latter act clearly spells out that bargaining agents and employers are required to bargain in good faith a pay equity plan. Why are employment equity plans not seen as significant and only require some components being carried out as joint responsibilities of the two parties? This watered-down approach gets further weakened in the regulations.

We note that the workforce survey, to us a significant part of the employment equity plan, can be skipped over if the employer has done a survey prior to the legislation being passed. While the regulations include some criteria for such surveys to be used, we are appalled that this government has supported the bypassing of bargaining rights under any conditions. It is one thing for a union and an employer to decide to use data drawn from an earlier survey to assist with the process, but the regulations go much further. They allow the employer to use the survey, even if the union did not approve the exempting criteria.

Further eroding bargaining rights, the regulations allow employers to use old employment equity systems which are done prior to the legislation being proclaimed. All aspects of employment equity plans, including workforce surveys and employment systems reviews, must be done according to the legislation and in partnership with unions and non-union employee representatives. We urge your committee and the government to recognize that the right to bargain must be respected for employment equity legislation to be effective. We are concerned about the recent trend towards taking away this role of unions. The recent amendments to the Pay Equity Act delivered a model for proxy comparators which limits our role in identifying male comparators in other workplaces.

Most recently, the government passed Bill 48, the so-called social contract legislation. This law further weakens bargaining rights, cuts wages from a sector where most jobs held by designated group members are found and takes away organizing rights obtained by the Labour Law Reform Act. This must not be repeated in Bill 79 or its regulations.

I pass the question on seniority rights to Irene Harris.

Ms Irene Harris: Yes, it's on the following page 4, section 3. We're now going into some specific changes we'd like to see made to the bill and will also comment on some changes in the regulations, which we know you're not hearing, but we want the regulations folded into the bill and so will offer some comments as well.

With regard to seniority rights, we're looking to see section 5 changed by adding subsection 5(2), which talks about seniority rights with respect to layoff and recall, the words "and are deemed to be part of any employment equity plan prepared in accordance with this act and the regulations."

We would like to also see a new subsection 5(3) added which says: "Employee seniority rights that are acquired through a collective agreement or an established practice of an employer with respect to any term or condition of employment other than those enumerated in subsection (2) are deemed not to be barriers to the hiring, retention, promotion or treatment of members of designated groups unless such seniority rights are found to be contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Code by a board of inquiry appointed under the code."

We urge you to support these additions to the section dealing with seniority rights so that those seniority systems which do not discriminate are not unnecessarily changed and those which do discriminate are changed so they are no longer discriminatory. We recommend these amendments for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it is our view that the employment equity legislation must recognize that discriminatory hiring and promotion practices are the problem. Often seniority is not the overriding factor when decisions are made about promotions. In many cases, seniority will need to be strengthened. Stronger seniority protection and clearer procedures for promotions mean designated group members are not denied promotions because of a discriminating employer.

However, despite this, many of our local unions have been told by employers that employment equity legislation means that everyone will lose their seniority rights. Since we do not believe this to be the case, this threatening suggestion only leads to unnecessary fears and myths about the real benefits we all will gain through employment equity. We fear this kind of debate during the development of plans will put us on a negative path. This will be avoided by the legislation setting out clearer ground rules for seniority clauses which do not discriminate so that they remain as they are. Ground rules are needed for seniority systems which do discriminate so that we can get these changed. The amendments we've put forward will resolve all of these concerns.

Mr Jim Woodward: At the top of page 6, we are asking to change subsection 14(3), more than one bargaining unit, so that employment equity plans are developed following existing collective bargaining relationship structures.

Bill 79's directive to have one employment equity plan, whether or not the workplace has more than one union representing workers, has raised many questions. Instead of answers, more problems with this model are found. While the establishment of a joint committee was a compromise answer, the regulations with regard to how this committee would function has only raised more problems. The model created by the regulation is only one of many which could exist. So why is the government so intent on defining which model it has to be? Why not let the parties in the workplace determine this with current bargaining structures as the starting point? While the intention of legislators to spell out these models for us in regulations is honourable, it is also paternalistic, unpractical and disrespectful of the ability of workplace parties to get the job done reasonably and with the help of mediation where needed.

Allowing employment equity plans to be developed along existing collective bargaining relationship structures also recognizes that employers have workplace rules and barriers which differ between groups of employees. Each union in a workplace bargains its own collective agreements. Each agreement has different classification systems, wage schedules and clauses which affect conditions of employment. Employers often have qualifications, recruiting procedures and testing for promotions which differ between groups of employees. Once each group has completed its employment equity plan, these various plans need to be shared among all the groups in the workplace. This will let all employees know about targets set in all jobs as well as training programs. This will also facilitate movement of employees into jobs across the employer's establishment.

We are asking to change all appropriate sections of the bill so that employers in an establishment in Ontario with an annual payroll greater than $300,000 are covered by the legislation. We do not agree with the notion that employment equity is only needed by larger employers. Surely there is need to recognize that discrimination exists in all workplaces and that we need to identify and get rid of this discrimination. Private sector workplaces with 10 to 50 employers also need to be included. Reference to regulations giving the Lieutenant Governor power to exempt employers also needs to be deleted from Bill 79.

We ask you to turn to page 9 as you've probably heard the rest of our submission through the OFL. If you'd just turn to page 9, then somebody will pick it up from here.

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Ms Muriel Collins: Page 9, section 4.3, refers to the use of previous surveys. Sections 7, 8 and 9, use of previous surveys, need to be deleted. The survey of the workforce is an essential part of the employment equity plan. It is here that the parties developing the employment equity plan work together to understand the purpose of the questions and in turn ensure high returns on questionnaires by jointly promoting the whole process. Analysing the results is also important to understanding and identifying barriers which have segregated workers according to gender and race.

Bill 79 includes the workforce survey as an item coming under joint responsibilities of unions and employers. This regulation violates this part of the union's right to exercise this important part of joint responsibility. Many employers, especially those who did surveys under the federal legislation, did not involve unions, even though that opportunity existed.

Could you please turn to page 10, section 4.7. Sections 16, 17 and 18, use of previous reviews of employment policies and practices, are as offensive as the sections on resurveying. These sections allow employers to use employment equity reviews which were done unilaterally prior to the proclamation of this legislation. This strips us of bargaining rights laid out in the bill. Employers' employment systems reviews often miss significant barriers. For example, many designated group members are held back from non-traditional jobs due to a lack of in-house training programs.

Sections 21 to 25, goals respecting the composition of the employer's workforce, and all sections which deal with numerical goals need to be amended so that this purpose of the legislation will be met. Numerical goals and timetables are a key element of employment equity legislation. Goals need to be based on the numbers of designated group members in the working-age population in the region in which an employer is located. The numbers can be given in percentages but must be provided by the Employment Equity Commission. Without this approach, the legislation becomes a voluntary effort which we know from history is useless.

During the extensive and lengthy consultation process on regulations, a compromise was reached between employers, unions and community representatives regarding the establishment of goals and timetables. The compromise acknowledged that long-term goals will reflect the working-age population, that numerical goals will be set according to commission percentages and that percentages for goal setting would be based on a hybrid model with working-age population being the percentage of some occupational groups and enhanced availability data being used for other occupational groups. This needs to be incorporated in Bill 79.

We would now conclude by Joan Stephenson concluding.

Ms Joan Stephenson: Statistics show that systemic discrimination is alive and flourishing in our workplaces. Women are segregated into a few occupations, as are members of racial minorities. Those with disabilities and native people have disproportionately high levels of unemployment. Voluntary employment equity doesn't work. We need legislation which requires a systematic approach to identifying and getting rid of the obscure and hidden causes of discrimination.

When in opposition, the current Premier put forward a private member's bill for employment equity. That bill was well thought out, user-friendly and would have been effective. Had the NDP passed that bill when it was elected in 1990, we would be well on our way to implementing employment equity. Instead, because of delays, overdrawn consultation processes and bending to the pressure of the business community -- the government -- we are still writing briefs about employment equity legislation instead of using legislative rights to implement employment equity plans.

Unfortunately and sadly, we see that the business community has been listened to more than the labour movement and community representatives. We urge this committee and the government not to let us down on this very important and significant legislation. Do not set such a low standard that it causes us to lose the gains which must be achieved if we are to fight the forces of discrimination. Employment equity is far more important than the preservation of management rights which serve to maintain the status quo because it is the easier road to take.

We urge you not to let us down on this important law. We urge you to support the amendments we have sought and put before you here.

The Chair: There are four minutes per caucus. We'll begin with Mr Fletcher.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. I understand and recognize the work that's been done by CUPE as far as employment equity is concerned in the workplace. Some of your amendments are very good. One of the purposes of this committee is to listen, as we go along in this process to its finality of making some of the recommendations and some of the amendments, so we do have a long process to go through.

One of the things that was interesting was the resurvey if an employer wishes to use an old survey. You say you don't have any rights as far as that's concerned. I do know that in the regulations, if an employer wishes to use an old survey and a bargaining agent disagrees with that, then the employer cannot use it. What the employer would have to do is then go to the commission and the commission would make a determination as to whether or not the survey was meeting the criteria of the Employment Equity Act. If it were not meeting the criteria, then a new survey would have to be done.

I don't know if you've read that in the regulations. I know it seems convoluted in some ways, but I think there is some protection there as far as the union being involved in the employment equity survey that's supposed to be done is concerned. Does that somewhat meet your needs, or is that way out?

Ms Irene Harris: I'd like to comment on that. I think we're reading the regulations very differently, because the way you're presenting it to us would suggest that if we looked at the old survey and said, "No, we don't want to use it; we're going to go and bargain and start from scratch," that would be one thing, but what the regulation sets out is certain criteria that the old survey has to meet. We would have to look at the survey and then look at the criteria and the onus would be on the union to prove that in fact the old survey didn't meet the criteria that are set out in the regulations.

It's a very cumbersome, difficult process. It has the effect of putting all local unions into being instant policy analysts who can sit down -- seriously -- and figure out the criteria. You're going to get case law developing on what the criteria actually mean, when they do and don't count. You're going to make it so impossible that to us it has the effect of not giving us the right to bargain a survey.

As an example, we had the Pay Equity Act, where we learned a lot. We've had practical experience. In that example, it would have been as if the Liberals had said, "If there's an old job evaluation plan in place, if you can't prove there's something wrong with it for pay equity, then you have to use that one." That would not have worked. In a lot of cases, that would have just made the whole process a lot longer.

What we're saying is that if the bill says that we have joint responsibilities to do the employment equity plan -- the survey and the employment systems review to us is a very key part of it -- and you're all of a sudden putting the onus on us to prove that the work employers have done does not meet a certain set of criteria around which no case law has been developed, you're right away putting obstacles in front of us. We see it quite frankly as taking away our right to bargain how those surveys are done. In a lot of cases where employers and locals work together, we'll probably use surveys or use the employment systems review, but I think that's got to be something we work on together.

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Mr Curling: Mr Ryan, thank you and your delegation for coming forward. It's a fairly interesting brief. I just wanted to touch first on the conclusion part, where your brief spoke about really that it is more or less weak legislation and how disappointed you were that not even the regulation would support an explanation to the legislation, but more confusion. Would you say that weak legislation is worse than no legislation?

Mr Ryan: I don't want, to be honest, to get into the trap of will we have to accept something less. The purpose, I guess, of this committee and of these hearings is to make sure that we don't have weak legislation. I think what we're doing here is highlighting the weaknesses in the legislation such that it is an appropriate piece of legislation to be bringing into the workplace and making sure we get rid of the systemic discrimination that we've lived with for the past 50, 60 years.

I don't think, to be honest, it's very helpful to say that if we don't make any changes to it at all, let's scrap the legislation entirely. I don't believe we should be scrapping the legislation. I believe it's your job as legislators to make sure that we have the best possible legislation and that you listen to the submissions that are coming before you and that you listen to us when we tell you that there are some significant flaws in this legislation and that it's within your power and within your jurisdiction to change this. That, to me, is a more constructive way of looking at it than saying, "Let's scrap it if it doesn't meet everybody's criteria."

Mr Curling: No, I don't say that. I don't say to scrap it. I just said whether you feel that weak legislation is worse than no legislation. The reason I ask you that is that you have been in arbitration quite often and many times there are semantics and words and definitions, and who suffers actually in all of this are the designated groups that need this access to fair treatment. The fact is that we want clear and precise legislation and that's why I said it's so important, and I'm glad you used all the words that I found very comforting. I hope it's comforting to the government, that it listens, and that it's listened to and that employers are treated in a very fair way and employees treated fairly, and those designated groups are being looked upon as the victims who have not been served properly.

Mr Ryan: I wouldn't be sitting here today if employers had been treating employees fairly for the past 50 or 60 years. We wouldn't be sitting in this room worrying about employment equity legislation. We wouldn't have the systemic discrimination that currently exists in our workplaces if employers were treating employees fairly. So I'd be careful about what you say about employers and how they're treating people.

Mr Curling: The point I'm saying is that legislation must be fair, not because it was imbalanced at one stage and we're going to take advantage of the other. We want some fair legislation. My question, though, is that at the table forming the employment equity plan there are union people and there are employers, but the non-unions are not at the table and being represented there. Do you feel that the non-unions should be there also --

Mr Fletcher: Yes, they are; section 15. Read it.

Mr Curling: Could you give me a chance, Mr Fletcher? You'll get your chance.

The Chair: Continue, please.

Mr Curling: -- that they should be there also in order to assist in bringing about a good employment equity plan?

Mr Ryan: No question, on a workplace-by-workplace basis, it's absolutely imperative that employees, whether they be organized or non-organized, be there to participate. But it's my understanding that in those non-organized workplaces, the legislation compels the employer to sit down with its employees regardless if they're organized or not organized, and jointly work out the plans.

Mr Curling: I'd just use the word "consult."

The Chair: Ms Witmer.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much, Mr Ryan, and the members of your group. I really did appreciate it very much. It's a very well written document, it's very thoughtful and I can tell you that I actually wish I had more than the half an hour. There are many points here I'd like to discuss with you and get more information about, but I would agree with you: You're suggesting that we would change subsection 14(3), that there be more than one bargaining unit. I know that is an area of concern for other employee groups as well as the employers. Would you have anything more specific that you wanted to say, because I think that really is a major issue? I think it's going to determine how much flexibility there is within this plan for both the employer and union groups.

Ms Irene Harris: Not too much more now than what's here, except that our thought is if you at least start doing your employment equity plans based on current bargaining structure and how the groups are currently done, how they're organized in the workplace, once the plans are completed, it's going to be important for groups to see each other's plans, so that if I'm a woman working in a secretarial group, I know what opportunities there are in the male-dominated unit and what kinds of training programs are available. But our concern is that if you try to lump us all at one big table at the very beginning and try to work it out, you make it such a huge, massive, impossible job to do that we're not going to get it done right.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): Sounds like the social contract.

Ms Irene Harris: Yeah.

Mrs Witmer: That's a problem. I hope the government will give very serious consideration to that amendment. You mentioned here, regarding the use of previous reviews of employment policies and practices, that there has been a lack of in-house training programs, and I think that has been a flaw. I would agree with you. I don't think we're doing enough to prepare people for the non-traditional jobs. I guess I would say to you, what could the employer community be doing to help the designated group members access these non-traditional jobs, because I think it's a real barrier?

Ms Irene Harris: We've seen in a lot of our workplaces where designated group members, with very little in-house training, could end up accessing promotions a lot better. For example, a lot of our municipal locals have pointed out that you often get assistant accountants, and the accountants who are higher paid tend to be in the male jobs; the assistants are the women. If the women go and take a part-time course, if you need any apprentice type of work to be done as part of the course, you could do that on the job at work, then when there are openings for that higher level position, it's an easier transition. We think every workplace has hundreds of examples like this where it would just take a little bit, and we would hope that with employers, we'll be able to identify a lot of those kinds of things in an employment systems review.

Our experience is that the ones that have been so far have not dug out these kinds of examples, and that's why it's so critical that we be there right at day one helping to figure out the employment systems reviews to identify these kinds of opportunities, because they weren't coming out in the old system, and I think that's what happens when the parties aren't working together.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much. I really did appreciate the presentation; excellent suggestions.

The Chair: I want to thank all of you for coming and for taking part in these hearings.

BANGLADESH CANADIAN SOCIAL AND SETTLEMENT SERVICES

The Chair: The next delegate is Abu Alam, Bangladesh Canadian Social and Settlement Services. I want to welcome both of you. Perhaps you might introduce your colleague. You have half an hour for your presentation. You may want to leave 10 or 15 minutes or longer for questions and answers.

Mr Abu Alam: With me is my friend and the director of our organization, Mr Moin Ahsan. He's going to answer any questions the panel might have after my presentation.

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to speak on Bill 79. As the chairperson of the Bangladesh Canadian Social and Settlement Services, I would like to put forward some growing concerns our community is experiencing every day in their professional lives.

Since our organization has been involved with community services for Bangladeshis in Canada, it gives us the opportunity to learn more and more about these problems. To be more precise, we may say that their professional as well as their general education are not properly recognized, which only increments the existing problem of employment inequality.

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To the best of our knowledge, there are about 15,000 to 20,000 Bangladeshi living within Metro Toronto and vicinity. We are newcomers and voters. This growing population is a mixture of highly educated professionals and generally skilled persons. If we look into any data or information, there is hardly any representation of Bangladeshis in any board, commission or government agencies so far.

Our member as well as our organization strongly believe, given the scope and opportunities, they will participate and contribute in the development of Ontario and Canada. We also believe this is a two-way process. We can only contribute significantly in the society when we have been given the opportunity. Effective employment equity legislation would provide this.

I, on behalf of visible minorities, particularly the Bangladeshi community, am urging the present government and political parties to sincerely look into this matter and implement the policies immediately. This will not benefit the particular community, but the society and the country as a whole.

Our organization and community always support a multicultural, diverse Canada, one of the prime policies of the country. We found this Bill 79 can be an effective tool to carry out employment equity policies of the government. We are confident that this bill will be fully supported and endorsed by the Parliament as soon as it is extended. This will help make Ontario a better place to live and work for all of us.

I have another point. The consultation draft had defined the designated groups in four categories, that is, aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, members of racial minorities and women. Members of racial minorities are defined as people who, because of their race or colour, are a visible minority. I would like to suggest the broadening of this definition of racial minorities to include the otherwise invisible minorities within such visible minority groups. Race and/or colour do make a minority community visible, but do not necessarily address concerns of the various ethnic components within an apparently similar race or colour.

To overcome deprivation of these unique ethnic groups or races, and for the protection of such, the definition ought to be broadened to accommodate linguistic and cultural minorities. Language being the principal means of communication for any race or colour, attention has to be paid to bringing about a linguistic equilibrium within the workforce to achieve a more balanced employment equity as envisaged in Bill 79.

As a representative of an organization that represents minorities within a minority, I would urge the committee to evaluate my suggestion and incorporate provisions within the regulation to protect the rights of communities such as ours. This can be done by inclusion of these groups in the qualitative measures of the bill, so the people who are accented, who wear traditional dress, who celebrate alternative days off, can do so without harassment, without fear of reprisal. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, sir. There are approximately seven and a half minutes per caucus. We'll begin with the official opposition.

Mr Murphy: I'd like to thank you for your presentation. I very much appreciate it. I want to talk a bit about the concept of merit in this bill. As you know, as it stands now, the bill does not have any provision that says merit continues to be an overriding consideration.

I was reading through some studies done as part of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. In fact it was interesting to me to note that the level of university education among visible minorities, for example, is higher than among the general population by about 23% to about 14%. That really goes, it seems to me, to the issue of qualifications for jobs. It seems clear that what we're really trying to do and what a bill like this bill is trying to do is to provide the designated groups with the opportunity to have access to those jobs that are available, a fair access and one without discrimination, either intentional or systemic.

It strikes me that if those barriers are reduced, the designated groups by and large have qualifications that would, you know, be sufficient to make them the best for the jobs. What I'm wondering is whether in your review of this you would have any problem with the concept of merit being added to the bill as an addition to the preamble, as something that's still important to hiring for a job, that merit still should be something that we consider.

Mr Alam: Definitely merit should be considered.

Mr Murphy: Would you see it being something that could be added to the bill without in any way harming the intent of employment equity?

Mr Moin Ahsan: I'd like to respond to that on behalf of the organization. I understand that the question was put to Mr Alam.

Our organization does not have any problem with the merit issue. The concerns that, as members of minority groups, we have are whether or not we are going to be streamlined on the guise of merit. I understand that you appreciate the fact that minority groups do have a fairly higher academic qualification and they thrive to excel in the communities. And merit -- definitely there are certain sectors of services that the government offers where merit is an essential factor. It does not matter which colour or which race I am. If I'm not qualified to perform the job, definitely merit comes into play.

But there are some sectors where there are routine jobs that can be handled by people of almost a general basic education. In those areas, if we really emphasize merit that highly, it may affect groups like us where we won't necessarily be getting the same representation. But definitely merit is to be considered.

Mr Murphy: If I can follow up, one of the things that does concern me, and I'm not sure that this bill addresses, is that there is a report on access to trades and professions. I'm not sure whether you're familiar with it, but one of the issues obviously is people who have qualifications and have acquired qualifications in other countries who come here as doctors or lawyers and are unable to practise either as doctors or lawyers here because of restrictive provisions in the qualifying procedure. I'm wondering if you have looked at that and whether you would call upon this government to move on that access report as well.

Mr Ahsan: Mr Murphy, thank you very much for that excellent point that you brought up. For example, I have had the opportunity to deal with various professionally qualified people who have immigrated to Canada on the basis of their professional skills. Upon arrival in Canada, they have found themselves in a situation where they have to go through different steps of qualification and, in most cases, they have felt that they are being streamlined because their qualifications are not necessarily evaluated in a proper manner.

The qualifications system has a different set of rules or different set of guidelines for different countries. There is no equilibrium in the standards maintained, and definitely that will be an area that this bill could look at. I personally believe that one of the main emphases in this bill should be into that area, to guarantee that professionals who have immigrated to this country do not have to face obstacles in every way to get into what they want to achieve. I believe it is a very strong point you have made and I really agree with you totally on that one.

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The Chair: We have time for one more question.

Mr Curling: You mentioned also your concern that the subgroups -- you didn't use the word "subgroups," but the fact is that there are minorities that are not being recognized in specific terms. I think you used the words "linguistic and cultural minorities" that should be recognized in the bill as a list there. I know it's not in the legislation, but they tried to identify some of those groups in the regulations. Other groups have come before us. Would you see, for instance, that the Bangladesh group would be recognized as a subgroup in the legislation?

Mr Ahsan: Thank you for the question. The intent of making that suggestion was not necessarily to recognize cultural or linguistic subgroups as a national factor. If you say "Bangladesh," that would indicate persons of a political and national origin, but the suggestion is basically based on a linguistic pattern.

For example, when a person is looked at, a person could be deemed to be a black person or a person could be deemed to be a white person, but that does not necessarily address his concerns, because that person could be a minority. I could be white, but I could be of a linguistic and cultural background where I could be a minority. For example, I could be Polish-speaking and I might not have access to information because of my language barrier.

What we try to put forward is that if a linguistic recognition is there, not caught as Bangladeshi or as Bangladesh but, let's say, Bengali is a language. Coming from different parts of the world, there are different languages. Within one community, there could be 10 different languages practised. When employment equity is being examined, if we have linguistic representation as well along with the racial representation, I believe that will only enhance the government's credibility as well as the willingness of people like us to be coming forward to participate in government activities.

Mrs Witmer: I'd like to pursue that with you, because different groups have come forward and talked about the subgroupings. Are you suggesting that within the workplace those different subgroupings would be represented as well, as they reflect the face of the geographical community? We talk about the subgroupings, but I'm not sure how we're expected to handle that.

Mr Alam: We're not talking about the subgrouping; we're talking about the linguistic barriers we might encounter in the near future.

Mrs Witmer: Right, but are you concerned about the identification, where you're simply identified as being a visible minority, without further subgroupings within that particular designation?

Mr Ahsan: I'd like to give you a particular example. If people coming from the Indian subcontinent are broadly termed "Indians," then there are groups within the large "Indian" definition: you have people that are Bengali, you have people that are Madrasi, you have people that are Punjabi etc.

I have noticed that in a lot of literatures we have different languages. For example, in government literature, the leaflets are printed in different languages, and emphasis is given to, let's say, in Toronto right now within the Indian community the Punjabi-speaking community is more visible, so a preference is given to that language, and that language is there.

But, for example, the national language of the country, which every subgroup ought to be knowing, is not necessarily presented. So that puts up a barrier. So that way, for example, in the Bengali-speaking community there is a huge number of the Bengali-speaking community not only from Bangladesh but also from India, who belong to West Bengal.

Bengali has been a fairly rich language with a lot of background. You must be aware that the Bengali language also got a Nobel Prize away back in 1923 with Tagore.

Mrs Witmer: I didn't know that.

Mr Ahsan: I don't know if you have heard of the name of the poet Tagore.

I understand that it is going to be very difficult for the government to be able to assign specific allocations for subgroups, but I believe that if a broader linguistic grouping is also done, that way people with linguistic handicaps will have more benefit. They will have more access to information that could make them better citizens.

Mrs Witmer: Okay. I would certainly support that. There is mention made of the professions and the trades and the fact that people have difficulties, and certainly I've been working with people in my own community who have had difficulty accessing, for example, the medical profession and other trades. Has that been a real problem for your particular community that you're representing here today?

Mr Alam: Yes.

Mrs Witmer: In what specific areas are you having problems where you have the skills and the knowledge and the training?

Mr Ahsan: For example, you mentioned physicians in particular. We get immigrants who come here who are doctors. They have gone through all the necessary qualifying exams. They have been licensed, but unfortunately they are unable to find an opening in a hospital.

Mrs Witmer: That's right.

Mr Ahsan: They either have to ultimately move south of the border or to other territories which are not within Ontario, whereas their families and their other support remains in Ontario. We have faced that difficulty, especially in the medical sector.

We have faced difficulty in the legal sector as well. Right now the evaluation process they have in place is based in Ottawa and it is very cumbersome and very cost-prohibitive as well. A person has to apply with a tremendous amount of fee, and then it has to go through different processes of evaluation, and parity has not been noticed in the evaluation process. I have personal knowledge about that because I happen to be a person who applied as well.

We have experienced almost similar situations with professionals such as accountants. We have encountered problems with engineers. Engineers and accountants have their own designated licensing bodies which have different examination procedures.

For example, if we are definitely getting a person licensed to be a skilled expert, it is understandable that we would want to test them out and see whether the person will be able to perform, but in some areas we did have problems.

For example, we have had problems in another area. We were trying to get, for our linguistic community, a notary public. Now, when I made inquiries, we were told that a person either has to be a lawyer or has to have a specific government need to be assigned a notary public's responsibilities.

For example, in other countries documents have to be sent and they have to be notarized and in our community we do not necessarily have the money or the means to go to lawyers and pay them high fees to get documents notarized which could be done by a person of their community who would understand them better.

Mrs Witmer: True.

Mr Ahsan: Thank you.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much. I know it's a real problem in my own community, and those are the areas certainly where the people are having the problems, in those professional areas. So this bill, although it will address some of the issues, there are other issues that we need to address as well.

The Chair: Mr Tilson, one final question.

Mr Tilson: Some time has been spent with questions to you and your comments with respect to expanding definitions. I think that's one of the major concerns that many of us have on the committee. It's interesting, looking at the definitions in the regulations, what a racial minority is, what a member of a racial minority is. As you know, it means a person who, because of his or her race or colour, is a visible minority in Ontario.

Looking at things like the Police Services Act, 1990, a member of a racial minority means, "A person, other than an aboriginal person, who, because of race or colour, is in a visible minority in Canada that is non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour."

My question is the question as to: Are those definitions clear enough? There have been comments as to Lebanese, Armenians, Iranians, Jews. Are they visible or are they invisible? Native persons: If a native person is one sixteenth, for example, or one fraction of that, should that be classified as an aboriginal person? Disabled people: The Human Rights Commission has ruled that the wearing of glasses makes me disabled. That's what the Human Rights Commission says.

My question is: How detailed can these definitions be to adequately protect the people that you and all of us are concerned with?

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Mr Ahsan: Thank you for your question. There are definitely difficulties. This bill, at least to us, came as a positive sign that the government is stepping towards bringing about some form of equality, and definitely we are here today to make representations before the government and this committee so that all possible groups are included.

Now, it is understandable that it will become awfully difficult to describe each and every subgroup within the broad definition. I do agree with you that there are problems with defining aboriginals or defining races on the basis of colour only, but what we were suggesting was to include more explanations to the definition, so that as you have cited the Police Services Act, we would like, instead of having these definitions for each particular act in their own definition, we would want those to be included within the bill here so that a broader definition as an explanation could be added.

For example, when you have the definition of racial minorities, you can have a footnote, "See explanations," and then you can have a broader set of definitions there, like how you subdefine them. I believe that that is the only way to overcome such a major group.

Mr Tilson: Thank you.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. Like most other groups that have been before us, you agree with the concept and the need for employment equity, which is also nice to see.

I go back to when other groups, other people came to this country: the Chinese, the Japanese people, the Irish people, the Portuguese people, and I could keep going and going because we are a country that is made up of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Some of the things that have been happening have become societal, and they've just been going on and on and they haven't been fixed. On some of the things this government is doing, such as destreaming in the high schools, we all know that for many people of ethnic background, going to a high school and getting put into a certain area of expertise without actually trying -- you were just told that's where you were going, you were streamed in that direction, and that happened to a lot of ethnic people. It happened to a lot of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and so we're trying to eliminate that part of the discrimination process in society.

We've also introduced an anti-racism curriculum for schools and we're trying to address the anti-racism and the ethnocultural equity programs in Ontario, so we are moving in that direction.

When I look at some of the things that the government has done as far as Jobs Ontario Training for different things is concerned, this employment equity is part of the package. We have to eliminate racism. We have to eliminate discrimination no matter where it exists in society and the employment equity package is now attempting to eliminate systemic and real discrimination in the workplace.

Some of the things that I've been hearing from the opposition about the definition of minorities: How broad do we make it? There are logistical and real problems with having a broad definition and that's why we have asked for self-identification to be a part of the process. In other words, a person who is employed in a job can self-identify. If I don't look like I'm a minority person just from my looks, I will tell you that I am an immigrant to this country, I was not born in this country, and it would be my job to identify that when it comes to the process. We are already looking at different areas.

As far as your organization is concerned, over the years when your children were born -- presumably some of them were born in Canada -- and their children, when they grew, were born in Canada, are they still facing the same forms of discrimination that have happened when you were new to this country? Your children who are Canadian-born, and just because of their skin colour perhaps or something else, are still facing it, even though they are Canadian-born, and we have this perception that if you're Canadian-born, well, you're okay, but that's still going on.

Mr Ahsan: Mr Alam would like to address that.

Mr Alam: Even though our children are born here, according to the provision which is existing now, children need to take your last name. When your children are born here, genetically, they can get the same colour. They're inheriting three things: inheriting our colour, inheriting our last name and they will inherit the difficulties we're encountering at this present time, probably in the future.

Mr Fletcher: And the time to stop that is now.

Mr Alam: It is.

The Chair: One final question, Ms Carter.

Ms Carter: I'd like to underline some of the points that my colleague has made, because we were thinking very much along the same lines. I'd just point out that of the five of us sitting here, only one was born in Canada. The other four were all born in the same place, so that's just interesting, and yet we are not forced to think of ourselves as immigrants from one moment to the next.

I'd also like to underline a point that was made earlier this morning, very strongly by the representative from the Steelworkers union, that discrimination is not compatible with hiring on merit, so you have to get rid of discrimination before you can make sure that you are getting merit as the only criterion on which people are going to be hired. So that is really a non-issue and it's about time, I think, that some of our colleagues stop bringing it up.

Mr Murphy: If it's a non-issue, put it in the bill.

Ms Carter: Also, education was raised, and I think that we can say this government is bringing into effect a lot of measures which are going to minimize, or hopefully get rid of, differences that people encounter in the educational system that make it difficult for them to have the same chances.

We have actually introduced an anti-racism curriculum into schools so that different backgrounds are highlighted in the school curriculum. We're not assuming that everybody is the same and that children learn to appreciate the different backgrounds that their classmates and others have. We're also bringing in employment equity in boards and within the ministry and development and implementation of corporate anti-racism policies for boards and the ministry. So I think we really are working on some of those things.

The Chair: Do you have a question?

Ms Carter: Now, one point I wanted to raise as a question: The act does not include small, private employers, and I was just wondering how that would affect your particular community group. Do you have a lot of small businesses that are run by members of your community and employ members of your community, or do you feel that omission would be a disadvantage?

Mr Ahsan: As I have stated earlier, we have basically two kinds of people in our community. I'm just talking strictly of the Bengali community here. The one kind is professional people, and the other kind is absolutely general levels, or general non-skilled workers. In the business areas, we don't have that much concentration, even though very few are now stepping into businesses.

The difficulty they face from what I have encountered from them is that first of all they do not get the same kind of facilities in terms of getting a startup loan or in terms of getting startup information. If they could establish that they had a significant background already in Canada, then they are given a better advantage. I have seen them complain about these areas. That is also definitely something that the government may look at when implementing the bill.

With respect to employment equity, there is always this tendency that people from one community try to help each other when they can, but the resources that our community has are so limited that we have to really rely and lean on the government more.

The Chair: Thank you both for coming today and participating in these hearings.

Mr Alam: Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to give our input.

The Chair: This committee is adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.

The committee recessed from 1201 to 1334.

HUMAN RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO

The Chair: I call this meeting to order. I want to welcome both of you to these committee hearings. You probably know that by way of proceeding you have a half-hour and that you can take as long as you want, but hopefully you'll leave enough time for questions and answers at the end.

Ms Mary Beth Currie: All right, thank you. My name is Mary Beth Currie and I'm a lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault. The association I represent is the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario. I am a member of that association and the chair of its government affairs committee. With me is Linda Parks Sahadat, who is the acting interim executive director. Together, we hope we will cover some highlights of our written submissions and leave time for questions.

I have provided you with 25 copies of our written submission, so I have no intention of reading this because (a) it's a long submission and (b) I hope just to hit the highlights.

First, if I can tell you just a little bit about the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario so that you know the perspective from which we come, we represent more than 8,000 human resources practitioners at the workplaces. So we say that we are not an employer group or an employee group, but rather we are here as human resources professionals.

When you turn to the submission, you will see that a number of people contributed to the submission. You have a couple of lawyers; Pamela Yudcovitch, who is the government affairs coordinator person from the Human Resources Professionals Association of Peel; as well as some human resources people including from the Toronto Board of Education; and a couple of consultants, a diverse background of people who helped to put this document together.

While we're pleased to provide these submissions, if I can just say one thing, we received notice exactly a week ago today that we would be here at 1:30. While we have put together, I think, thorough submissions, they're not finished yet.

Now, we have two points to add. Because we are human resources professionals, it's our job to implement employment legislation that the Legislature passes. It is an issue that is of vital interest to our membership. We have a magazine that goes out monthly. It's a very glossy magazine. The editor's sitting right here behind me, so I have to say that, and it's true. But, in any event, we submitted to our members in the most recent volume a questionnaire asking them for their input. This is today's response. As you can see, it's about an inch of questionnaires. Sitting in my "in" basket back at the office, I've got three days of responses, so multiply this by three. We expect to have a number of more responses. The magazine was just received in everybody's office last week.

You will find a copy of a blank questionnaire at the back of the submissions. You'll know the kind of information that we're asking. We want to compile this for you and give it to you when we've got sufficient information. I hope this will be of great interest to you, because when you look at some of the questions, one, for example, that has struck me greatly is, "What do you think your turnover will be in the next five years?" As I flip through it quite quickly -- and this is not a scientific response -- the majority of respondents are saying a 1% to 2% turnover. That is key. You need to know that to determine how effective this implementation is going to be if we're having seniority apply to recall and layoff but not necessarily to promotion, training etc. Information like that should be of great assistance.

When we have enough to probably form six inches of paper, somebody is going to compile this and we will respond to you. As well, when you go through the submissions, you will see that I have said "enforcement." We have submissions on the enforcement provisions as well, but given the one-week time limit, I didn't get to that.

Now we'll go back to the substance of our presentation, if I can.

Let's just put this on the record: What time did we start, so I know what my time is.

The Chair: At 1:35.

Ms Currie: Thank you. I hope to touch very briefly on what the issues of great importance to the HRPAO are, given that the framework from which we're coming is that we are the people who are required to implement this legislation. The thrust of our submissions to you will be, I hope, what provisions are required to streamline this to make it more a piece of legislation that will be more effectively implemented?

In my submission we'll set out the position of the HRPAO with respect to employment equity. I will deal with some implementation or administration issues. We'll turn to the preamble. I'd like to look very briefly at the joint responsibility concept that exists and then turn, lastly, to the protections that we believe may be required in order to protect employers who are acting in compliance with the Employment Equity Act but who may be in contravention of the Human Rights Code, collective agreements or possibly even wrongful dismissal actions and who therefore may be subject to further litigation.

Sounds like a lot in seven minutes. I can talk quickly; otherwise I'll just say, "Read page, page, page."

In any event, let me first start by saying what the position of the HRPAO is with respect to employment equity. In a nutshell, we support the concept of employment equity as an appropriate remedy for systemic discrimination with respect to recruitment, retention and promotion at the workplace, provided that individuals are qualified.

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As I've already said, hopefully the points that I make now are simply those that will assist in streamlining, and the first point that I want to deal with is the adminstration or implementation of this legislation.

I am a lawyer. I practise labour and employment law and I read legislation and regulations all the time. I found this legislation very confusing, as you had to hop between the bill and the regulation. You go through your provisions and many of them, for example, will say the "certificate as prescribed" and then you have to go to the regulation, because "as prescribed" means prescribed by regulation.

A lot of the sections force the employer or the person implementing the bill to look at two documents. But it's not just the employer in that case. I mean, it's also the people who benefit by this legislation. Everybody who is going to be subject to the terms of this will not know what those requirements are, what their rights are, if they have a copy of the bill in their hand. It seems to me that the Legislature can work perhaps to incorporate some of the points already in the regulations into the bill and to make it a more comprehensive document.

Let me give you a couple of examples. I said you've got to leapfrog back and forth. For example, one conflict is with your coordinating committee. In the act it says one employer representative and bargaining representatives. Jill Harcourt-Vernon, who is a representative from the Toronto Board of Education on our committee, notes how that workplace has 23 unions. In accordance with the legislation, there would be one employer and 23 bargaining unit representatives. But then you go to the regulations and the regulations say that the numbers of employer representatives shall not exceed the numbers of bargaining agent representatives. Well, which governs? It's confusing. As a lawyer, I would tell you the act would govern. I think you've got some conflict there that you should deal with. Again, it comes down to perhaps expanding the bill so that the obligations are all set out in that bill.

The other point is the definitions. I had some problems moving back and forth. As you go through the submission, hopefully you will see exactly what I talk about with respect to the definition sections.

I am mindful of my time -- and I could talk about this for a long time and I know I will run out of time -- but the one point is the definition of "employer." There is a definition of "employer" contained in this bill, which I think is a great improvement over the pay equity legislation, for when it was first passed there was no definition and look at the huge litigation that has gone on at the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal and is still ongoing. Right now, in 1993, there's a case before the tribunal involving the definition of a "private sector employer," five years after the effective date.

I think it's very wise to incorporate a definition of "employer" here, but tell me, what is the common law concept? I would suggest that in proceeding with this, be precise in your definitions and put those definitions. Don't be afraid to tell me what a common law concept is. I may differ.

I know that the first day the deputy minister went through and said to you it's the Montreal Locomotive test, the fourfold test. That test has been superseded in some case law, so there are different definitions out there. What is the common law test?

I've set out the labour relations test. It's very specific about who controls the workplace. I think that's important. It's who controls the employees, because that's what employment equity is all about. It's eliminating systemic barriers. It's eliminating the employers' own barriers which may be there as a result of their practices. It's got to be the direct control. It can't be an employer two or three levels away. It can't be the health and safety employer, you know, the employer who contracts with a contractor and suddenly that employer is responsible for the workers of the contractor. The person contracting doesn't have the direct control.

The preamble is our second point, and as you go through our document you will see that I believe that anybody reading the preamble, where you talk about how intentional and systemic discrimination is the reason for the balance, implies that those persons whom I represent or whom we represent, the human resources professionals of Ontario, have been the people discriminating intentionally. I mean, you've said "intentional discrimination," and the 8,000 members of this association that we represent, I had in my first draft, "take great exception." In this draft you will see that we say, "We are dismayed that the inference would be that you would assume that our members would intentionally discriminate against the four designated groups," and yet that's what you're saying.

I would urge you, and you'll see in our submission that we've recommended -- I did not provide any language modifications. I've simply said that you can start the preamble with paragraph 3, where you talk about the reference to the Human Rights Code and so on. But it is an issue with the HRPAO that you would suggest there was intentional and deliberate discrimination here designed to deliberately keep the members of the designated groups from that workforce. We do not.

With respect to the collection of workplace data, let me just say, without going further, because I believe it's covered in the submissions, that in order to be effective and accurate and to present a complete picture, I believe there should be some mechanism by which the employer can do a cross-reference to confirm the self-identification. We understand the need to have the privacy, because I think privacy issues are very important. There is no doubt that is an issue that has to be addressed in developing whatever mechanism is ultimately developed. I'm sure you will have heard examples from others, and if you haven't, you're going to hear one from me. I just finished a 15-day human rights hearing and the person from whom I took my instructions was a double amputee. So he had replacement legs or he was in a wheelchair, either/or. He is a wonderful person and he does not consider himself in the least bit disadvantaged or disabled. And so in the self-identification process, would he put down -- I can't tell you what he would or would not. We discussed this at great length.

His employer, on the other hand, in seeing him in a wheelchair, is obviously required to have the necessary accommodation. Everybody is, with the ramps and so on. But they would want, presumably, in their employment equity plan, if we're looking at the targets and goals, to take into account this individual. If there's no self-identification, then he doesn't exist as far as they're concerned. So there has to be a balance, I think, because you don't want, with the self-identification, everybody saying no. I mean, what happens when my employer says to me -- I guess I'm an employer, but in my self-identification, if I choose not to check off that I am female, what do they do? I know that sounds ludicrous, but what do you do? So I do think there has to be some kind of mechanism which provides for or which permits the employer to deal with persons whom they perceive to be a member of one of the designated groups.

Let me then turn, I guess -- and this is sort of the lawyer part talking -- to the protections against multiple litigation as a result of compliance with employment equity. I see this with a number of pieces of legislation where you've got an employer who may terminate and suddenly we're before the labour board as a result of alleged reprisal action under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. We've got a human rights complaint, we've got a wrongful dismissal action going forward, so from one cause of action, we suddenly have a huge number of litigation actions going on.

I think it's important that if employers act in compliance with employment equity, there be some protections from individuals who feel aggrieved because of the conduct litigating against them; in particular, it's the reverse discrimination provisions, that if as a result of the employment equity plan -- an employer will not want to be the Bakke, or the Bakke decision in Ontario. And I think there should be some strengthening of the provisions which already exist in the legislation. Let me just say that it's going to be, if you get, like -- I'm sorry. I've lost track and I can see three puzzled looks here, so can I just start this part again? Thank you.

Let me just say, given the overriding jurisdiction of the different statutory schemes, compliance with employment equity may result in the contravention of other legislative obligations or other contractual obligations, and, in particular, here's where I am referring to the breach of a collective agreement or potentially the breach of the Human Rights Code.

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Our position is that where the employer acts in compliance with employment equity, there must be a protection in the legislation, in the Employment Equity Act, to prevent litigation against the employer based on compliance with employment equity. Otherwise it's going to be very costly for the employer, for sure. We can all go off and defend the actions, and hopefully the statute will provide a sufficient defence, but right now you've got no statutory defence written into the legislation. There should be.

As well, you've got the Human Rights Code, which has the provision that says it shall prevail over all other legislation. That's problematic because I don't believe the protections that exist right now, in the language in which it has been presently drafted, are sufficient to basically overcome that obligation or that entitlement for an individual to go to the Human Rights Commission and to have the Human Rights Code override employment equity.

We have made in our submission, I guess, two recommendations to deal with this issue. One -- and this comes into your seniority issue about which takes priority, employment equity or seniority -- we suggest that until the expiry of the existing collective agreements which contain seniority provisions, seniority clauses should take priority. Following expiry of the collective agreement -- that gives the parties the opportunity to negotiate -- the Employment Equity Act should take priority. In that way, litigation cannot be commenced, or, if it is, at least the employer will have a defence.

The other thing is, as I said, to simply strengthen the provisions in the act to provide that where an employment equity plan, on its face, discriminates against persons, that such plan will be deemed not to contravene the Human Rights Code.

It's five minutes to. That leaves me with, I believe, 10 minutes for questions.

The Chair: That's right.

Ms Currie: Thank you. So I will take questions. I can talk a lot more if you'd like, but I'm pleased to take questions.

Ms Harrington: Can I take a quick one?

The Chair: Actually, it's the third party that begins this, Ms Harrington. There are three and a half minutes approximately for each caucus.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you. I appreciate your presentation and the very specific recommendations.

You mentioned here, and you didn't speak to it, seniority and joint responsibility. Could you expand on that as to what your concerns might be and what changes you would like to see?

Ms Currie: With respect to the joint responsibility, our concern is that the definition of "employer" contained in the regulation says that where there is a joint responsibility, the term "employer" shall be deemed to mean bargaining agent and employer. In some cases -- for example, with the board of education, there are the 23 unions -- there are often jurisdictional disputes between the unions themselves. There is, in some cases, not a willingness to cooperate between the different bargaining agents, and yet the legislation and the regulations contemplate that it is the employer alone who will bear the responsibility or who will bear the penalty. When we talk about joint responsibility, it's our submission that there should be an equivalent penalty provision on the bargaining agents and an equivalent obligation to negotiate in good faith and so on.

With respect to the seniority --

Mrs Witmer: Page 10.

Ms Currie: Page 10, okay. This is what I just very briefly touched on in the last point, and that is that again there should be -- we are bound by collective agreements, those parties that have negotiated them. The collective agreement will have been negotiated by both sides in good faith; that's the terms and conditions of employment. To come in now with an act that says, "Totally ignore it," does not permit the parties to negotiate between themselves as to how they want to deal with this. Although the legislation does provide that there can be negotiations, if suddenly the employer is told seniority, for example, for promotion doesn't apply any more, how do you negotiate? I mean, you're over a barrel. So we are either in breach of our collective agreement obligations or we're in breach of the legislation. I don't think that's the intent here, or it shouldn't be.

What we're talking about is what I'd almost call the sunset provision. Let the collective agreements be binding until the expiry date, then let the parties go forward knowing what the law is. But you're changing the law on them in the middle of the agreement. That's the one thing. Thereafter, I think that clearly employment equity has to take priority over the collective agreement.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Ms Margaret Harrington): Mr Tilson, you have one minute.

Mr Tilson: I have a question as to the Human Rights Commission and the Employment Equity Commission. The Employment Equity Commission, it has been estimated in the estimates, is going to cost the taxpayer of Ontario approximately $6 million. I've asked this question of several people. As a legal person, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it as to why we would need the Employment Equity Commission, another level of bureaucracy, as opposed to perhaps increasing the powers of or expanding the Human Rights Commission.

I'm told the Human Rights Commission is a year and a half -- it's becoming bogged down in a myriad of --

Ms Currie: I received a complaint where we had to respond and then we were told that in three years' time there would be an investigation. Three years' time.

Mr Tilson: I understand that problem, but yet at the same time we're creating yet another bureaucracy --

Ms Currie: I agree.

Mr Tilson: -- another system which is costing a substantial amount of money. My question to you is, in light of that cost --

The Vice-Chair: Unfortunately, I have to cut you off. Sorry. We must go on to government, and the first person is Mr Frankford.

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): I think I heard you say that in the survey, the turnover is 1% to 2% over five years.

Ms Currie: Oh, well, I indicated --

Mr Frankford: I know it's not scientific --

Ms Currie: Oh, no, well -- I'm sorry. As I look at it, it is 3% to 4%. That is, as I flip through, when you look down at the last page, it says, "What is your organization's normal annual turnover?" and it's 3% to 4%. Some people have said what they expect in five years, but I guess to be absolutely accurate, "What is your organization's normal annual turnover?" is 3% or 4%.

Mr Frankford: Okay. I've no idea what one expects, but that seems fairly low in looking --

Ms Currie: Exactly, and that's why you need to know that when you're developing what should be going forward with the employment equity plan, and will this be an effective means of changing the diversity in the workforce.

Mr Frankford: Would you say that perhaps you've got a skewed sample of some type of workplaces as opposed to others?

Ms Currie: No. Although they're all anonymous -- this is amazing. When you fax stuff in, it always tells you who your employers are. This is why I will not be supplying you with copies. But what I have found is we have had responses from employers with two to 2,400, 3,000. It is a myriad.

I mean, when you represent 8,000 HRPAO, it's a big association. Joanne Eidinger, the editor, says that normally when we do these membership surveys, we end up with a response of, you know, a couple of percentage. We're now, she expects, at 10%, which is a high return rate. I haven't counted, but that's a lot of pieces of paper, each one page.

But I'm just going to come back to this. I know you've cut me off, but I'm going to come back in one minute, if I may, simply to say with respect to the levels of bureaucracy --

The Vice-Chair: You're getting a little leeway here. Did you answer Mr Frankford's question?

Ms Currie: I hope so.

Mr Frankford: Yes.

The Vice-Chair: Okay, next is Mr Winninger.

Mr Winninger: Just a quick comment and a question for you, the comment in regard to the Bakke decision. I submit to you that we may have more statutory protections already in our Constitution, in our Human Rights Code, than the defendants in Bakke would have had. We've got 15(2) in the charter, 11(2) in the Human Rights Code --

Ms Currie: Exactly, but employment equity overrides that.

Mr Winninger: Right. But I guess what I'm suggesting to you is that there's a little more than there was in the 14th amendment, in the 5th amendment and so on in the US, to afford protection to the employer that complies with the employment equity.

Ms Currie: The charter won't apply. I mean, it depends on how the case is framed.

Mr Winninger: Maybe we can discuss it later. It's just a difference of opinion.

Ms Currie: But I don't want to be the person defending.

Mr Winninger: The question, though, which I think is an important one, and it comes back to your point about self-identification: Given the person's right to privacy and given the mechanism of self-identification under the employment equity legislation, do you have any constructive suggestions as to how we can ensure that an employee's privacy is protected and not infringed and still allow an employer to verify self-identification data?

Ms Currie: For the record, let it show I'm smiling. I don't mean to be flip about this because obviously this is a very critical issue. We came up with no hard-core recommendations. You'll see that we've suggested that perhaps employers could refer to the census documents and so on. We have at this time, after one week of serious deliberations, no recommendation to make that's a practical one.

Mr Winninger: But there may be one forthcoming in the fullness of time?

Ms Currie: Yes, possibly.

The Vice-Chair: We have one more minute.

Mr Fletcher: What's interesting to me is the idea of seniority when it's in the collective agreement, to let the collective agreements run out. Would that, then, after the collective agreements expire, be negotiation in the normal sense of collective bargaining negotiation or would it be negotiation under the Employment Equity Act? I'm wondering what scenario you see.

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Ms Currie: I see it under the collective agreement because unions have an obligation also to assist in the implementation of employment equity. So I see that the collective bargaining procedure would be where you would do the negotiations. Right now, all the collective agreements say, "Promotion etc based on" --

Mr Fletcher: Seniority.

Ms Currie: Exactly. If you suddenly take that provision out -- so we say, "Let the collective agreement take primacy until it expires," and that's going to expire anywhere from tomorrow to --

Mr Fletcher: Six months to --

Ms Currie: Yes, exactly, so it will be different depending on the different workplaces.

Mr Fletcher: Do you think it will be difficult to negotiate this? No? Me neither.

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Fletcher, that's one minute. We'll go to the opposition party.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Thank you for a very interesting presentation. I have two questions: The first, I'd like you to, if you could, expand for a moment on some of the reverse-onus provisions in this legislation that you have some concerns about.

Ms Currie: The reverse-onus provisions being, because I know in reading the statements from the first day, the preamble in particular? You've heard our submission on the preamble, that we take great umbrage at the fact that it slights or appears to infer that we are guilty of intentional discrimination.

Moving into the enforcement provisions, which we've not provided for in the submission, the powers of the commission and of the tribunal to issue orders and to have them enforced as if orders of the court, with no hearing and very little investigation, terrify me. Notwithstanding that, the deputy minister indicated that they're standard provisions. I agree that health and safety officers have similar provisions and so on, as does the Pay Equity Commission. The breadth of the tribunal is very broad, and to get there is a problem. For employers who are faced with these allegations, it's going to be an expensive process of trying to prove that in fact they have complied, that they do have the written employment equity.

I'm rambling here to some extent, but I think that given some of the provisions which are not as precise as they might be, and given the extensive powers of the officers under the commission, or the intended powers of the officers under the commission to be able to go in and write any order, the cost to the employer will be substantial.

Mrs Caplan: You also have some concerns about the clarity of the language within the legislation.

Ms Currie: Yes.

Mrs Caplan: I would like you as well to comment on the layers of bureaucracy or the need to establish another bureaucracy as opposed to perhaps, as you heard, expansion of and more effective use of the Human Rights Commission and/or coordination with all of the equity bodies, including the pay equity tribunal and so forth, from your experience, just what your feelings are.

Ms Currie: You may all have read the Cornish report, where Mary Cornish recommends a tribunal to deal with equity issues. I think it's an idea which would receive support of the employer community, certainly of the HRPAO because it needs that. Where there are a number of potential litigation issues, one tribunal that's knowledgeable and expert in equity issues and skilled in the different legislation could interpret those.

So I support one equity tribunal, but what I also support is extensive training of officers. You will also note from the Cornish report that additional training could be of great benefit to human rights officers. Any kinds of officers appointed should receive adequate training. That's tough, I know, with government funding and we all appreciate that, but I think that if you have a well-trained body able to investigate properly and knowledgeably about the procedures of investigation, it would be a useful thing to suggest one equity body.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you for your presentation, Ms Currie. We all enjoyed it and we learned from it.

Ms Currie: Good. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy reading the submission as well, because it contains a number of other points, all of which are valid and we hope helpful.

FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO

The Vice-Chair: I now call upon the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario, if they could please come forward. Welcome to the committee. You have 30 minutes in total for your presentation. In that, you will get time to speak to us, and then I hope you will allow some time for each of the three parties to ask you questions. So if you'd like to begin and introduce yourself and the people with you.

Ms Margaret Dempsey: Thank you very much. I'm Margaret Dempsey, president of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. With me today are two members of our employment equity staff, Ada Hill on my right and Teresa González on my left. Beverley Saskoley, also a member of our executive staff, was not able to be with us this afternoon. Certainly, we will make some comments and we do want to answer your questions. We are very pleased to be able to make a presentation to this committee on behalf of the 41,000 women teachers who work in the public elementary schools of this province, who are members of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario.

It is important for you to hear from us because there are those who have made submissions here who are attempting to undermine the purpose of and to distort the need for employment equity legislation. We are here to endorse the legislation, to support the general approach of the regulation and to discuss with you some recommendations for improvements.

You have recently heard from those who represent groups who are concerned about the effect of the law on those who have not been identified as the designated or disadvantaged groups. We understand their concerns, but we also urge this committee to focus on the women, racial minorities, disabled persons and aboriginal persons who have lived with decades and generations of disadvantage and who are counting on this legislation to open the doors that have been closed to them for so long.

We have heard threats of a backlash to this legislation. There would be no backlash if all employers would adopt the progressive attitude and public position recently taken by IBM and other employers who are ready and willing to take the appropriate action to be inclusive in their employment practices. Indeed, they indicate that employment equity provides them with advantageous outcomes.

FWTAO has been educating, persuading, lobbying and prodding the Ministry of Education and school boards across this province for decades to increase the number of women in leadership. Even though we as women hold over 70% of the educational positions, we hold only 46% of vice-principalships and 27% of principalships. This is true despite the fact that the Ministry of Education has a memorandum requiring school boards to target for 50% women in leadership by the year 2000. That target includes an expectation that women will hold 50% of supervisory officer positions, and that percentage is only 17% now.

We have experience with trying to get employers to address employment equity through the persuasive route. We know and have repeatedly told hearings and commissions discussing employment equity that legislation is essential and that strong, enforceable regulations are required.

We urge you to listen to reasonable requests for improvements to this legislation and to get on with passing the law which will help so many to obtain equal treatment in employment.

I would now like to ask the executive staff with me to outline our 10 recommendations.

Ms Teresa González: To begin with our recommendations, the first one is that Bill 79 and the regulation be passed immediately; the requirements of Bill 79 and the regulation be extended to include Bill 21; a tracking system, including short-term goals and timetables, be in place in order to monitor the major demographic shifts in the workplace and not be limited to a workforce survey every nine years; specific action plans need to be in place in order to review employment equity and remove the barriers that are part of the employment practices and the timetables for their amendment should be part of the required elements; standards for goals and timetables must be included in the act and they must be accompanied by accountability measures and linked to the performance appraisal of all managers.

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Ms Ada Hill: You have the copy of our submission, and our sixth recommendation is connected to information that appears on page 5 of the report itself. We are suggesting that there is confusion between the act and the regulation about what constitutes "positive and supportive measures." What is a positive and supportive measure, how is it defined and what kinds of things are being talked about need to be much clearer and be consistent across the act and the regulation.

We would also like, in recommendation number 7, to draw to your attention the rights of individuals. The structure as outlined in Bill 79 at the moment does not give an individual a right to make a complaint regarding what is happening related to the employment equity plan, its development and decisions that are made around the way the employment equity plan is going to be administered.

The information about the eighth recommendation is connected to material that appears on page 10 in the body of the report. We are suggesting that all employers should be covered in some way by this legislation. Those people who work in the smallest workplaces tend to be those who are the most disadvantaged and those who could benefit the most by having some rights guaranteed through something like employment equity legislation. They may not need to be involved in a sophisticated, lengthy process to gather data, and if you're a very small workplace, you have far less data to gather and to report on in the first place, but some protection for people who work in very small workplaces we feel is important.

Recommendation number 9, the information related to that appears on page 11 in the report. We're suggesting you consider that the power of the commission be expanded to include the right for the commission to establish periodic audits of workplaces. At the moment, it is permissive to say that the Employment Equity Commission may examine a workplace. Very often, that probably would only happen if they were invited to or if a complaint was in the process of being handled. We are suggesting that, routinely, the commission establish a certain percentage of employers it will audit who will be reported on in a compendium way so that every employer at some point can expect that the commission will show up and audit, whether he expects it or not.

The information about our last recommendation appears on page 10. We would like to emphasize, from our experience in the area of employment equity within the school systems, that education and training are crucial and the most important factors related to changing the climate in the workplace. Attitudinal change takes a very long time. Employment equity could result in behavioural change, and that behavioural change won't occur until the employers make it very clear to all employees what the expectations are related to the implementation of employment equity.

The commission itself needs to spend a good amount of its time ensuring that the general public of this province, the naysayers we are hearing from in a very predictable way and those who are prepared to say there is something underhanded or inappropriate about guaranteeing equality to those who have been shut out for so long -- the Employment Equity Commission should be making sure that this topic is on the agenda in front of the public, and that this government is speaking in a positive way about equal rights all the time. So our last recommendation is that every employer must include its educational components as a part of their plan and that those educational components be developed in a way where goals and timetables are established for implementation and they are assessed and monitored in the same way as the numerical targets are done.

Those are our general recommendations.

Ms Dempsey: The Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario believes that employment equity is a human right, a comprehensive management and leadership philosophy and a fundamental shift in the policies and practices of organizations.

Employment equity must be institutionalized and integrated into the culture of every organization. Creating a vision for employment equity must begin with the Employment Equity Commission. Bill 79 and the regulations must be clear with strategic plans and accountable outcomes strongly enforced.

Employment equity will reflect the diversity of our society in the workplace, not the preferences and nature of the dominant groups. Let us learn from experience that employment equity will not be implemented voluntarily. The answer is strong legislation and regulation and we urge the government to get on with it now.

The Vice-Chair: Each party has about four minutes. We'll begin with the government party and Mr Fletcher.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. I'm just going to go back to the days when I was a trustee and I was on some of the hiring committees that went on. I remember one applicant who was coming in and the first thing that was said before she came through the door was, "This person is a member of FW and is working hard for the union." That was it and she didn't get the job. Whether it's discrimination or not --

Ms Dempsey: Double.

Ms Hill: Double discrimination.

Mr Fletcher: I can tell you who the person was and you would know who it was, but that was the sort of thing that was going on. I was also a member of the race relations committee with the school board and we did forward some policies, but not much has come out of those policies within the school board as far as the promotion of females into higher positions of authority, especially principalships and especially in the secondary system, as your brief outlines.

I've heard a lot from the opposition members about -- what we need is, we can't destroy the merit system. How has the merit system helped in your organization as far as being hired on merit?

Ms Hill: Do you want to say something about that?

Ms González: I always find it interesting that reverse discrimination became the topic of conversation when women and people from the designated group started applying for positions of responsibility. It's interesting that people equate employment equity with hiring those who are not qualified. Everyone who comes to this country is as well qualified as everyone who is sitting here, but the barriers that we encounter when we come here are very, very difficult. Diversity is a fact of life in the workplace, but employment equity is not.

I will say to you that as a principal of continuing education, I work with a lot of adults who came in with accreditation, with English skills -- with all the abilities you can imagine -- who had to clean homes, take care of apartments because the first barrier they encountered was, "You do not have Canadian experience," and their lifelong learning was never recognized.

So I urge you to look at it in terms of what is equitable and what is a human right and who decides what merit is in this country and whose norms are we establishing the workplaces by.

Ms Dempsey: May I add to that, as a teacher who has sought promotion to a position of added responsibility in my home school board. As you know, prior to 1980, the principals' courses were not opened as such in terms of making application to take the course, but through what I call the tap-on-the-shoulder from one's employer. I tried and I was unsuccessful at receiving that tap, but once the courses were opened, largely due to the pressure of my federation, I was able to take those principals' courses and I'm a principal now in my school system.

Ms Carter: I welcome your support for Bill 79 in the principles of employment equity and I share your concern about the inadequate principalships. I think, in my own area, we're just beginning to move on that, but there's a long way to go.

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I wanted to ask you about small workplaces. You are suggesting that there should be modified provisions for small workplaces, and certainly it is important to protect all workers, regardless of where they work, but it seems to me there are some inherent problems with small workplaces because you don't have staff resources, human resources personnel. You don't have any scope to set the precise numerical goals and timetables that you are advocating because the numbers are just too small and the range of change that may be happening is just too small.

I would be interested in hearing what you have to say about that. Also, quite a few small workplaces are in fact businesses that are run maybe by women or people who are themselves of ethnic origin so that, in those cases, it might not be particularly urgent.

Ms Hill: We have a number of school boards across the province which are very small. They have a handful of employees. That's not to say they didn't go through a process similar to some of the larger boards to say: "How many people do we have? How many openings are we likely to have over the next x number of years and how much change can we reasonably make in order to balance the male-female ratio throughout the employment system from caretakers to the director of education?"

As I said in my original remarks, because it's a very small workplace, the analysis of the workforce doesn't need to be very sophisticated. You don't need a special computer software program to count up the bodies in a really small workplace. It should be relatively easy to sit down as an employer and say: "This is the way our workforce looks now. This is the way our community looks. How can we work towards changing when we have opportunities to change so that our employment group looks more like what our community looks like?"

The Vice-Chair: Could you finish. Did you finish your statement?

Ms Hill: Yes.

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to move on to the opposition party. Ms Caplan, do you have a question?

Mrs Caplan: No. In fact, I want to just thank you for a very well-thought-out and articulate brief. I'm very aware of the slow progress that has been made in the field of education. I'm not sure this bill will solve that problem. That's one of the concerns I have, but I know that education has been one of the places that we've seen a lot of attention paid to employment equity programs. Many boards in fact are making progress and others we know are not. I think we can learn a lot from what's happened in the field of education and hopefully see some improvements.

Ms González: Let me just add that hopefully Bill 21, if it is expanded, and memorandum 111 looked at and revised and strengthened, it will take care and include all the requirements of Bill 79.

Mrs Caplan: Just for the record, perhaps you might just give a long title to the two bills that you mentioned, Bill 21 and the other regulation.

Ms González: Bill 21 allows the Minister of Education and Training to do two things: to request that boards have anti-racist policies and to implement employment equity and name the designated groups. The anti-racist policy has been written and will be in place in September, but the second area, they're waiting for Bill 79 to be implemented.

Mrs Caplan: But Bill 21 has been around for quite some time.

Ms González: That's right.

Mrs Caplan: When was that? Do you remember the date? Was it three, four years ago?

Ms González: I think it was about a year and a half ago.

The Vice-Chair: Now the third party.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation. I would find it difficult to disagree with much of what you said. I was chairperson of a board when the attempt at employment equity was first made. We actually received recognition for our attempts. But I really do sense recently -- and I've been personally somewhat disappointed, I don't see the same commitment. I wonder what's happened. I was very optimistic originally that some real changes would take place, but I have to tell you, I don't see that any more. I know there are some boards that are very, very committed, but I sense at other times something's happened and I'm not sure what it is.

Ms Hill: One of the things we are hearing from our representatives in school boards is that school boards are sitting back waiting for Bill 79. They're saying: "There's going to be a law. We better wait around and see what the law tells us we have to do."

One of our mentors and friends over many years is Rosemary Brown, who was a speaker at our annual meeting last year. What she told us was that rights won are not rights guaranteed, that you must always be vigilant. If we don't have representatives there, women there, every single time there is a selection for a position or several positions watching over the process, then they slip back into the old habit of selecting the people they feel more comfortable with.

Mrs Witmer: I can personally attest to that.

Ms González: Let me just add too that I think it's very important we realize that, as young women, we were brought up in a society with a lot of stereotypes about where we fit in as women. But we were also brought up in a very racist society. I think a lot of white women in particular also need to look at where it is they fit in terms of the society we've been brought up in. One of the things our federation is working at is looking at the jeopardies we're faced with in terms of how we ensure that women of colour, aboriginal women and women with disabilities are promoted to positions of responsibility.

Mrs Witmer: Okay, thank you very much. I wish you well. I know you've made an outstanding contribution to the promotion of women in all areas of life. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Is there any further question? Thank you very much, Ms Dempsey, Ms Hill and Ms González.

Ms Dempsey: If I may, we have one other piece of information. I would ask Ada to explain what it is, please.

The Vice-Chair: Okay, that's fine.

Ms Hill: I'd like to leave with the clerk a copy of the report about affirmative action that is presented to our annual meeting. We weren't able to send it to you in advance because it needed to go to our own members first. So I'll leave these copies with Lisa so they could be distributed to you.

Ms Dempsey: Our annual meeting is in progress while we're here.

The Vice-Chair: I hope you enjoyed Ms Rosemary Brown as well.

I'd like to call forward now the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario. If you could come forward. They're not here? We're looking for Jacques Michaud. Seeing that the following organization is not present at this time, we will have a short recess of five minutes and reconvene. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 1428 to 1434.

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE-FRANÇAISE DE L'ONTARIO

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call this committee back to order, please. The presenters before us are the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario. Mr Michaud, would you introduce your colleague and proceed. Altogether you have half an hour, and we would also like to have time during that for questions.

M. Jacques Michaud : My colleague here from l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario is Ali Maachar, who is on the board of directors of this association, and he will be presenting with me. I will be reading most of the presentation in French, and I'm sorry that we were not able to get you a copy of this report so that you could translate it. Hopefully, it will work out all right.

Au nom de la communauté franco-ontarienne et en mon nom personnel, je tiens à vous remercier d'avoir invité l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario à vous faire part des impératifs qui s'imposent sur la mise en oeuvre de la Loi sur l'équité en matière d'emploi.

L'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario a été fondée en 1910 pour assurer les services de langue française à nos citoyens franco-ontariens et franco-ontariennes de la province de l'Ontario. Elle regroupe aujourd'hui 22 conseils régionaux et 24 associations affiliées qui oeuvrent dans tous les secteurs d'activités de l'Ontario français.

Alors, si vous avez une copie de cette présentation, je vais vous dire que, pour me limiter, j'ai dû laisser de côté quelques commentaires, quelques extraits. Alors, j'espère que vous saurez bien me suivre à ce sujet-là.

L'expression «communauté franco-ontarienne» est utilisée pour faire référence non seulement à l'héritage culturel canadien-français de la communauté, mais aussi au patrimoine ethnoculturel francophone auquel contribuent des Franco-Ontariens et des Franco-Ontariennes de races et de cultures diverses, souvent nés ailleurs.

Le développement et l'épanouissement de la francophonie ontarienne au tournant du XXI^e siècle constituent un défi de taille. L'équité en matière d'emploi a pour but de corriger une situation, celle dans laquelle se trouvent des personnes membres de groupes victimes de discrimination, d'éliminer et de prévenir du même coup la répétition de ces situations dans divers secteurs d'activités.

Dans le projet de loi sur l'équité en matière d'emploi, nous constatons que la communauté franco-ontarienne fut exclue comme groupe d'équité. C'est inacceptable.

La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés témoigne à l'égalité en matière d'emploi, ainsi que les sections 4, 6(2) et 10 du Code des droits de la personne de l'Ontario (1981). On trouve pourtant que, dans tous les secteurs de la société, les membres de certains groupes n'ont pas eu, historiquement, les mêmes privilèges au chapitre de l'emploi en raison de leur sexe, de leur race, de leur traits ethniques ou d'un handicap.

On reconnaît que cette situation viole les droits fondamentaux de la personne et entrave la croissance économique de notre pays en ce sens, que cela empêche nos citoyens et nos citoyennes également compétents de bénéficier des mêmes avantages économiques et des possibilités d'emploi sur le marché du travail.

Nous démontrerons dans les minutes à suivre la nécessité d'inclure les francophones, les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes, au chapitre de cette nouvelle Loi ontarienne d'équité en matière d'emploi à titre de groupe cible et aussi d'inclure le motif de «langue» comme motif illicite de discrimination à l'intérieur du Code des droits de la personne de l'Ontario.

Le gouvernement de l'Ontario a créé en 1987 un programme d'équité en matière d'emploi dans sa formation publique incluant les Franco-Ontariennes et les Franco-Ontariens. De là, le non-sens de ne pas faire de même pour cette nouvelle Loi.

Nous vous rappelons que l'Ontario français a été longtemps dépourvu de l'éducation et de la formation professionnelle dont il avait besoin pour développer les compétences nécessaires afin de réussir dans les secteurs privé aussi bien que public et parapublic sur le marché du travail ontarien. Comme résultat, les Franco-Ontariennes et les Franco-Ontariens se retrouvent aujourd'hui avec un taux de chômage, d'analphabétisme et de décrochage plus élevé que chez la majorité anglophone. De là, dire que l'élément rattrapage pour la communauté franco-ontarienne est un élément d'extrême importance pour nous.

Par exemple, en 1986, le taux de chômage dans la communauté franco-ontarienne s'élevait à 8,8 % alors que la population ontarienne en général était à 7 %.

Au cours de cette même année 1986, plus de 19,8 % des jeunes Franco-Ontariennes et Franco-Ontariens âgés entre 15 et 19 ans étaient sans emploi. Quant aux jeunes de 20 à 24 ans, ils affichaient un taux de chômage de 12,6 %, c'est-à-dire un taux supérieur à celui de la jeunesse en général. Le taux de chômage était de 10 % pour la population ontarienne âgée entre 15 et 24 ans.

L'étude interministérielle de votre gouvernement indique que les francophones et les non-francophones ayant atteint le même niveau de scolarité gagnent un salaire à peu près semblable. Voilà un vice de logique qui illustre de façon éloquente le manque de compréhension des fonctionnaires qui en sont arrivés à cette conclusion. Ce genre d'analyse équivaut à suggérer que, puisqu'un médecin autochtone quelconque, ou une femme médecin par ailleurs, gagne autant que la moyenne des médecins, leur groupe n'est pas victime d'iniquité ou de discrimination.

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Selon un rapport commandité par la Direction générale de la promotion des langues officielles du Secrétariat d'État du Canada, intitulé L'État des communautés minoritaires de langue officielle, Indicateur de développement, Ontario, la situation des francophones en Ontario démontre que ceux-ci sont défavorisés sur le marché du travail. Au recensement de 1986, le taux de participation des francophones sur le marché du travail est de 3,5 à 7,5 points inférieur aux taux de participation moyens.

En effet, en 1986, le taux de chômage de la population de langue maternelle française s'élevait à 8,8 % alors que celui de la population de langue maternelle anglaise était de 6,9 %. Ajoutons qu'en 1993, aujourd'hui, lors de cette époque de récession, on peut bien s'imaginer quels seront les taux de chômage et les taux qui portent à une «employabilité» de la francophonie, qui est atroce.

Les revenus individuels des Franco-Ontariennes et des Franco-Ontariens sont inférieurs à ceux des anglophones de la province. Cet écart s'explique d'une part de la participation plus faible de la population franco-ontarienne à l'emploi. Il s'explique aussi par le nombre relativement moins élevé des Franco-Ontariens et Franco-Ontariennes à toucher un revenu supérieur à 40 000 $.

La Loi 8 sur les services en français garantit des services et non des emplois aux Franco-Ontariennes et aux Franco-Ontariens. La Loi oblige le gouvernement ontarien à offrir ces services dans 22 régions désignées de la province. La Loi sur l'équité en matière d'emploi touchera les secteurs public, parapublic et privé, et ce sur tous les territoires de l'Ontario. Les postes désignés bilingues dans la fonction publique provinciale ne sont pas obligatoirement occupés par des Franco-Ontariennes et des Franco-Ontariens mais par des personnes qui ont la capacité de s'exprimer dans les deux langues.

À l'heure actuelle, le taux d'analphabétisme fonctionnel chez les adultes franco-ontariens frise 40 %, comparativement à un taux de 20 % pour la population en général, et ailleurs en province, on parle d'un taux de 60 % d'analphabétisme pour les Franco-Ontariennes et les Franco-Ontariens.

Bien que la situation de plusieurs membres de la communauté franco-ontarienne ne puisse être directement associée à celle des minorités visibles proprement dites, il n'en demeure pas moins que les Franco-Ontariennes et les Franco-Ontariens n'occupent pas la place qui leur revient et ne jouent pas de plein pied le rôle que devrait être le leur au sein de la société ontarienne. Des chances leur sont refusées parce qu'ils sont de culture différente et parlent une autre langue, langue qu'on reconnaît officielle au Canada. En ce sens, ils sont victimes de discrimination systématique, subtile mais tout de même dévastatrice.

Le rapport présenté par la Commissaire à l'équité d'emploi indique également que «devant certaines statistiques, nous sommes forcés de reconnaître que les francophones sont victimes de discrimination et se butent à des obstacles sur le marché du travail. Les minorités raciales francophones, les jeunes francophones et les femmes francophones sont doublement désavantagés par rapport à l'ensemble des effectifs.»

Le rapport du Secrétariat d'État élabore des données intéressantes au niveau de l'emploi de la langue sur le marché du travail ontarien en indiquant une autre difficulté pour les francophones, celle liée à l'usage de la langue. Il semble qu'une minorité infime de francophones en Ontario peuvent utiliser exclusivement leur langue maternelle dans leur lieu de travail. En effet, les francophones doivent, plus souvent qu'autrement, travailler dans les deux langues ou dans la langue de la majorité.

Le rapport ajoute que même si le bilinguisme semble nécessaire aux francophones en Ontario pour réussir dans le milieu du travail, ceci ne se traduit pas nécessairement par un avantage économique. En effet, on ajoute, «C'est surtout les anglophones bilingues qui semblent tirer avantage de leurs compétences linguistiques, en dégageant en moyenne un revenu de 25 % à 30 % supérieur à celui des anglophones unilingues.»

À la lumière des données statistiques et des exemples susmentionnés, le verdict suivant s'impose : le gouvernement de l'Ontario doit faire un effort précis et courageux dans la protection et la promotion de sa population francophone en lui accordant une protection législative dans le cadre de sa politique sur l'équité en matière d'emploi.

L'ACFO provinciale est d'avis, pour que la main-d'oeuvre franco-ontarienne puisse participer pleinement au marché du travail ontarien, des programmes d'action positive et un financement de base doivent lui être réservés.

Par programmes d'action positive, nous entendons des programmes obligatoires qui examineront les méthodes actuelles de recrutement, de dotation et de formation dans les secteurs privé, parapublic et public en vue d'apporter des changements pour faciliter l'intégration des Franco-Ontariennes et Franco-Ontariens au sein des entreprises. Ces programmes obligatoires doivent avoir des objectifs ciblés et bien définis. De plus, des fonds doivent être offerts afin d'assurer la mise en oeuvre des programmes d'action positive et d'en permettre un suivi.

Par conséquent, l'ACFO provinciale vous recommande le suivant:

M. Ali Maachar : Que le gouvernement de l'Ontario procède à l'inclusion des Franco-Ontariennes et des Franco-Ontariens comme groupe désigné dans le cadre de la Loi sur l'équité en matière d'emploi ;

que le gouvernement provincial fasse promotion de l'embauche de Franco-Ontariennes et de Franco-Ontariens dans les secteurs privé, public et parapublic en mettant en oeuvre le plan quinquennal suivant :

(1) au cours des cinq prochaines années, offrir des subventions et des encouragements fiscaux de façon à favoriser l'embauche et la formation de membres de la communauté franco-ontarienne et de promouvoir l'adoption de programmes d'action positive ;

(2) simultanément, mettre sur pied une base de données complète pour établir un profil exhaustif de la main-d'oeuvre franco-ontarienne et aider à la mise en oeuvre de programmes d'action positive. Il faudrait en outre étudier les résultats des programmes d'action positive appliqués à l'Ontario ;

(3) à la fin de cette période, le gouvernement de l'Ontario doit étudier les résultats des programmes d'encouragement et d'action positive. Si l'on constate des progrès insuffisants, des mesures encore plus sévères doivent être imposées, dont celle de l'adoption de programmes d'action positive ;

(4) que le gouvernement de l'Ontario introduise des mesures législatives sur le respect de l'obligation contractuelle afin d'obliger les entrepreneurs et les soustraitants qui font affaire avec des ministères et des organismes de l'Ontario, ainsi qu'avec des sociétés de la Couronne, à mettre sur pied des programmes d'action positive à l'intention des Franco-Ontariennes et Franco-Ontariens ;

(5) que le gouvernement de l'Ontario accroisse son activité dans la préservation, la protection et la promotion de la communauté franco-ontarienne.

Nous avons illustré jusqu'ici les arguments historiques qui témoignent des désavantages directs et systématiques qu'ont vécus les francophones en Ontario depuis plus de 100 ans, et nous vous avons présenté des données à l'appui, démontrant statistiquement l'effet d'exclusion de ces politiques et ces pratiques sur la minorité francophone. Il est évident que le gouvernement ontarien doit inclure les francophones à titre de groupe désigné, sans quoi il sera perçu comme allant à l'encontre de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Merci à vous tous.

The Chair: Merci. We'll begin with the official opposition, approximately 5 minutes per caucus.

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Mr Curling: Thank you very much for your presentation. I had concerns too that the francophones were not included in the employment equity plan although I see, and rightfully so, as you cited, that the high rate of functional illiteracy is evident inside the francophone community and that in itself has shown us there's some neglect of services that were given to francophones, that historically they neglected themselves.

Do you see, in having the francophones included, that all the groups that feel they were discriminated because of language also will be asking to be included? I'm only taking the language point of view of the francophones now -- I know it's also a cultural situation -- that they themselves would also feel they should be included in the employment equity bill.

M. Michaud : I believe it's important to know at this point --

The Chair: Monsieur Michaud, si vous voulez, vous pouvez parler en français. On a des traducteurs.

M. Michaud : D'accord, je pourrai répondre et si je me sens embûché par la question, je répondrai en français par bouts, possiblement.

I believe that in 1987, it was clear to the Ontario legislative party at that time that francophones did occupy a right place in the Ontario community. At that point, 500,000 francophones in Ontario had the right to education, health services and other social services and judicial rights.

It's important at this time that, if these rights are to be given to the francophone community, we as well give them an economic place in our society so that they don't become dependent on our province. If we are going to give them the right that Canadians have given them as a whole part of the history of our Canadian society, all rights should be given to them.

I understand what you're saying about other minorities and language rights that could be asked by other minorities. At this time, I believe we should answer the rights of the founding nations of our country and we will try to look at as well, with time, trying to service other culture and language rights that belong to Canada as a part of our nation.

Mr Murphy: If I could, je vous remercie pour votre présentation. C'est excellent.

I asked the minister when she was here why francophones were not included in the bill, and part of the answer related to the lack of sufficient information to show that there was systemic discrimination against francophones. I think to be fair the minister indicated a willingness to consider that inclusion, should there be further information. I guess the problem I have with that position is that there obviously was sufficient information to include francophones in the public sector employment equity programs the government has undertaken.

I'm wondering, do you know what data were used as part of that and whether that in itself is producing information that can lead to some conclusions, and whether that can be applied with respect to the inclusion of francophones in this employment equity bill?

M. Michaud : We have referred to the reasons that Mrs Ziemba gave for not including us. In fact, I think it was three days ago that Mrs Ziemba indicated the inclusion or exclusion was not clear to her at this point.

Some of the arguments, as we have indicated in this presentation, that medical people who have obtained that training, whether it be doctors or nurses, do have the same opportunities or equity in salaries, are not adequate arguments, according to us. We're afraid this one was used to say they're not equity groups that are discriminated against.

Unfortunately, in our population, Statistics Canada 1986 and 1991 shows as well that our cultural group does not participate at the same rate as non-francophones in these training institutions, so they don't become doctors or nurses or whatever professional field you would like at the same rate non-francophones do. That's the problem, I think, in the interpretation of certain statistics that have guided the exclusion of francophones in this bill. Does that answer your question?

Mr Murphy: Yes.

The Chair: I'm sorry. We've run out of time. We've exceeded the time in fact. Mr Tilson.

Mr Tilson: I would like to follow up, because I think the issue of language rights is an issue. There's no question that there are many groups in the province of Ontario that may not fit in the four groups that are referred to, but they feel they are discriminated against because of language. They may come from some community, they may be white individuals who come from a particular community, but because of their language they feel they're discriminated against.

The francophone community, of course, can say, "Oh, but we're a founding nation and our constitutional rights etc." I guess my question is, there's a great deal of difference between discrimination and discrimination that is preventing promotion or in fact the hiring.

You have given statistics between francophones and anglophones with respect to unemployment. Are you able to determine whether or not those statistics are because of discrimination or because of other economic factors, for example particularly francophone communities that may in general, for whatever reason, not be as successful as other communities?

M. Michaud: I'm not sure what you understand by "discrimination," whether discrimination would be the lack of services, so that the population known as the francophone community of Ontario is discriminated against because it does not have the tools it needs to acquire training that will give it an economic situation that is favourable to Ontario. I think that is a form of discrimination as well, and if we are going to correct that discrimination, we are going to have to allow them to acquire the positions that will let them become an integral part of our society in Ontario.

Discrimination is not just the fact that you're not allowed to be promoted to a certain level of a position. It can be the refusal of the tools you need to become a rightful part of our society in Ontario.

Mr Tilson: Are your submissions then not really within the employment equity legislation, that you are saying, "Listen, we expect and demand that the francophone community retain" -- in other words, getting to the last two points you have put forward in the summary, at least I think it's yours; I have one here of four points of recommendations. I believe those are yours. If not, I'm sure you believe in them. Should those submissions more appropriately be made at another forum?

M. Michaud : I'm not sure whether or not this group or this commission has been mandated to discover what groups are most in need of regaining a rightful position in our workplace. I believe that is the fundamental philosophy behind this issue, to find the right place or to -- in French I would say un rattrapage. We're trying to find, with this commission, the right way to give all groups in Ontario an equal opportunity in the workplace.

Francophones do not have at this time, but hopefully in the future they will have, their right place and will acquire equity in the job place. At this time they do not, and whether it be because they don't have the right tools or not, we must make way so that this group does become a viable economic part of our society, and I think that's the issue we're trying to get to here.

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The Chair: Sorry, Mr Tilson; we've run out of time.

Mr Winninger: Je vous remercie aussi pour votre discours et vos recommandations. Je pense que vous êtes d'accord que, si les francophones ont le même niveau d'éducation et de formation, ils ne rencontreront pas les mêmes obstacles que les membres des autres groupes désignés, et que ce gouvernement adresse le manque de formation et d'éducation par des moyens comme the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, the employment equity program in the Ontario public service, et aussi l'extension des collèges francophones en Ontario.

Si l'éducation et la formation sont à la base du problème, est-ce qu'il est nécessaire d'inclure les francophones comme classe désignée sous le projet de loi ?

M. Michaud : Il est certain, à ce moment-ci, qu'il y a un grand manque, et on est à la veille de corriger ce grand manque de formation pour les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes. Mais il faut dire aussi que cet outil, qui est à veille d'être développé, n'est pas sur pied à ce moment. D'ailleurs, c'est une lacune qui existe depuis 1912 en Ontario. Cette lacune qui existe depuis 1912 a créé chez nous des analphabètes dans le nord qui comptent jusqu'à 60 % de la population.

Pour corriger ces problèmes d'anormalité dans notre société qui causent des hauts taux de chômage, d'assistés sociaux, il va falloir dès aujourd'hui mettre sur plan -- et on vous suggère un plan quinquennal pour cinq ans. Ce sont des plans immédiats pour corriger les anormalités d'équité au travail pour les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes.

Dans le temps, autant qu'on voudrait corriger ces anormalités autant chez les femmes que chez les autochtones, chez les handicapés et chez les ethnoculturels, on espère qu'on aura eu la chance dans cinq ans ou dix ans de les corriger pour les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes. À ce moment, les anormalités d'équité en matière d'emploi existent pour les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes. On doit les corriger dès aujourd'hui.

Mr Winninger: Une autre question ?

The Chair: Finale, oui.

Mr Winninger: Il me semble que la majorité des francophones sont les femmes, les autochtones et d'autres groupes désignés. Il y a une protection sous le projet de loi pour la majorité des francophones.

M. Michaud : Je pense que le problème s'est illustré d'après les statistiques. Cette protection ne suffit pas pour placer les Franco-Ontariens et les Franco-Ontariennes sur un pied d'égalité avec les autres, puisqu'ils sont en chômage et sont assistés sociaux à un plus grand taux que n'importe quelle autre partie de la population ontarienne.

Mr Winninger: Merci. Je comprends votre position.

M. Michaud : Merci.

The Chair: Monsieur Michaud et Monsieur Maachar, merci pour votre présentation et votre participation ici aujourd'hui.

SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPORT AND INFORMATION CENTRE

The Chair: The South African Support and Information Centre, Mr Kekana. You have half an hour for your presentation, as you've seen with the previous delegation. Would you please introduce your friend and colleague there. Once we've done that, we can begin.

Mr Maisela Kekana: This is Patrick Cindi.

Mr Chairman, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I guess I don't have to tell you why we are presenting this paper, because we feel it's necessary and essential that people from our group and those other so-called designated groups, being women, the disabled and natives, also have a right to participate fully in this society, like everybody else.

I'll start by reading excerpts from what we compiled in the organization we come from.

For the sake of our children, in order to minimize the bill they must pay, we must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion; the value placed on the colour of the skin, the sex one bears and the age one is at is always and everywhere and for ever a delusion. We know that what we are asking is impossible, but in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least we can demand. We are, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and African history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less that the perpetual achievement of the impossible.

Why do we think this legislation or this bill is necessary? This legislation, whose time we think is long overdue, should have been here over 200 years ago.

Canadian society must bear the moral weight and unfortunately, even at this late hour, there are still those in our midst who do not seem up to the task.

While numerous studies have been commissioned over the years, the aboriginal, the visible minorities, the disabled and women continue to experience high rates of unemployment and more discrimination in finding employment, in retaining meaningful career employment and in being promoted.

The May riots of last year in Toronto and the subsequent Stephen Lewis report could have been a valuable provincial, and hence national, lesson on the full implications of the politics of exclusion and white supremacy. There is no national consensus on what we have learned and what we should do.

Neither do we seem to learn anything from the situation in the US, which in many respects mirrors our own here. In the US, enduring structural inequalities have relegated minorities such as African Americans, into a state of permanent "other" in American life. This situation does more than prevent minorities from fully participating in the larger society. It also fundamentally harms the social, political and economic interests of the majority. It is the situation that has hastened the onset of a wide-ranging socioeconomic crisis that is most pervasive and endemic in the great US metropolitan areas.

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For the affluent white American, this crisis has precipitated a flight out of the urban centres to the surrounding suburbs. There they have insulated themselves against larger concerns and have developed enclaves whose basic disposition towards the state and society is highly self-centred and holds out little hope for collective solutions to social problems.

To the African Americans, who have always been on the periphery of society, this crisis has cast a shadow of nihilism over large sections of that community, especially the young. This manifests in the daily experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness and alienation in the extreme. The frightening result is the numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition towards the world. Life without meaning, hope and love breeds a cold-hearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others.

As it is true for the US, so it is for Canada. An assessment of an immigrant African community to establish trends that affect all aspects of their collective experience, from birth throughout their educational career to their employment disempowerment, was carried out in 1991 and 1992. To this end, senior members of our organization were mandated to carry out this extensive research into some of the most pressing problems that accentuate a high dropout rate of African students and high incidence of social dysfunction among the young African Canadians and the seemingly persistent pattern of high unemployment rate endemic within the African Canadian population, thereby hindering normal integration of Africans into the mainstream of Canadian life and productive workforce.

African Canadian students comprise a significant portion of the African Canadian population, and if these students continue to perform poorly, it follows that the whole African Canadian community will be marginalized. The African Canadian students of high and secondary school age constitute approximately 6% of the entire student population in Ontario, yet suffer an unthinkably high dropout rate of 50% as of grade 9. This situation challenges all sectors of our society. If left unattended, it could endanger all communities and impact negatively on the entire society.

Shifts within the global economy also hold out their own special difficulties. In this regard, the ascendancy of the Reagan-Bush conservative economic and social model, blind to the vast social problems that have motivated Americans themselves to reject this model, is still sending shock waves all over Canada, particularly in the province of Ontario.

These historical changes are not confined to the province of Ontario and Canada alone. They are truly a global phenomenon. In many countries the once effective national sovereignty is declining. In extreme cases ethnic strife or even civil war is the result. Particularly in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, but elsewhere as well, ethnic consciousness is on the rise, accompanied in some places by the threat, and sometimes by the reality, of "ethnic cleansing." The constant threat of Quebec separating is a case in point.

Contrary to the increasing animosity within nations, there is a growing movement towards the consolidation of enormous multistate economic blocs. The disorientation resulting from all of this is universal. At the level of our understanding of what constitutes a sovereign state and its role in society, the transformation we are now experiencing is the most profound one since the French Revolution.

Contradictions have always been a permanent feature of human existence. Life is always made up of continuities and discontinuities. Even as our environment is changing, we can choose to focus on those things which remain static, to shrink, if we like, from what is happening around us. From our comfortable homes in Toronto, it is easy for some of us to think that things will go on much as they have in the past. Our jobs will always be there in the same place. Our city, our province and our country will go on much as in the past.

The imminent crisis that now threatens to tear Canada apart arose from within. However, these internal stresses have been greatly heightened by the new global forces that are now wrenching Canada into a new and unfamiliar shape. The new Canada is barely intelligible to our decision-makers, who do not know how to deal with an altered world system that has greatly changed the way Canadians relate to each other. British Columbians naturally focus on the rising power centres of East Asia. Quebeckers, who have remade their society in recent decades and established a new business class, are most concerned about winning new markets for themselves in both Europe and the United States. Ontarians, long used to occupying the central place in Canadian life, are becoming increasingly anxious about how the technological revolution and the shifting global division of labour is affecting their long-established and valuable manufacturing sector.

Canadians, particularly Ontarians, find themselves facing a terrible dilemma. All nations are being drawn inexorably into the wider world. However, for us Canadians the pressure to conform to the new global order comes primarily from our powerful neighbour down south, and the US, as those with eyes shall see, faces the very real prospect that it will be the first victim of globalization. Our real dilemma is this: How do we face the necessary challenges of the new global age without becoming victims of the socioeconomic crisis that now threatens the elephant next door?

It is clear that the new social and political order has descended upon us. The free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement have set rules for Canada's economic and industrial policies. They are real, if unacknowledged, the fourth level of government, planted atop the municipal, provincial and federal levels. The new economic order does not take into account anything that will reinforce social peace and traditional ways of doing things. Instead, propelled by new technology and corporate power, it is advancing a program which is nothing less than the remaking of the world.

The Holy Grail of the globalization agenda is competitiveness. The unintended consequence of the search for it has been havoc. Plant closures; the economic base of entire regions is laid to waste; small- and medium-sized businesses are taken over or driven into bankruptcy; the business sector stops emphasizing the production of goods and the selling of services; and money games become the focal point. Takeovers, leveraged buyouts, junk bonds and currency speculation are hideous results of conservative deregulation at both the domestic and global level. Cost-cutting to achieve competitiveness is the domestic equivalent to competitive deflation on the international level. Such strategies did much to create the long recession that began in the English-speaking countries in 1990 and has been spreading to the rest of the world ever since.

The byproduct of the new world order is the politics of exclusion. Rising unemployment leads to a sharp rise in the number of people who are permanently poor, violent crime and the welfare plague society. Such a crisis inspires the search for scapegoats.

It is scapegoating that has spawned the new, exclusionist right wing with values that are different from those of market conservatives. Immigrants, visible minorities, women, the disabled, natives, AIDS sufferers, homosexuals and welfare recipients are its targets. The process is far advanced in both North America and Europe.

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A society that fails to utilize all its available resources effectively is doomed.

In conclusion, without offering anything specific, given our limited knowledge of the intricacies and technicalities involved in the bill, we firmly believe that for the bill to have any teeth, it must be made equitable to all, especially those who have been excluded from the process, the so-called designated groups.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Tilson, four minutes and a half.

Mr Tilson: Thank you, sir, for your presentation. I look at some of the thoughts you've presented to us, and much of your concern seems to be an emphasis on a lack of availability of education or encouraging of education or training, whether one is currently in school and leaves and then tries to come back and that sort of thing. That can apply to all kinds of groups, all kinds of minorities, and women, indeed, who have left the workforce and then try and come back, and the difficulties they encounter.

I guess I'd like you to tell me a little bit about the discrimination: whether you feel with respect to your specific groups that discrimination may be responsible for a percentage of the problem or whether it's other factors.

Mr Kekana: I guess, as you can tell, you have now heard from the organizations we come from that we are officially former South Africans, so we are still South African by heart probably but physically we are here in Canada. We know what discrimination does. When you legislate us out of education, you definitely make sure that we are not going to get employment.

So discrimination is a permanent feature. Whether it's subtle or it's brutal, as it is with apartheid in South Africa, it's still discrimination. So we still face the same discrimination here.

Mr Tilson: I understand that, and as I look, for example, at page 6, the question you do deal with with respect to education, you say, "The African Canadian students comprise a significant portion of the African Canadian population," and then you talk about the dropout rates. One of the concerns, of course, whether it be discrimination or lack of training -- and the government, to be fair, although we've criticized how it's going about it -- is the effort of keeping up with the rest of the world and educational programs.

I guess I'm getting back to you that, for this purpose of employment equity, are you saying to us that there are inadequate educational programs for minority groups or are you saying, "No, there is simply out-and-out discrimination and this bill is the only solution"?

Mr Kekana: Discrimination is a wide -- it could be in schools, it could be in the job sector, it could be anywhere. But as said of workers now, it's time to equalize employment, not education, I believe. So I believe this is just to highlight what discrimination does, because other people justify that why we don't get into these jobs is because we don't have education, but because they deny us education, then they can bring about all these arguments that we should go back to school before we can get employed.

Mr Tilson: So you're saying not only are you denied jobs but you're denied education.

Mr Kekana: Yes, sir.

Mr Tilson: You go back even further than the jobs.

Mr Kekana: Yes, sir.

Mr Patrick Cindi: Can I just say, because I think you talked about the historical background of discrimination, discrimination lays the foundation for excluding from jobs, from schools. When students drop out of those schools, obviously they enter the workforce and they get discriminated against.

Ms Harrington: I appreciated your presentation. I thought you gave a very thoughtful look at the global situation as you see it and some of the terrifying parts of it, that is, your statement about the politics of exclusion and the search for scapegoats. Certainly we in Ontario are part of the global situation, but we certainly hope that this legislation is going to do something meaningful.

I want to, first of all, ask you something about your organization. Are you mainly based in Toronto?

Mr Kekana: We are a federally registered organization. Because of racism and discrimination again, we don't have the resources to implement everything, but we do have people who are functioning out of their own apartments, whether it's in British Columbia or whether it's -- we are actually national.

Ms Harrington: How many people would belong to your association?

Mr Kekana: Where? Here in Toronto or nationally?

Ms Harrington: In Ontario. Okay, you're called the South African Support and Information Centre.

Mr Kekana: Yes.

Ms Harrington: So you don't actually have a membership then.

Mr Kekana: We do have.

Ms Harrington: Okay. About how many people would you be representing?

Mr Kekana: It fluctuates, but at any given point we'll have about 100 to 200 people.

Ms Harrington: Is it mainly in Toronto?

Mr Kekana: Mainly in Toronto but, like I said, we have people in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and --

Ms Harrington: To give us a picture of the type of jobs they are in, can you give me an idea of the type of people and their situation in Toronto?

Mr Kekana: That's interesting, because we have some people who are professionals, who are lawyers and doctors and others from South Africa, but they come here; they find that they can't. They have been told to go back to school. They go and take a master's here, a master's there and still come back and they don't have good jobs. So we find out people are going to school until they are 60. After school, they retire. They have to go to pension. So we can't continue doing that.

Ms Harrington: For this legislation to really work, the people in the designated groups have to have the information about how to, first of all, fill out the survey and be involved in a positive way to try and change the workforce with their employer and work together at this. Do you feel that the people you represent in their occupations want to participate and are looking forward, say, eagerly to be part of this process? Do they know about it?

Mr Kekana: This process we're in now?

Ms Harrington: Yes.

Mr Kekana: Yes, they do.

Ms Harrington: So they're feeling that this is going to be a positive opportunity for them?

Mr Kekana: Definitely.

Ms Harrington: Good.

The Chair: One final question.

Ms Harrington: I want to ask one further question, and that is, we've heard from some people who appear here that this might cost too much, that is, setting up a commission and a tribunal, and that we don't need more regulation; you know, business is overregulated now. What would you say to these critics of this legislation?

Mr Kekana: I guess that's what Reagan and Bush said, you know.

Ms Harrington: Okay. Thank you very much. Ms Carter?

The Chair: I'm sorry, there's no more time. Mr Curling.

Mr Curling: Thank you very much for that presentation. I know you didn't deal specifically with the bill, and I think it's important that this committee hears some of the background and the concern and the historical nature of discrimination and what causes it.

One of the most important things about even after seeing this kind of historical discrimination that happens -- as you say, it's rather global -- is how legislators like ourselves sit down and write an effective bill, laws, to wipe out this kind of systemic and endemic discrimination. The rhetoric sometimes keeps us -- as a matter of fact, it's an empty belly kind of stuff. It's lovely, filled with the academic stuff and it's nice in a way, but the fact is that --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): The challenge was made yesterday. Suggest the changes, Alvin.

Mr Curling: The rhetoric is coming through again.

Mr Perruzza: Suggest the changes.

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Mr Curling: So therefore it is so important that the laws reflect some of the deep, hard concerns that you have here.

The question I usually ask -- especially countries like Ontario and Canada, which are very, very rich, we throw money at things and sometimes it doesn't happen. My question to you is, isn't it extremely important that we don't have laws that are weak, that you are better off having no laws at all, because having laws that are weak, what it does is puts money in the pockets of lawyers and it puts a lot of politicians and all that getting elected for promises. How do you feel about a law that would be weak in itself, so that maybe the first case you could have in employment equity around here, a case would be about the next three years?

Mr Kekana: What you are saying is that a weak law is worse than no law at all?

Interjection.

Mr Curling: Will you give the presenter a chance to respond.

The Chair: Please continue. Disregard the occasional disruption.

Mr Kekana: I believe that when a man is hungry, half a loaf is better than no bread at all. Even if a law is weak, at least still a law is there; it can be implemented and effected. But if there is no law at all, then we are back into the jungle, where anybody can do anything, any time, wherever they feel they like. So we've been having no law here for the last whatever years and we've been facing hell in this heaven which you just did describe, how rich it is. So we'd better get a little bit of that heaven, even if it's just to step in the door and see what's happening in heaven.

The Chair: One final question.

Mr Perruzza: I could go home right now and --

Mr Cindi: Can I just address that question? Maybe Mr Curling is saying that it's better not to have a civil rights bill.

Mr Curling: Sorry?

Mr Cindi: Would you support the civil rights bill, for instance? There is a civil rights bill in the United States. Some people argue that it's too weak, right? From your own perspective, you'd rather not have that civil rights bill, if I understand you quite correctly.

Mr Curling: The fact is that there are laws in this country, the Human Rights Commission that deals with discrimination. This wants to, in respect of that -- sometimes we get lost. Some of my colleagues here felt that we don't need to respond to this bill because what is here is good. It is a matter of improving --

Mr Perruzza: I didn't say that, Alvin. I certainly didn't say that. What I've been trying --

Mr Tilson: Point of order, Mr Chairman: I'm trying to hear what Mr Curling has to say.

The Chair: Yes. Continue, Mr Curling.

Mr Curling: It is to improve something here. Of course I think it's good that the bill is before us to be improved and we have that opportunity. So we do have laws and human rights and all that here. It is felt that it has not been effective. The opportunity here is to sort of make it very effective.

My concern, basically, and that's why I really applaud your presentation, is for the understanding of all lawmakers here that we need to move to where it is rather effective. That's my point. As a matter of fact, maybe I don't need a comment from you. If you do want to, that's fine.

Mr Kekana: So what you are saying is that this bill is not effective or won't be effective as a law.

Mr Curling: It could be better.

Mr Kekana: Oh, it could be better, but there has to be something. That's what you're saying.

Mr Curling: Yes.

Mr Kekana: Okay. Can you make suggestions of what should be --

Interjections.

The Chair: All right, please.

Mr Curling: That's basically the idea, of course, was to hear your suggestions.

The Chair: And he answered by posing you a question.

Mr Fletcher: That was his answer?

The Chair: And that was your answer?

Mr Kekana: Yes.

The Chair: We've run out of time. Thank you very much for your presentation and coming here today.

DISABLED PERSONS WORKING TOGETHER

The Chair: Disabled Persons Working Together, Bruce Wenham. I want to welcome you, Mr Wenham. We have half an hour for the presentation and you can leave as much time as you want for the questions and answers. Please begin any time you're ready.

Mr Bruce Wenham: Thank you for inviting me to this forum. It's something of a novelty to me.

Before I begin my remarks, I just want to preface them. Employment equity has been around for some time in the federal sector. It has not been very successful. I believe it's in part because it's done as a voluntary measure, even though it's legislated. There are lessons to be learned from why employment equity hasn't been effective in the federal sector.

A second point, I think, to put this bill into context is the changing economy of Canada in which this legislation is going to operate. The Canadian economy has been through major restructuring, and I came across this article from a publication by the Federal Business Development Bank which stated:

"During the past decade, small businesses have become major players taking on a significantly increased role in the Canadian economy. They account for a large proportion of Canada's sales and profits and continue to be the major source of job creation in this country. In fact, between 1979 and 1989, they accounted for more than 80% of all new employment, or a total of 21 million new Canadian jobs."

So most new employment is being created in small businesses. I would argue that the smaller businesses or the smaller employers referred to in the act, which start at 50, should be reduced to be the same as that in the public sector, which I believe start at around 10.

With reference to the goals and timetables within the act, I find that under regulation 21, small employers do not have to set any numerical goals. I can't understand: Why have goals and timetables if there is no way to measure their effectiveness? So I would like to see that small employer deleted from 21.

I also find the method for calculating the numerical goals as laid out in the regulations fairly unclear, and I'd quite like to see the commission establish a basis or some sort of formula to calculate this, because if you're presented with a bunch of demographics, I'm sure different companies are going to come up with radically different answers and you won't have a standard solution.

Finally, on the question of timetables, despite every employer having to set out specific timetables in an employment equity plan, there seems to be no overall target date by which time one could reasonably expect the workforce to reflect the composition of the community.

Just a couple of more points and then you can throw questions at me.

With respect to barriers, in section 10 of the bill, which deals with the removal of the barriers, I feel there is far too little information and guidance for employers to effectively address this issue. You know, "What is a barrier? I'm a small employer. Where do I find this information?" Clause 11(1)(b), again, which deals with positive measures, also needs to be made more explicit. I notice that in the bill itself the term "positive measures" is used, but I got a bit confused. In the regulations the word "qualitative" is used. Shouldn't there be a consistency between the two?

Neither the bill nor the regulations have any mechanism at all to evaluate what barrier removal or positive measures have been taken, and possibly to monitor that.

Finally, with regard to the information -- and I think this is a very important issue -- there is no provision in the bill to make the data collected available to the public; neither is there access to employment equity plans by third parties. Both of these I think are essential if there's going to be effective monitoring of the impact of the legislation.

My final comment: I am a bit concerned that the amendments to the Human Rights Code with the employment equity -- I do think this may close off a potential avenue of complaint. The reasoning behind that is that if the complaint falls under a certified employment equity plan and in due course that complaint will be resolved by the current practice, the complainants will basically have to hang around until that occurs.

So that basically covers my queries about the bill. Otherwise, I think it's quite good.

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The Chair: Okay, thank you. The government members have a minute each.

Ms Harrington: Yes, I'll leave time for my colleagues this time.

I just have a couple of quick questions. From your last few comments, it sounds to me as though you're taking the position that, yes, this bill is going to be effective and will work, and that is, I think, our main concern now: making sure that we put forward some amendments to ensure that it is going to have the effect that we want it to have, and that means real change in our society. Do you feel it is going to be effective? Workable?

Mr Wenham: Yes, I do think it can be effective, but I think it can be strengthened a bit. I do realize that a lot of employers will be moaning about, "Oh, no, another piece of paper which goes on top of my workers' compensation, my pay equity etc." But the community I represent is -- I believe, in the disabled community, approximately 80% of our community are either underemployed or out of work. I would like to see equitable access into the workforce. This also goes hand in hand with equitable access into training.

The last thing I want to see is, "Yep, we'll hire you because you have a disability." That is not the question. The question is, I want the equality of opportunity, the equality to compete on an equal basis, and to achieve that, those systemic barriers need to be removed.

Ms Harrington: Thank you. So we are trying to get a workable and a fairly simplified process there.

We've heard other people talk about the cost of modifying the workplace for people with disabilities. Can you give us an idea of what these costs might be?

Mr Wenham: I have read, and I can't remember where so it could be quite spurious, but I think the average cost of accommodation pretty well works out around about $500. On occasion, some people will need specific mechanical aids. However, I would argue that, yes, there is an initial cost, but is it not cheaper to, say, fork out a couple of thousand dollars for some special equipment than to keep that person on family benefits or welfare for the rest of his or her life?

Ms Harrington: Very good.

Ms Carter: Thank you. I understand that people in your group support the method of self-identification as part of the employment equity process, and I think if there were problems with this method, that might be where they would be. People say, "Where do you draw the line?" and "How is this going to work?" What can you tell us about the basis for your support of this policy?

Mr Wenham: I believe a group called Disabled Persons for Employment Equity launched some sort of lawsuit against a few of the banks because in terms of trying to sort out who was disabled as members of their workforce, there wasn't self-identification. It was like, "Well, you wear glasses, so you have a disability." I think self-identification is probably the best way.

Now, I think this would only really work if the cultural attitudes change, and I do think that hitherto, if I had a hidden disability such as epilepsy, I may well not have wished to disclose that to my employer. However, being a bit cynical, if there is a perceived advantage in self-disclosing, I may well disclose that. The difficulty around it is, is it going to be a disadvantage to me? I think historically, yes, it would have been a disadvantage, but hopefully attitudes are changing a bit and people can be more truthful and, by making a self-disclosure, not be discriminated against.

Ms Carter: And of course if somebody with something like epilepsy did get a job and the employer didn't know, and then it became evident that they had a disability, then they might be liable to lose their job, whereas if it's all up front, then you wouldn't face that same problem.

Mr Wenham: You see, it's a difficult one. People will take jobs, maybe at any price, but if you do something like that, essentially I think you're entering into a breach of trust with your employer. "Okay, so that's the first lie. When's the next one going to happen?" From the employer's point of view, I can sympathize. "You should have told me up front and not left it till that sort of scene arose."

Ms Carter: There will be, I understand, an educational process to explain to people that it is in their interests to self-disclose.

Mr Wenham: The impression I'm getting at the moment is that, especially among smaller employers who don't have large human resource sectors or what have you to educate their staff, there's a great deal of, not always panic, but a great deal of uncertainty in understanding.

I believe that when the Americans with Disabilities Act was introduced, all these wonderful, experienced consultancy companies sprang up. They would send out letters of dire warning: "If you do not comply with this, you'll be subject to x thousands of dollars in penalties. In return, hire our services." They'd subsequently turn up with what was basically available on the public library shelves. There is that sort of abuse of any system.

In terms of educating the workforce, I think it's important. It's got to be part of it, but then, again, in the regulations you don't have to fill in the form. You can return it empty.

Mr Murphy: Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate the opportunity to ask you some questions, because some of the comments you made give rise to a few things I'd like to follow up on. One was your discussion about your concern about the amendments to the Human Rights Code.

There was one thing in particular with respect to accommodation for disabled persons that did cause me concern, because it seems to me there's the potential, the way it's drafted, for a person with a disability who isn't hired or isn't given a promotional opportunity to go to the Human Rights Commission and then be told to go to the Employment Equity Commission because of "reasonable efforts." They conclude that it's all right under the employment equity plan, but may then have to go back to the Human Rights Commission, because it may be a different test under the Human Rights Code. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about that problem.

Mr Wenham: In my understanding, if you look at the wording, in the Human Rights Commission it would be that the employer would have to show providing this accommodation would produce undue hardship. It's much more soft in the regulations. It just says "has made reasonable efforts." It loses in that way. But, on the other hand, if it's part of the employment equity plan that's been filed and been accepted by the Employment Equity Commission, then "We are making reasonable efforts" is a valid defence. For that particular worker, you're out of luck. Your human rights avenue has been shut, because the employer is making reasonable efforts, and he is not suffering undue hardship, which would have been the defence for the human rights one.

Mr Murphy: The Human Rights Commission has a certain amount of delay and I could see there being three- and four- and five-year delays before there being any kind of result coming out in any determination because of the bouncing back and forth. What that leads to for me -- and I'd like to have one question of follow-up on that -- is that in your experience or through your organization you would have had, I would think, a fair amount of experience dealing with the commission as to what "accommodation" means under the Human Rights Code. How have you found that to work out in practical terms? I know you've quoted the figure of $500. Could you give us some sense of how that's worked in practical terms in the Human Rights Code complaint context?

Mr Wenham: No, I'd have to give a written answer to the clerk and check on it.

Mr Murphy: Okay, thank you. Because one of the things that leads to, and one of our concerns, is that the Employment Equity Commission is a new bureaucracy and has essentially been created from scratch. There is an experience level built up to some degree in the Human Rights Commission, although it has a backlog which I think could be fixed, and there's the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal. I think there's a certain logic to putting that together and creating an employment commission where you could have money dedicated to education, some to the policy part and some to the quasi-judicial kind of review things. I'm wondering if you would think it might be a good idea to put that experience together in one group as opposed to separating it here and there, all over the place, and reducing the amount of bouncing back and forth that might be caused.

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Mr Wenham: Yes, to a degree that could make sense. Why do I have to knock on three doors to lodge a complaint? Can I not knock on one door? It might be cost-effective.

Mr Murphy: You talked about -- and I think it entirely valid -- the notion that it makes more sense from a societal perspective to have people spend $500 or $1,000 to accommodate someone in the workforce rather than have someone on family benefits or welfare. Have you any thoughts or done any studies on the allocation of the cost of accommodation between government and the private sector as a tradeoff against the benefit government and society get from removing someone from family benefits?

Mr Wenham: It's an interesting one. Imagine I'm working. If I approach vocational rehab services for the special equipment I need to do my job, I probably won't get it. But if I've got the promise of a job and I need the special equipment to get it, then VRS will pay up for it. But I do think business ought to contribute something, because otherwise why have it? If it's not going to make a contribution to my business, if it's not going to pay off at the bottom line and make my shareholders happy, I don't think I'm going to have it. Yes, maybe there is this upfront cost, but I would also suggest that quite possibly there ought to be a tax break for that. If you buy any capital equipment, you can depreciate it over three or four or five years, whatever. Why not do the same for accommodation?

Mr Murphy: That's exactly where I was going. That kind of incentive system I think could be put in place.

Mr Wenham: Yes, very much so.

Mr Tilson: I'm glad Mr Murphy raised that and you pursued it, because certainly the small business person in particular -- over 50 or whatever number one wanted to take -- who may unintentionally be discriminating against the disabled person, if you take any particular occupation, any particular job, may not have the equipment, whether it be a word processor or a piece of equipment that disabled people can use. They are trying to stay alive and, all of a sudden, legislation comes along with certain timetables which you've referred to. Not only are they going to have to have human resources people to set out these plans or hire a consultant to set out these plans, but if they're deemed not to have an appropriate plan or if they develop an appropriate plan, then they're going to have to do other things.

I'd like to continue with what you were talking about with Mr Murphy, because I think that's very important. It's fine to set up all these plans, but then what do you do?

Mr Wenham: I think this is possibly why small business doesn't have to file the plans till 1997, and has a three-year leeway, which I think is a bit too long. However, during those three years, and if the plan is implemented, I would think that with a bit of foresight and talking to the accountant, he could set aside in his targets whatever you want to call it, say, "Yes, right, and over the three years we're going to hire one person with a disability and we're looking at this particular occupational area." Then again, for the person the company may hire there may be no accommodation cost or no special equipment needed. I personally don't use any special equipment. However, if there were that extra incurred cost, I think that should be factored in through some sort of accounting mechanism so that it could be defrayed as part of the overall business expenses.

But I think one of the problems which I haven't quite thought through is that if there is a high ongoing cost -- say, interpretative service or something like that -- which is not in a sense tangible -- I mean, it's not a lump of metal with a plug on the end of it -- I'm not entirely sure how you can write that off. But no, I definitely think that businesses should have some mechanism to defray the extra cost.

Mr Tilson: Do I have time for another question?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr Tilson: I'd like you to comment on placement opportunities, which affect all groups, not just the disabled but all groups. One goes through with the plans and one determines that a numerical goal must be reached by a certain time and within the timetable. My question is, should changes in the representation of these designated groups occur only if a position becomes vacant or requires a replacement, or should a new position be created?

Mr Wenham: No, you can't create new positions just for the hell of it and then crank up the numbers.

Mr Tilson: I'm glad you said that, because we'll be in deep trouble.

Mr Wenham: I would think that in your equity plan you're going to have, "Right, we're going to have some of it roughly based on past experience, a certain amount of staff turnover, whether it's retirement or people moving on to other jobs." Natural vacancies will occur. Hopefully, if we get out of this recession, we might start expanding, boom times. On that basis, you're looking at what the potential level of vacancies is going to be and then applying targets to those. We would like to meet those.

Now, you'll notice that all of this stuff is framed in terms of making reasonable progress. It doesn't say you have to fill in all these --

Mr Tilson: Oh, I'm not so sure. I quite agree that if our economy unfolds the way we hope it will -- in other words, if we expand, more jobs will be needed and so on -- then this plan will work. The difficulty is that if the recession continues for a period of time and timetables are to be met as set forth in vague terminology of the commission, which is pretty vague as far as the regulations are concerned, then some of the small firms particularly are going to be in deep trouble.

Mr Wenham: No, I think the smaller employers don't have to file their reports till 1997. The first review of everything's going to take place in the year 2000. Hopefully, I'll be retired by then, but this whole point is that I think --

Mr Tilson: I don't know whether you meant that sarcastically, that you'll be away from the mess or not.

Mr Wenham: We had boom times here in Canada, I believe in the 1980s. I wasn't living here at the time, but we didn't introduce it then. What are we going to do, wait for the next economic growth period to introduce it? You'll wait until doomsday. Introduce it now. Introduce it during tough times. It may be a slightly bitter pill for some people to swallow. At the moment, because unfortunately all this stuff is in the regulations, not in the bill, depending who's in power come the next review, those regulations could change quite dramatically.

Mr Tilson: Which is the criticism of most presenters.

Mr Wenham: Well, that's one thing, yes.

The Chair: Mr Wenham, thank you for coming today and for participating in these hearings.

REGIONAL MULTICULTURAL YOUTH COUNCIL/MULTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO

The Chair: The next group is the Regional Multicultural Youth Council/Multicultural Association of Northwestern Ontario, Mr Aaron Goldstein. Mr Goldstein, you have half an hour for the presentation.

Mr Aaron Goldstein: Thank you very much, Mr Chair and members of the committee. My name is Aaron Goldstein and I serve as the press officer of the Regional Multicultural Youth Council/Multicultural Association of Northwestern Ontario. Better known as RMYC/MANWO, the mandate of our organization is to promote diversity through cross-cultural awareness.

Though I've provided you with some information, I'll tell you a little bit about both organizations. MANWO is the umbrella organization for the various cultural, ethnocultural and racial minority groups throughout northwestern Ontario, a region that is nearly two thirds the land mass of the province. The RMYC is part of MANWO with a focus on youth.

The manner in which awareness is promoted is as diverse as the people who have involved themselves with our organization. Small and isolated communities have been brought together through both recreational and avocational activities that include cultural performances to celebrate and share our diverse and rich heritage. We are also involved in advocacy and community development work and have established a unique alliance with the first nations and francophone communities in northwestern Ontario.

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More recently, in partnership with 10 first nations bands, including our neighbours Fort William First Nation and the home community of our own youth camp coordinator, George Ishabid of Aroland First Nation, we facilitated the Summer Camp '93 training program. Designed to promote healthy lifestyles on the reserves, aboriginal youth were trained by our summer camp team of their peers from different cultural and racial backgrounds. They had a chance to learn leadership and organizational skills to empower them to deal with the negative lifestyles they had identified, such as problems of urban integration, the unacceptably high school dropout rate and the current suicide epidemic on the reserves. While many live lives of different rhythms and beats, the exercise created an orchestra of harmony and enabled both the aboriginal and non-aboriginal youths to share their experiences and work together to improve the quality of life for the next generation.

Since joining the RMYC in 1990, my role within the organization has been that of an activist as well as an advocate. In July 1992, on the heels of the Stephen Lewis report and the Employment Equity Commission report, I was responsible for preparing a commentary, which we presented to Anna-Marie Stewart, the assistant deputy minister of the Ontario Anti-Racism Secretariat. Recommendations in the paper, which we also submitted to Mr Lewis and Mrs Zanana Akande, included: the standardization of the provincial minimum wage; the establishment of a post-secondary education trust fund; a teen court program; the inclusion of human rights and anti-racism education in the curriculum; youth representation on all relevant government boards and commissions; and the establishment of a government structure to represent youth -- whether ministry or secretariat.

We believe in these recommendations and have done our best to act on them. This past January 20, I appeared before the standing committee on resources development, which was conducting hearings on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act which received royal assent last month. We recommended that the committee amend subsection 9(2) to include a director for youth on OTAB. Though our amendment was not adopted, honourable members on all sides of the committee and this House began to ask why young people were not represented by the political institutions that shape our daily lives.

Most recently, this past July 15, Moffatt Makuto, the regional consultant of MANWO-RMYC, and myself attended the briefing hosted by the Honourable Dave Cooke, the Minister of Education and Training, on his ministry's anti-racism, access and equity initiatives. We later had the opportunity to speak with both the minister and his deputy, Mr Charles Pascal, to inform them of the preliminary results of our own recent survey that examined the employment, job training and education aspirations of young people in northwestern Ontario. I also congratulated them and the Honourable Elaine Ziemba for the new initiatives to incorporate anti-racism in education and for the appointment of Manisha Bharti to the Royal Commission on Learning. This appointment proves that this government recognizes that reform to education is not possible without hearing the views of young people who are as much stakeholders in the system as teachers, administrators, school board trustees and parents.

Now we are participating in the employment equity legislation. We have examined both Bill 79 and the recently released draft regulations. Both MANWO and the RMYC wish to extend support for this legislation. It is our belief that this legislation will be a stepping stone in creating both a more diverse and dedicated workforce in Ontario's public and private sector. Those who imply that this act will force employers to hire unqualified individuals suggests that they have put forth little effort in understanding, let alone reading, this legislation.

For argument's sake, if 40% of engineering graduates are women, yet only 5% of these graduates are employed as engineers, one has to be provoked to ask why this underrepresentation exists. Yes, economic times are tough, but it still doesn't address the question of underrepresentation which exists under all economic conditions, good and bad. This underrepresentation is a result of both intentional and systemic discrimination. As long as stakeholders have the power to structure and implement equity plans relevant to the needs of their workplace, then the intent of this act will have been realized.

Honourable members who have read the guide to the draft regulation will know that the letter and spirit of this act are being tested by five companies. This will ensure any flaws found within the letter or spirit of the act will be nipped in the bud and corrected. Great care will be taken to ensure the plan works for all parties involved. The guide clearly states:

"Employment equity cannot change things overnight. There would be little point, for instance, in an employer setting a goal of women filling half of the company's chemical engineer positions when the proportion of women working in that field, or with the necessary skills, or currently in engineering schools, is much lower."

A thorough reading of the legislation and regulation should put to rest any fears that this measure will deny qualified individuals the right to participate and productively contribute in the workplace and in Ontario's social and economic wellbeing.

In the spirit of ensuring that this legislation works for all concerned, I direct your attention to an excerpt from last year's Employment Equity Commissioner's report, entitled Opening Doors:

"Young people were themselves active participants in the consultations, and they were frequently mentioned by other participants.... Parents, teachers, employers and unions all noted the importance of involving youth at an early age in understanding, accepting and promoting employment equity. Young people clearly experience more difficulties in finding jobs than other participants.... In spite of their current difficulties, young people are enthusiastic about contributing and building a just society. They want opportunities to fulfil their potential and show what they can do. They, more than any other group, will be looking to the results of employment equity legislation to see the kind of future they will face in Ontario."

According to the guide to the draft regulation, any employment equity plan will be targeted towards "the working age population of a specific geographical area." Given that Statistics Canada defines the "working age population" as those persons 15 years of age and over, this legislation will have a direct effect on young people and if all bodes well, young people will have an opportunity to help determine the direction of their workplace.

But in order for this goal to be realized, workers will have to be represented by the institution that serves their daily needs. The following three amendments we are proposing relate to the principles of this act and the structure and function of the Employment Equity Commission. We believe the following should be added to section 2 of the act:

"Given that this act will affect aboriginal people, people with disabilities, members of racial minorities and women in the working-age population and that their progress has been impaired by barriers, both systemic and intentional, it shall be recognized equity must take root at the earliest possible age."

Our other two amendments are directed towards the Employment Equity Commission. The first addresses the Employment Equity Commission's structure. Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré has done an admirable job as Ontario's first Employment Equity Commissioner. However, a single commissioner, no matter how effective, is not a commission.

Subsection 40(2) of the act reads as follows: "The commission is composed of one or more members to be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council." The above could imply that the Lieutenant Governor in Council could appoint a commission consisting of only one individual.

Given that subsection 40(3) provides for an Employment Equity Commissioner, the previous clause should be reserved to appoint commissioners that reflect Ontario's working-age population. We propose that subsection 40(2) be struck out and substituted to read:

"The commission shall be composed of at least three members to be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, representing the following groups:

"One commissioner representing women.

"One commissioner representing racial minorities.

"One commissioner representing people with disabilities.

"One of the commissioners mentioned above shall be a person between the ages of 15 to 24.

"One commissioner representing aboriginal people shall be appointed subject to the consultation and approval of the aboriginal community."

Our final recommendation addresses the function of the Employment Equity Commission. Structural amendments to an act are incomplete without amendments to its functional provisions. The seven duties listed under subsection 41(1) serve little purpose, unless representing the people you serve is recognized as as much of a function as serving the people. We propose the following be added to subsection 41(1):

"To represent and serve aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, racial minorities and women in the working-age population with the intent to address issues and come to solutions in a cooperative and consensual manner."

Whether honourable members agree or disagree with these particular amendments, it is our hope that you will recognize that equity needs to take root at the earliest possible age and that this principle take root by representing young people in the political institutions that represent interests so vital to our very wellbeing. If you acknowledge this principle, it is up to you to begin the process of putting it into practice.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak before you this afternoon on an issue which means a great deal to RMYC-MANWO, as well as myself personally. I welcome any and all questions members may have for me in the time remaining. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Official opposition members, seven minutes.

Mr Curling: Thank you very much. I think it's a well-thought-out presentation. You seem to have put a lot of work in it. Of course, maybe you're there from the beginning and you seem to have some guidance in what came forward here. I think that the commissioner, with her comments, seemed to have listened to the youth presentation and their contribution.

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Could I ask, then -- I know you've given this quite a lot of thought -- the seniority clause within the legislation, do you feel it would have impeded young people coming up through the ranks at all? Do you think it has any impediments at all conflicting with the purpose of the employment equity plan?

Mr Goldstein: I don't see why it should, but that's not the point of my presentation. I think whether you strengthen the seniority clause or weaken it, I don't think it's relevant to addressing the needs of young people with respect to being represented by the political institutions that serve the daily needs.

One of the reasons I decided -- or should I say the organization -- to put forth its second amendment -- if you look at subsection 45(3), when the commission appoints an advisory committee, there have to be representatives from the employees, the employers and the designated groups. You don't see that in the structure of the Employment Equity Commission. That's more or less my main premise. But the question regarding seniority rights, I don't think it matters one way or the other.

Mr Curling: You don't think at all it conflicts with the --

Mr Goldstein: Not at all.

Mr Tilson: Thank you, sir, for coming to us this afternoon. The emphasis seems to be on the youth, that you feel youth should play a larger role in this whole process. Looking at you, I understand why you're taking that position. However, there have been remarks made by individuals, particularly seniors, who feel that they have been discriminated against because of lack of training, keeping up with the times, whatever. In other words, as you reach a certain age, you're finished. What about them? Why are you emphasizing youth and not looking at senior groups?

Mr Goldstein: You can make the same argument of the senior citizens' group: Why are they emphasizing themselves and not the youth groups? We are pursuing our own interests and we have nothing against the senior citizens' groups pursuing their own interests. If they want to be included in the text of this act, we're behind them 110% and more power to them.

Mr Tilson: I guess that's great, although when do we stop? Pretty soon we're going to have a pretty big commission; we're going to have a pretty big group. How far will we go?

Mr Goldstein: As far as we possibly need to go. This question was asked of me when I appeared before the standing committee on resources development last January. It was a Liberal member, Dalton McGuinty, asking me much the same question when our organization was lobbying for youth representation on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. We may have to go as far as we need to go. The point is, whether you're talking about young people, whether you're talking about people over the age of 65, it's a considerable percentage of the population and it seems mysterious to them not being directly represented in some way on the government structures that affect their daily lives, in this particular case, the Employment Equity Commission.

Mr Tilson: Looking at your recommendation -- I'm not too sure what the number is; at page 3 there's a recommendation. You're asking that a certain subsection be added as section 2. The last three words, you refer to the "earliest possible age." What does that mean?

Mr Goldstein: The earliest possible age -- I'm referring more or less specifically to the definition of working-age population which, as I said in the presentation, according to Statistics Canada, is from 15 years of age and upwards. Obviously, young people enter institutions well before that. Our educational institutions, young people enter at the age of four and five. But this being somewhat directly or indirectly labour legislation and applying to the workforce, the earliest possible age would be about 15.

Mr Tilson: Which leads me to my next question. There's been much controversy for and against the merit principle. I'd like to hear your thoughts either for or against that. I guess the most important question about numerical goals and timetables is whether they are consistent with the merit principle. If barriers to employment are removed, then I suppose members of the disadvantaged groups should be able to be subjected to the competitive process and hence be hired only on the basis of merit. That is one view. There are other views that say no.

Would you tell me what your thoughts are from your perspective, of the youth in particular, as to whether the merit principle should be mentioned in Bill 79? As you know, Bill 79 makes no mention of job qualifications and does not expressly preserve the employer's right to hire the best-qualified candidate.

Mr Goldstein: Well, my comment to that is that you can't create nothing out of nothing. I think this legislation is intended to include qualified people who for whatever reason have not been included in the past. I'm not necessarily saying that you're making the assumption, but there are people who believe all this legislation is licence to hire unqualified people.

But even if you do hire people who are so-called unqualified, it's one thing to be hired, but it's another thing to hold on to a job too. You do have to perform with some degree of competency.

Mr Tilson: Oh, that's not what this bill says, necessarily. If what you're saying is correct, that I have misunderstood the bill, that the merit principle is not within the bill, just to remove any doubts, would you have any problems with a provision being put in the bill by way of an amendment that would include the merit principle?

Mr Goldstein: If an employee is not performing adequately at his or her particular job, I don't see how this legislation is going to stop an employer from dealing with that particular employee.

Mr Tilson: You look at subsection 50(2) --

The Chair: Last question, Mr Tilson.

Mr Tilson: -- which refers to regulations, the authority for the government, by way of regulations, to put forward percentages and essentially quotas. That doesn't necessarily agree with what you've just said. In other words, the commission could therefore say there needs to be a certain percentage of whatever groups in a particular --

Mr Goldstein: But you're not going to be creating nothing out of nothing. You perhaps missed the point of my own brief. What I said was if, for argument's sake, 40% of engineering graduates were women and only 5% of those working engineers were women, clearly there was a problem. But since that number to my knowledge doesn't exist, there would be no point in creating such a quota, as you put it. So I think your fears are ungrounded.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. It's nice to have your opinions. Did you come all the way from Thunder Bay for this?

Mr Goldstein: Yes, I did. I flew here this morning and I'm flying back as soon as I get out of here.

Mr Fletcher: We wanted to travel to Thunder Bay. We wanted to travel throughout the province but the opposition said, "No, we don't want to travel; we want to do this in Toronto."

I know there are a lot of groups in Thunder Bay and a lot of groups in northern Ontario that this is going to affect. I think we should have been there. The minister is going to be in Thunder Bay tomorrow, I believe.

Mr Goldstein: On Saturday.

Mr Fletcher: On Saturday? Okay. And so you'll get some firsthand information from the minister.

Mr Curling: But she won't be here.

Mr Fletcher: Some of the things I'm hearing from you are things I've heard from other young people.

Interjections.

The Chair: Continue.

Mr Fletcher: I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Mr Goldstein: Excuse me. I can't hear what the member is saying. I wish members would refrain --

Mr Fletcher: It's the opposition again.

The Chair: There, the Chair has spoken.

Mr Fletcher: What I'm saying is that a lot of people who are coming out of school go for a job and then, "You don't have the experience," you know, that's the first thing.

The second thing is, "Well, you know, come back in a few more years." That is a barrier regardless. I think at some point in time employers are going to have to look at it and say: "Well, maybe you don't have the experience, but we can give you the experience. We can train you." Perhaps that's another way of getting around some of the systemic discrimination that goes on as far as young people are concerned. I don't know if that can be worked into it or not but is that something --

Mr Goldstein: I was born in 1972. I'll be 21 years old in a couple of months. I am part of generation X. I think one of the recurring themes of generation X is that we're the first fired and last hired, but I think given that economic times are tough and an alternative -- the organization I belong to has helped me tremendously in the skills that I've acquired over the last four or five years in terms of volunteering, in terms of summer employment and what not. Young people do have a degree of responsibility in seeking it out, or the organization seeking them out in turn, to develop these skills. But I think employers have to also play a role in that, perhaps cooperatively with organizations such as my own.

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Mr Fletcher: I agree wholeheartedly with your --

The Chair: Mr Fletcher, without intending to interrupt you, there are two other speakers who would like to speak, just as a reminder.

Mr Fletcher: Yes, I know.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the fact that the commission should be made up of the groups it represents; it should reflect those groups. I agree wholeheartedly. I think that's a very good point. I think it's a point we will be discussing wholeheartedly. I think that's great.

As far as the merit system is concerned and the bunk that goes on about it, there is nothing in this legislation that says you can't be hired because of whatever. There is absolutely nothing that does away with merit or that does away with a person who can do the job. There's absolutely nothing in the legislation that says that, and I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would go around saying something like that. It's to get it on the record, I guess. It's politics, obviously. But that is not part of the bill and the bill does not go into that depth of saying you cannot hire anyone you wish to hire. It doesn't limit that.

Mr Goldstein: I think there has been a certain climate of fear created by some interests that are opposed to this particular legislation, and to some degree they have been articulated by the opposition members, not necessarily to the degree that the organizations opposing this legislation would go to, but that's one of the reasons our organization is here, to combat some of the myths that have come out. The myths that have come out have been quite frankly scary, and organizations like our own have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to the public to say no, this isn't the case at all.

Mr Fletcher: Right. Thank you.

The Chair: Ms Harrington, one last question.

Ms Harrington: I'd like to follow up on that. I notice that you are in fact a young, white, able-bodied male, and there was one other young, white, able-bodied male who a few days ago presented before our committee. I believe he was 21, much like you but in fact quite different. He felt that the legislation would take opportunities away from him, that it would hurt him in some way. Have you met other young people, white males like this?

Mr Goldstein: Certainly.

Ms Harrington: What do you say to them?

Mr Goldstein: Well, assuming that they're willing to listen to me, I tell them first of all to read the legislation. I would say more than 95% of the people I encounter who say this thing is going to be added, the first thing I ask them is: "Did you read the legislation? Have you read anything about this?" Nine times out of ten they say no and I say: "Well, where do you get off saying that? It's basically an uninformed opinion."

If someone reads the legislation, reads the regulation -- I realize it's not the easiest thing in the world to read -- but if somebody makes a legitimate, conscientious effort to read the legislation, the regulation or anything else he can get his hands on and he does come to the conclusion that this legislation is not in his best interests, at least I'll be able to respect that individual's opinion, and then it depends on the tone of the argument at that point.

Ms Harrington: So in effect as a young person of 21, this legislation is not closing any doors to you?

Mr Goldstein: Not at all.

The Chair: Mr Goldstein, thanks for coming from northwestern Ontario to participate in these hearings.

Mr Goldstein: My pleasure.

SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN'S CENTRE

The Chair: The South Asian Women's Centre is the final deputant for the day. Ms Sharmini Fernando, you have approximately half an hour for this presentation.

Ms Sharmini Fernando: I don't think I'll need the whole half-hour, but thanks.

The Chair: That will leave time for questions and answers, obviously. Very well.

Ms Fernando: This is the South Asian Women's Centre and my name is Sharmini Fernando. I'm the executive director of the centre. I was just called an hour ago to be here. I was on the waiting list and I felt I wouldn't have a chance to get on, but somebody called me from this office and told me to come on down so here I am.

I've been involved with pushing for this bill and this legislation for I would say about five years. Unfortunately, my familiarity with all the legalese is negligible. I know it from a human perspective as opposed to a legalese perspective, so I hope the questions you ask me will not pertain to any of the legalese that belongs to the act and that belongs to the regulation and legislation. With that, I'll talk about what I have to say.

Somebody is passing around a little bit of information about the centre. The South Asian Women's Centre is a non-profit, ethnospecific women's organization run by and for South Asian women and operates on a community development model. The centre is a member-run and member-focused space where South Asian women of all backgrounds and ages can avail themselves of a number of programs and services. So that's generally who we are.

Because of who we are, visible minority women, the employment equity legislation is of paramount importance to us. Equity legislation and human rights legislation is one of the few institutional tools we have to fight age-old inequities. It is imperative for us that this legislation is strong and inclusive. We do not want the disappointment we felt, when the pay equity legislation was passed, to repeat itself. For a large proportion of visible minority women who are employed in small, unorganized workplaces, this legislation means very little. They rarely see equity and we rarely see equity. This must change if Ontario is to truly become a place of harmony.

Visible minority women, persons with disabilities, first nations people, racial minorities, gays and lesbians are systematically and consistently excluded from fully participating in Canadian society. This systemic discrimination must be stopped and stopped now. If you turn your back on this opportunity, the consequences for Canada and all Canadians will be severe.

Bill 79 is a simple, human legislation, and it's simple for me because all it asks is that employees and employers engage in a process of planning to get rid of barriers that keep these designated groups from full participation in the workplace. The right to work and the right to be recognized and remunerated for our work is a basic human right. We support the legislation wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, the methods set out in Bill 79 and the regulations which govern the act are so watered down that the effect of the bill becomes questionable, at least to us. A law that has weak enforcement power is, in our opinion, an exercise in futility and mere window dressing. In order for employment equity to work and have some impact, Bill 79 needs to change.

All principal mechanisms, and I'm just going to talk a little bit about -- are you Rosario Marchese?

The Chair: Yes.

Ms Fernando: Oh, I'm sorry; I don't have my glasses on. I remember you from a long time ago.

The Chair: Yes. Please continue.

Ms Fernando: In order for employment equity to work and have some impact, Bill 79 needs to change. All principal mechanisms for steering and enacting employment equity must be in the bill, not in the regulations, especially numerical timetables and employment systems review.

Coverage of all Ontario workplaces: It's unfortunate that the Employment Equity Act, as it's drafted, already excludes a great number of workplaces in Ontario. Public workplaces with fewer than 10 employees and private sector workplaces with fewer than 50 employees are not covered by the act at all. These employers account for one quarter of all employment in our province.

A lot of us who are new immigrants, who are visible minorities, tend to find work in small spaces and we don't get represented in huge corporations like IBM and other conglomerates. Places that are small are more accessible to us, and having these workplaces excluded from the act is a real problem for us.

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Third-party access to information on complaints on behalf of vulnerable individuals and groups and recognition of needs to end discrimination against lesbians and gay men refer to all opportunities for change, not just entry. Clear protection for collective agreements which do not breach the act; restrictions of commission officers' interventions into matters in dispute etc; guarantees for participation by representative employees in non-unionized workplaces without fear of reprisal; standards of reasonable progress towards representativity of the workforce; input from designated group members and their advocates in developing the commission and its policies; no loss of rights under the Human Rights Code for individuals subject to employment equity plans on discrimination complaints; and consistent and effective language on positive measures which apply to everyone. According to what we see, the bill uses sort of different language than that in the regulations, so to have consistent language.

That's it for me. Any questions? I'll try and answer them.

The Chair: We'll begin that. Mr Tilson, seven minutes or so.

Ms Fernando: Could you not make the questions too hard?

Mr Tilson: No, they'll be easy. I'm told by the government members that my questions are all very easy.

My question to you is that there are statistics out that say that by the year 2003, 80% of the workforce will come from the four designated groups.

Ms Fernando: Yes.

Mr Tilson: My question is, is employment equity inevitable?

Ms Fernando: No, I don't think so, because I think most of us will end up working in McDonald's or someplace. Most of us will end up working in the service sector. We'll be part-time workers, low pay, minimum wage, less than minimum wage, contract etc. So I don't think employment equity is at all inevitable. In fact I could see the designated groups sort of almost ghettoized by the year 2000.

Mr Tilson: You may be right. I guess one does have to look at statistics. We have to have some basis as to why we do things, and statistics are saying that. I mean, lots happened in the last 20 years. First of all, our population is changing tremendously. Our education philosophy is changing tremendously. We have become more and more of a cosmopolitan society, particularly in southern Ontario.

Ms Fernando: Cosmopolitan doesn't necessarily mean harmonious or equal, does it? At least I don't think so anyway.

Mr Tilson: I quite agree, and of course we've heard examples of discrimination with respect to language, with respect to age, with respect to youth --

Ms Fernando: Definitely, yes.

Mr Tilson: -- the last person, who's still here, with respect to youth -- and on it goes. But I guess, looking at this specific bill, one does have to look at that as to what we're trying to accomplish and what will happen in the year 2003 if that is the case. Do we change it again, or what do we do then?

Ms Fernando: I think employment equity prepares us for the year 2000. It should lay the foundation and create a path so that we can get to the year 2000. I think that this type of legislation shouldn't be considered as legislation that's written in stone and cannot change as statistics change or values change. Legislation, for it to be truly equal and truly applicable, should be a mutable thing, to change as people's values, needs and desires change.

As far as your question, a point of clarification: Are you saying that employment equity is inevitable because by the year 2003 we're going to have all these people who belong to the designated groups in Ontario, or --

Mr Tilson: I'm not saying that. That was my question to you. What I'm looking at is statistics that are coming out, and there is a recent study prepared for the Canadian Advertising Foundation which says that by the year 2001, 44.6% of the Metro area's population will be a visible minority. Then there's a Carleton University professor by the name of Samuel, John Samuel, who states that:

"`There is evidence to indicate that, for most Canadian-born visible minority groups, the level of income is higher...than that of the white population. The children of visible minority immigrants, except for one or two groups, are doing much better than the general population.'"

Then he goes on to say that, "According to the 1986 census...`when the general population had an annual income of $17,453, visible minorities had an income of $18,908 or 9% higher,'" and then he goes on.

I guess the point of my question is that the makeup of our population, particularly in the Metro area and particularly in southern Ontario, is rapidly changing. Are we specifically looking at the reports that the minister prepared, which are already out of date and have changed? A lot has happened since the reports she's relied on. I guess that was the purpose of my question.

Ms Fernando: I guess people can find statistics for almost everything.

Mr Tilson: You're quite right.

Ms Fernando: I know that -- you're right. But, I mean --

Mr Perruzza: You can get statistics too.

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, please let the deputant speak. Continue, please.

Ms Fernando: I'm sure that partially the statistics are correct, and again, I'm not a researcher so I don't really know, but my experience and my reality is that I don't think employment equity is just going to happen just because there are going to be more brown faces or because more lesbians and gays come out of the closet or because more people with disabilities are asking for their rights. History hasn't proven that. You as lawmakers and you as people in positions of power must look at history, I think, and look at what history has proven time and time again, that if there is no proactive methodology in place, there's not going to be any equality. There's not.

I think that what I hope for and what I hope for Canada and what I hope to happen when my children are born is that Ontario and Canada become a space that's truly inclusive, that we wouldn't have to fight for every little thing, that we can walk in, if we have the qualifications, to any workplace, present our qualifications, go through that interview process and be considered. That's all we ask for.

Ms Carter: It just occurs to me that women of course have always been half or more of the population and I believe in North America now women on the average are better educated than men, but that didn't solve the problem by itself, did it?

Ms Fernando: No, it didn't.

Ms Carter: So I absolutely agree with what you're saying. And, you know, we've been hearing a lot from the opposition members here and elsewhere --

Mr Perruzza: Sometimes too much. It gets very confusing.

Ms Carter: -- about having employment equity would somehow militate against employers having qualified staff, that if you have employment equity you don't have merit, you don't have hiring on merit. Of course what the bill actually says is that employers must take into account members of designated groups who have the necessary skills, and if they didn't have the necessary skills, then they would not be taken into account, and rightly not. It seems to me that the regulations enforce the merit principle, so I'd like to ask our presenter, what do you think of people who are saying that employment equity undermines merit and will require employers to hire unqualified staff?

Ms Fernando: Well, Jenny, I can't really understand your question, because I can't believe --

Mr Perruzza: It's okay, Elinor, you can leave. You haven't been here most of the day anyway.

Mrs Caplan: That's nonsense.

Ms Fernando: Is this really what happens here, like, you guys cross-talk all the time? My God, this is worse than North York city council.

The Chair: Ms Fernando, did you understand the question and hear it? I'm sorry.

Ms Fernando: I couldn't really get the gist of it because there was so much of this stuff going back and forth.

The Chair: Ms Carter, again.

Ms Carter: Basically I'm saying, what do you think about people who say that having employment equity will mean that unqualified people will have to be hired?

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Ms Fernando: Isn't that something, eh?

Ms Carter: It is something, yes. I'm just wondering what you think about it.

Ms Fernando: Do you know what? It's interesting how from the beginning -- I got involved around issues of employment equity when I started to work as a community worker and I was 20 then. I'm 32, and the push for employment equity is older than my entire work life. I mean, I remember working with Rosario when he was just working for the Toronto board of ed and we were organizing around streaming and equity in the schools.

This kind of stuff keeps happening over and over and over again, and I just love the way this sort of subversiveness happens when a community, and communities, all communities, try to move the human condition forward, because for me employment equity is about improving the human condition, our condition as a community, as a society, as a collective of human beings wanting the right to work and wanting the right to be recognized. I mean, I think that is a collective human need, and to subvert that need by using these kinds of drivel around, you know, somebody "gets off the boat," walks into the Ontario government and she happens to be sitting in a wheelchair wearing a pink triangle and she's going to get the job: That is such crap. It's unbelievable that people in 1993 still believe that, that that could happen. I don't get it. Even a 10-year-old wouldn't believe that. Yet the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, the Globe and Mail and all the other dailies and so-called journalists keep promoting this and pushing this, and I couldn't believe it. To me, it's unbelievable.

That is not what employment equity is all about. It was never what employment equity was all about. All employment equity wants is for people with equal qualifications to be equally considered, and that's it.

Ms Carter: Absolutely.

The Chair: We have time for one more question. Mr Fletcher was on the list.

Mr Fletcher: Go ahead, Jenny, if you have something else.

Ms Carter: I just wanted to say that there does seem to be confusion between employment equity as such and education and training. I think this was very clear in a group we had earlier -- I think it was the South Africans -- who were saying yes, there was an educational disadvantage in that they didn't get treated right at school, and obviously that's something that has to be looked at.

Ms Fernando: That's right. Of course. Exactly.

Ms Carter: On the other hand, if they succeed educationally and are perfectly well qualified, they can then go and apply for a job and not get it because of who they are. So we really have two separate issues here, and obviously the educational issue has to be dealt with, but that is not the same thing as job equity.

Ms Fernando: Not at all, but it's part and parcel of the whole systemic inequity, because you start out right from day one being unequal and being unequally treated. You have to look at the whole thing. You have to be holistic about it, and I think that politicians and other lawmakers tend to cut things up in such minute pieces that you can't see the God-damned forest for the trees. Excuse my language. I think that that can't happen any more.

Ms Carter: You see education and training as separate from employment equity.

Ms Fernando: I think that it's a part of the whole picture.

Ms Carter: Of the bigger picture.

Ms Fernando: Yes, of the bigger picture, but employment equity and educational streaming and education and training are different and obviously will be treated differently.

Mr Murphy: Thank you very much for your presentation. I thought that your statement in response to one of the questions, I believe Ms Carter's, was entirely appropriate, that the objective of employment equity is that people can go into a job setting regardless of background, gender, race, visible minority, cultural minority, aboriginal background, whatever, and be considered on the basis of equal qualifications equally for that job. I think as an objective of employment equity there is no one who can disagree with that, and I frankly think that as a fundamental statement of principle that deserves the first and foremost place in the preamble of this bill. One of the things we're trying to do is say that that's exactly what we're trying to achieve, and we'd like to see that in the bill because I think that's fundamental to what we're trying to do and that's the goal.

Mr Perruzza: You should get past the political statement and suggest alternatives.

Mr Murphy: I just suggested one, but I'd appreciate your not interrupting, Mr Perruzza, as you have been all day.

The Chair: Continue, Mr Murphy, please.

Mr Murphy: I do want to ask you about your organization specifically. You may not even know the answer. We're trying to talk to some of the officials in the ministry. Do you know whether this bill would apply to your organization?

Ms Fernando: In what way?

Mr Murphy: As in, would you be required to go through the process of the bill?

Ms Fernando: No, we won't be, because we employ the designated groups, visible minority women, women with -- is that what you mean?

Mr Murphy: No, I meant, regardless of whether or not you meet the targets of employment equity, you have to go through the process, and you may at the end say that, "Not only are we meeting the targets, we're past the targets." The question is -- because it applies to the broader public sector if you have more than 10 employees. I'm just wondering whether you know whether it applies to you.

Ms Fernando: We only have four people working there.

Mr Murphy: So it would not have to apply to you.

Ms Fernando: No.

Mr Murphy: You wouldn't have any problem going through the process of doing that, I would assume.

Ms Fernando: No.

Mr Murphy: I'm wondering; one of the things that was raised earlier by a Bangladeshi group was the issue of cultural minorities and linguistic minorities. I notice there's quite a range of languages that you speak. One of the issues is how the groupings within, for example, visible minority focuses primarily, obviously, on the visible characteristic of the individual. One of the concerns was raised about how do you deal within that, within not just different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and how you deal with that sensitivity. Have you given some thought to that?

Ms Fernando: You know what, Tim? "Visible minority" is not a term we gave ourselves; "visible minority" is a term that was given to us by you guys -- "you guys" meaning the powers that be. Not you personally, Alvin.

Mr Tilson: It's your fault, Alvin.

Mr Curling: I was visible for a long time.

Ms Fernando: So when women come into our centre, we don't ask them: "What part of the subcontinent are you from? Do you come from East Africa?" We don't. Those questions are irrelevant to our organization. We were formed because there was no space for us. "Us" means people who basically are from the subcontinent, from the South Asian diaspora. We have women who come from Algeria, from Tibet, from Turkey, through our centre. So even though we are a South Asian women's centre and as such one of the few ethnospecific -- and that's another term we didn't invent for ourselves -- services available to women, we don't discriminate. Our English-as-a-second-language teacher is a wonderful teacher who is originally from Italy. She's Italian. We have her because she believes in Pala Fererra and she uses that technology and that methodology when she teaches our students.

So again, the space is for South Asian women, run by South Asian women. South Asia is not a monolithic entity. The South Asians are not monolithic and we're from everywhere. So in that way, we're not limited at all to who we serve and who we're --

Mr Murphy: My question wasn't directed to your agency so much as how it would work out in the context of this bill and whether you have recommendations about -- the term within the bill is fairly specific, yet it encompasses a wide range of differential. I'm wondering if you have any suggestions of how to deal with the fact that there is that range within that definition.

Ms Fernando: That's a hard question, because I don't know how lawyers and lawmakers create these really strict little boxes, that everybody has to sort of fit into this tiny little hole. I haven't really studied the legalese in the legislation to give you the kind of answer you deserve, so I have to pass on that. I can't tell you.

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Mr Murphy: That's fair. One other, if I may.

The Chair: Very quickly.

Mr Murphy: You talked a couple of times about the issue of gays and lesbians and equality for them. I assume you've looked through the bill and, as you well know, gays and lesbians are not a designated group in this bill. Neither, for example, is the francophone community, which we've obviously heard from. I wonder whether you, as a member of one of the designated groups, would have any problem with the expansion of that to francophones or gays and lesbians.

Ms Fernando: Obviously not, because I talked about gays and lesbians in my deputation. I didn't talk about francophones, but I think language minorities need to be recognized. The people who came together to put employment equity together were the people who were hurting the most, and they were people with disabilities, visible minorities, women. They came together a long time ago to work on this thing because they were the ones who were being most badly damaged and hurt.

As most movements -- employment equity, pay equity and those equity types of movements, they're movements. They opened up and people started saying: "Well, hey, what about gays and lesbians? Hey, what about francophones? Aren't we a part of this too?" In real terms, they are; we are. Everybody who has been unequally treated should be represented in equity legislation. I personally have no problems expanding the legislation to include excluded minority or discriminated groups in the legislation.

The Chair: Mr Curling, would you like an opportunity to ask another question?

Mr Curling: I would love an opportunity to ask a question. She articulates her response so well. I could learn a lot in the process. You are familiar with the report of the Task Force on Access to Professions and Trades, and as you spoke you said that all people want to do is to be treated fairly if they have the qualifications. I want to speak of those who have the qualifications but have been denied because of professional organizations and associations. First, it's been recognized. Once the recommendation which lies in that report is implemented, it releases a tremendous amount of qualified people into the workplace, because they use that as an excuse, "You're not qualified; no Canadian experience," etc.

Do you think that should be implemented immediately so that, as you said, your children and maybe you yourself would have access immediately to this? The government has promised that: "Well, we've started on what we'll do. We've set up a pilot project on this." I cannot understand what the pilot is; like a satellite, the project could be orbiting on Saturday. Do you feel this would be extremely important now, to implement the recommendations of the report of the Task Force on Access to Professions and Trades?

Ms Fernando: Is that a trick question?

Mr Curling: No.

Ms Fernando: If I say yes, then would employment equity be shelved?

Mr Curling: No. I think that employment equity is extremely --

The Chair: That forces Mr Curling to ask yet another question.

Mr Curling: Employment equity is necessary and it should be implemented.

Ms Fernando: Right.

Mr Curling: I believe in it strongly. I think setting it out there on its own without the supportive things that studies and studies have proved where to move -- I'm just saying that here is a helpful way in which, if they release all those qualified people, there is far less excuse.

Ms Fernando: To me, that is a trick question.

Mr Curling: No.

Ms Fernando: You know why it's a trick question? Because when I look at people who come to this country who are already qualified -- I think the report should get equal consideration, by the way, and it should have some kind of consideration in the legislation. We have to be careful about this. I haven't really quite formulated my whole answer, so I might be a little fuzzy here, but when I think of lawyers and doctors and engineers and all these people who come from other countries to Canada and they're not allowed to practise their profession, I think that's a sin. I think it's a sad thing when a doctor or an engineer or somebody who spent all this time, energy and money doing something, having to immigrate because of war or because of famine or because of some other human-made disaster in the world to this country because this country seems more stable, then has to clean floors. What is that? To me, that's worse than sad; that's a sin. That's an ethical, moral sin.

At the same time, we need to look at issues of class and class privilege. When we look at a person who's a doctor in Somalia coming here, this person who's a doctor should get considered here as a doctor, but then there are people here who are Portuguese kids or black kids or Indian kids who are not even being given the opportunity to study to be a doctor because of their race or because of their class. Do you know what I'm saying?

So we need to have equity in education, employment equity, this kind of legislation in place simultaneously with this kind of stuff, the report that was written around trades and accessibility to trades and professions. They have to be looked at together. To say that this should be looked at and given more precedence over something else would, I think, again be cutting our nose to spite our face kind of thing.

The Chair: We've run out of time, Sharmini. I thank you for coming on short notice and to congratulate you on a very thoughtful and lively presentation.

Ms Fernando: Thank you.

The Chair: This meeting is adjourned and will resume August 23 at 10 o'clock.

The committee adjourned at 1656.