EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'ÉQUITÉ EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI
ALLIANCE FOR EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN AND THE LAW
ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPALITIES OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE NETWORK FOR RACIAL MINORITIES
INSTITUTE OF EQUALITY AND EMPLOYMENT
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNITY LIVING
STUTTERING ASSOCIATION OF TORONTO
CONTENTS
Thursday 26 August 1993
Employment Equity Act, 1993, Bill 79
Alliance for Employment Equity
David Onyalo, chair
Stephanie Allen, member
Margaret Hageman, provincial coordinator
Daina Green, member
Eric Schryer, member
National Association of Women and the Law
Maureen Kilgour, representative
Kate Erickson, representative
Association of Municipalities of Ontario
Helen Cooper, past-president
Paul Scott, representative
Mary Dauphinee, representative
Working Skills Centre
Liana Suryo-Atmojo, language training director
Christina Chu, placement officer
Afghan Association of Ontario
Ahmad-Shah Duranai, representative
Ontario Public Service Network for Racial Minorities
Yvonne Bobb, vice-chair
George Anand, executive member
Jim Noel, executive member
Institute for Equality and Employment
Brian Burkett, representative
James A. Lawson, representative
Jocelyne Cossar, representative
Michael Alexander
Ontario March of Dimes
William Hoch, board member
Jerry Lucas, program director
Ontario Association for Community Living
Gordon Kyle, community living consultant
Stuttering Association of Toronto
Jaan Pill, founder
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:
Callahan, Robert V. (Brampton South/-Sud L) for Mr Chiarelli
Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC) for Mr Tilson
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Mr Malkowski
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Duignan
Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC) for Mr Harnick
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Bromm, Scott, policy adviser, Ministry of Citizenship
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 1001 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.
ALLIANCE FOR EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I welcome the Alliance for Employment Equity representatives. I just want to briefly say you have half an hour for your presentation. Many of you have witnessed a lot of the presenters in terms of how they structure it. We'd like to leave as much time as possible for questions and answers. I leave that to you in terms of how much time you will want to allow for that. Please begin. Whoever is the spokesperson can introduce the others.
Mr David Onyalo: Thank you. I'll start the introductions. To my left is Colin Browne, who is a board member of the Alliance for Employment Equity, and Margaret Hageman, the coordinator for the alliance. To my right is Daina Green, of the Pay Equity Coalition, Stephanie Allen, of the native centre, and Eric Schryer, with the Disabled People for Employment Equity.
Having introduced the people who are representing the alliance today, I would just like to say who we are. The Alliance for Employment Equity is a coalition of community groups province-wide.
Interjection: Introduce yourself.
Mr Onyalo: I have just been reminded to introduce myself. My name is David Onyalo. I'm with CUPE. It's a province-wide organization that has brought together equity-seeking groups that have been fighting for employment equity in this province over the years. As a result of our coalition building, we've become one of the most prominent groups that have been fighting for employment equity. The question is, why did we get together?
The reason we got together was the realization that systemic discrimination can be fought by individuals or individual organizations. Systemic discrimination has to be fought through a collective effort. In terms of process, I would just like us to be on the record to say that we do support the principles of employment equity and that we applaud the objectives of Bill 79.
Having said that, I'll say something that will come as no surprise to those of you who have been following the discussions around employment equity; that is, that Bill 79 is a weak bill. The regulations that have been introduced that accompany this bill are confusing at best and don't add anything to the bill.
We'd like to make it very clear that although we support the principle of employment equity, we don't support Bill 79. We feel that the discussion that's going to follow this set of hearings will convince you to make those changes that are necessary to strengthen Bill 79. Later on, during our presentation, some members of our group will be giving you information on areas that we suggest some changes.
We also believe that the approach that has been taken by the government, which is a little-by-little approach, is not going to work. The bill has to be effective now for it to have any meaning; otherwise it will just be a wasted effort.
I'd also like, before I go to the members of our group, to ask you to have -- we've already given you the brief, the brief that we've presented to you as part of your record, including the presentation from the native centre.
Ms Stephanie Allen: My name is Stephanie Allen and I'm with the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto. I'm here today to address an issue of process. But first as a bit of background, the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, a member of the Alliance for Employment Equity, is an independent native friendship centre and among the oldest of urban agencies serving the needs of native people in Toronto. Friendship centres play a major role in both representing and serving aboriginal communities in urban centres.
The 1991 census has revealed that greater than 80% of the native population in Canada lives off-reserve. In Metropolitan Toronto the aboriginal population is estimated at 65,000 people, the largest concentration of native people anywhere in this country. This population includes status and non-status Indians, Metis and Inuit.
Yet, in the words of Bill Lee, the current vice-president of the Ontario Metis and Aboriginal Association, "Native people in Toronto are invisible and in the city being invisible is equal to non-existence." This invisibility is compounded by the lack of a strictly defined political voice. The traditionally recognized political organizations, including band councils, the political and territorial organizations, and the Chiefs of Ontario, do not represent off-reserve and non-status native people. Although off-reserve communities enjoy none of the benefits of the Indian Act, off-reserve people face the same social ills, including racial discrimination and high unemployment, as do native people living on-reserve, yet the human needs of the off-reserve people are often forgotten in the quagmire of various government jurisdictional responsibilities.
As a result, the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto seeks to address the needs and advocates for the rights of the native community here in Toronto.
The issue: This brings me to the purpose of the presentation, the total lack of notification concerning this standing committee process by the government of Ontario. After consulting with many other native organizations in the province we located only one, the Chiefs of Ontario, who were contacted, and then only one day prior to the deadline for application. The native centre only received word of this process through the efforts of the Alliance for Employment Equity.
The native community in Ontario, to the best of my knowledge, is now left in the position of having only one scheduled deputation by a native organization, that of the Ontario Native Women's Association. We at the native centre have been informed that we can submit a written deputation and sit on a waiting list hoping for an opening to be available.
This is wholly unacceptable. I should not need to explain that the aboriginal community is one of the designated groups targeted by the legislation, that this legislation will largely affect off-reserve aboriginal people and in particular the native population in Toronto. I should not need to remind the government of the Statement of Political Relationship and our inherent right to self-government, which Premier Bob Rae has publicly acknowledged applies to Toronto's urban aboriginal community.
We should not be an oversight in this process and we should not be relegated to second-class citizenship admitted through the back door with a written deputation. From the outset of the consultation process concerning employment equity, native organizations across the province have raised concerns regarding restrictive time frames and lack of adequate consultation.
Employment equity seeks to redress exclusion and discrimination. The preamble to the act speaks of equality of results rather than treatment. If this process is any indication of the results our community can expect to see from Bill 79, we indeed have serious concerns that need to be heard.
The Native Canadian Centre of Toronto demands that a scheduled time be allotted to make an oral deputation. We also suggest that there be flexibility in the current schedule to allow other native organizations to make a presentation if so desired, and that the native centre's name be added to any contact lists to ensure that this unfortunate situation is not repeated.
Ms Margaret Hageman: The Alliance for Employment Equity responds to objections to strengthen employment equity legislation.
You've heard that systemic discrimination is an invention. We say that systemic discrimination can be verified in many ways, from Judge Abella's 1984 royal commission report, and the effects of systemic discrimination include a persistent and significant underrepresentation of equity-seeking groups in the workforce, independent of merit or readiness for the job.
You've heard that we need a bill that focuses on awareness, not results. We say that an incremental approach will not work. It will be many years even before we see the first results. Let's do it right the first time.
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In addition to our understanding that this extension of human rights should not be implemented in a piecemeal way, there is also danger that weak legislation will produce wasted resources and have little intended effect due to lack of accountability and clarity.
You've said that many small employers would be overburdened by legislative requirements. We say that if legislation applies to all employers, no one will be singled out or disadvantaged. Employment equity is an effective and fair tool of planned change.
You've heard that we should not create preferential hiring practices. We say programs which remedy long-standing underrepresentation of designated groups are not reverse discrimination. They are specifically permitted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code. Special programs designed to relieve hardship or economic disadvantage or to assist disadvantaged persons or groups to achieve or attempt to achieve equal opportunity are consistent with anti-discrimination law.
You've heard that we can't push employers too far. We say that human rights tribunals are already ordering employers to implement employment equity plans. This is an extension of rights which, although already won, are hard to enforce on a case-by-case basis. Systemic problems must be dealt with in a systematic way.
You've heard that numerical targets are quotas and quotas are too strict. We say numerical targets, if set properly, will respect the availability of trainable, potential employees and economic ups and downs. They are not fixed quotas. Numerical goals are necessary to achieve and monitor changes in the workforce participation and retention of designated groups.
You say that employment equity can't fix the whole problem of systemic discrimination. We say that employment equity legislation works together with new training strategies, programs to recognize foreign accreditation and anti-harassment laws. It's one piece of the puzzle in maximizing the potential of all our human resources and in overcoming barriers to equality in employment.
You've heard that people will misrepresent themselves in the self-identification part of the workforce survey. We say that this hasn't happened at the federal level or under the Police Services Act. From these cases we think that it's not likely to occur under this legislation.
You've heard that employment equity is bad for business. We say barrier removal encourages skills and potential of all designated group members to participate to their fullest in the workforce. There is also no danger of displacing people from their jobs, nor does it mean promoting or hiring unqualified people.
You've heard that employment equity legislation will only create another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. We say that a tribunal is necessary, but it doesn't have to be expensive, if the powers are clearly set out and employer obligations are clear and consistent.
You've all said that you are in favour of fair, equitable employment laws. We say that it's time for mandatory employment equity legislation that's effective and enforceable.
Ms Daina Green: We didn't get to Bill 79 just having it spring fully formed into the Legislature. There's been a long road that's taken us here. I'd like to just take a moment to hit some of the highlights. In the brief that you have in front of you, I'm looking at page 4 and I won't refer to all the points, so you may want to follow along.
In 1984, employment equity as a concept was first put into circulation by Judge Rosalie Abella. She avocated very strongly for mandatory legislation in her royal commission report.
In 1986, we had the federal legislation on employment equity. This legislation is much like Bill 79 in its way of operating. It focuses more on identifying the problems and supposedly removing barriers. Like Bill 79, we fear that it will be as ineffective as the federal legislation has been in creating the results in the change of the workforce.
In 1990, the then opposition leader, Bob Rae, tabled a private member's bill, Bill 172, which laid out the content of employment equity plans and mechanisms for achieving numerical targets. It is unfortunate that most of these elements did not find their way into Bill 79. This is a chance for this government to do it right. This is a window of opportunity to create employment equity in a way that is not bureaucratic, but which is effective, which gives everybody the same rules and tells people how to do it.
I'd like to point out a few ways that the structure of Bill 79 may hinder achieving some of the goals. I'd like to refer to the pay equity legislation, because many of the elements in Bill 79 are borrowed from pay equity legislation. One of the ways that there is a mismatch created is in terms of who bargains and who benefits. Under pay equity, the parties to the plan are the ones who benefit. Under employment equity legislation, many of the potential beneficiaries are underrepresented or excluded from the workplaces, so the parties who will be bargaining the plan may or may not have the perspective of the excluded workers.
In pay equity legislation the larger establishments go first. It was based on a trickle-down principle that if you increase the rates of pay for women in large organizations, then smaller organizations will follow suit. Unfortunately the elimination of discriminatory practices or barriers to members of designated groups in large establishments is unlikely to carry over to small businesses. The message here unfortunately is the wrong one. Only the largest employers will have to clean up their act. The other ones can just sort of do this modified routine that will create very little change.
In terms of monitoring compliance, the commission under pay equity monitors and the tribunal enforces compliance in response to complaints from bargaining agents, employers and individual employees. But given that many of the potential beneficiaries of employment equity are not in the paid workforce and that they're in non-unionized settings, it's crucial that advocacy groups and other third parties be able to launch complaints and be able to make sure that the commission follows up on complaints on behalf of especially vulnerable employees.
I leave these matters with you in terms of structural changes.
I'd like to talk now about some of the content changes we believe are essential in Bill 79. Our changes are laid out in very close detail in the accompanying document, which is a clause-by-clause analysis with proposals for change for Bill 79. We've also supplied a rationale for each of the amendments, using legislative language. But I'm going to now go over the areas of change we've identified as being the most crucial.
All the mechanisms for employment equity must be in the bill. They should not be left to the regulations. That includes content of plans, employment systems review, positive measures, numerical goals and timetables and the posting of plans.
The next point is coverage for all Ontario workplaces. We're talking about no exemptions. We want all workplaces to be covered by the legislation.
Another key point is mandatory numerical goals for all employers, again with no exemptions for the small employers not to have to set numbers. Remember that the numbers are proportions. We're not asking companies to reveal how many people they plan to hire and lay off in a given year; we're asking that they identify what proportion of their opportunities for change they plan to bring in from the designated groups. That is not a violation of any business confidentiality that we're aware of. As I mentioned before, third-party access to information is a very key change that needs to be brought into this bill.
We also recognize that discrimination in employment also applies to people who face discrimination based on sexual orientation. We don't believe that sexual orientation has to be a group by which people identify themselves for the purpose of setting numerical goals. We're not asking for numerical goals. We believe that barriers to people based on their sexual orientation must be identified and removed.
In terms of how we set the targets, Bill 79 refers to opportunities for entry into categories, which could lead to a certain amount of manipulation of numbers. We favour changing that to "opportunities for change," which would include people leaving, people transferring laterally, people entering into lateral positions, into organizations. That would be a simple word change that would make the whole system a lot more fair, referring to opportunities for change.
In terms of the relationship between collective bargaining and employment equity, there must be clear protection for collective agreements which do not breach the act. We do not want commission officers coming in and getting involved with things in collective agreements that are not the subject of the employment equity dispute and which are not in violation of the Employment Equity Act.
In terms of non-unionized employees, there must be guarantees for participation by representative employees, not the hand-picked ones an employer may pick who think that everything's okay, and those people who participate in employment equity must have a clear guarantee that they will be free of reprisals.
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The commission has a very strong role to play in setting the goals and timetables for each geographic region. Those numbers should be set based on enhanced availability data and working-age population census data. That way, we're not seeing a bargaining situation where each employer and union or group of employees decide how many women they're going to let in or how many people of colour they're going to let in. Those numbers would be set out geographically in terms of the representation and the availability in each community. Everybody would be going towards the same standard.
We believe there should be input from designated group members and their advocates in developing the commission and the commission's policies.
In terms of the relation between the Human Rights Code and employment equity, there must be no loss of individual rights.
The tribunal needs to have an effective order power and the tribunal, as we've said, in terms of the commission should be representative of the designated groups.
Finally, one language problem between the bill as it stands and the regulations is that there's an inconsistency in the language with reference to positive measures. Positive measures should be referred to the same way in every part of the legislation. Otherwise it won't be enforceable at all. You must use the same language on positive, supportive measures.
That's a brief list of the major changes which we would see as absolutely necessary for an effective piece of legislation.
Mr Eric Schryer: Just to add on the topic of the regulations, so much of the bill has been left to regulations, and also the regulations have already been introduced at a much earlier stage than most pieces of legislation. We also urge the committee to consider doing a report on the regulations. Our understanding is that this is a possibility the committee can entertain and we strongly urge that you do so.
Mr Onyalo: Now we'll be happy to answer any questions or clarify any points you may have.
The Chair: Thank you. Four minutes per caucus. We'll begin with Mr Curling.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you for an excellent presentation, written and orally. I was trying to go through this, trying to keep up with you on the written side as you did the oral, because some of the comments you made were quite relevant.
Because of the short time and there are so many questions, I want to go right to ask for some help with an explanation in some respects. I'll go to number 10, where you said, "Employment equity legislation will only create another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy." That is what is being said. You didn't say that; that's what has been said. Your response is, "A tribunal is necessary, but does not have to be costly if its powers are clearly set out and employer obligations are also clear and consistent."
My question to you and the help I would need in this is that we have quite a few of these equity commissions around, and somehow when we create these commissions or bureaucracy, the feeling out there is that they've done something. We have now addressed an issue. I feel that there is pay equity out there. Let's take, for instance, the Human Rights Commission will be separate to all this, but there are all the other equity commissions. How do you feel about getting an equity commission that deals with pay equity and labour situations and employment equity? Do you see this as a workable commission to operate?
Mr Onyalo: I think what you're referring to is something that was brought up in the Mary Cornish report when they were investigating the Human Rights Commission. In terms of merging all the tribunals where there's a Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal, Employment Equity Tribunal or any other tribunal that deals with systems discrimination, our position at this point is that we need a tribunal to deal with employment equity issues. Once they've built a history of dealing with the issues that come before them, at some point in time, if the issue is cost-effectiveness, that can come later on.
I don't think we're in a position right now to say, "Well, that's going to work," because what we'd like is the Employment Equity Tribunal also to build a case history, a case load, so that when complaints go to the supertribunal you're talking about, at least there has been some consideration to those issues that strictly has to do with employment equity. I don't know if you're talking about cost-effectiveness. In our brief our present position is that we have an Employment Equity Tribunal.
Mr Curling: I hear you clear, and I understand it. I'm not trying to force --
The Chair: One last question, Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: The last question. There are so many things I'd like to ask you. Give me a second here. Mr Chairman, you threw me off.
Mr Onyalo: We can be available afterwards for questions.
Mr Curling: In a part of your presentation -- and I don't have a page here -- you said, "It is crucial that advocacy groups and other third parties be assured the ability to investigate complaints."
Do you see that in any way -- I've got to say this rather carefully -- making a delay for those who want to have a complaint? The concern that one has when we lodge a complaint in any of these bureaucracies is it takes so long. In this situation, I'm rather confused about how long. Have you gone through the file? How long would it take for an individual complainant who has put their case in, who may have gone to the Human Rights Commission first, just feeling it's a human rights case, and then asked to go to the Employment Equity Commission? Have you walked that through and found out how long it would take?
Mr Schryer: Actually, maybe to answer that, you've got to make a very clear distinction here between individual complaints, human rights complaints and complaints leading to employment equity systemic issues. There's quite a difference there.
Our sense of it is that if an individual complains, as far as a systemic problem goes, it's very important to have third-party intervention, because we're talking about a remedy that goes beyond just individual people having their rights being abused. We believe that if individual people have their individual rights abused or if they have a complaint, that's what the Human Rights Commission is for.
We have to really make it very clear, and that's why we also believe that there should be a separate tribunal, a separate process. There's a difference between a systemic remedy on the whole population, on the whole business community, and the remedy for an individual. That's another reason we think they should be separate and why we don't think it's going to be a problem to have third-party complaints dealing with it. If you have proper case management, these complaints will go through quite quickly.
Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm particularly pleased that you're here at the end of almost a two-week period, because I think we've heard many of the concerns that you have spoken to, and they've certainly been reinforced for us. I appreciate your presentation where you focus on "you've heard" and "we say." I think that certainly brings to our attention the fact that, if done appropriately, this bill can be transformed into a piece of legislation that would be workable and that would be fair and that would be equitable. I have to tell you, I really do appreciate the presentation that you've made.
There have been fears of quotas. There have been fears that people are going to be hired who are not properly qualified. On page 8, you indicate here: "Numerical targets, if set properly, will respect the availability of trainable potential employees and economic ups and downs. They are not fixed quotas." You've explained it further, and I did appreciate your explanation. Would you like to expand on that? I think that's one area that definitely the government needs to focus on and make changes, because somehow we have to alleviate the fears that are out there in the public that the media have certainly put forward. It's a real fear and we have to deal with it.
Mr Onyalo: I'll try to answer your question as briefly as possible. I think you're right absolutely that there have been a lot of fears in the media that employment equity means quotas, and the thing that comes up in people's minds is then, when you talk about quotas, you're talking about some fixed number that's being imposed by some outside body that says, "You have to employ so many people from this group by a certain time."
Our own sense is that numerical goals and timetables offer us an opportunity whereby employers, with the participation of employees in the workplace, can put in place a planned process. It's flexible in that they will be taking into account the realities of their own workplace.
But, at the same time, they're not going to get into this process in isolation with what's going on around employment equity, so the commissioner or whoever is charged with monitoring has to find a way of ensuring that they're actually doing what they're doing and that's where -- in our brief we've talked a lot about the numerical goals and timetables will be set according to some set standard, because that's crucial. Otherwise, if you leave it up to individual employers and employees in isolation of what's going on elsewhere, then we end up with what is happening to the federal legislation where nothing really happens at all.
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So in quick answer to your question, numerical goals and timetables is a flexible system. It's a planned process that takes into account the realities of the workplace and it's also reality in terms of dealing with changes that are taking place in our society. So for those people in our society who are afraid of employment equity because they think it's a quota system, our answer is no, it's not a quota system. There's a lot of flexibility there and it gives the employers and employees the power to make changes and takes into account the realities of the workplace.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mrs Witmer: I just have one last question. It is important, because I have to tell you I really appreciated the opportunity to sit here and listen. I think it's been an outstanding learning experience to understand what's going on in this province. I've heard you say the aboriginal community was not adequately consulted. Do you believe it's necessary for this committee to extend the hearings beyond the three weeks?
Mr Onyalo: Maybe I'll have Stephanie talk later on, but I can't only speak for the aboriginal community because I think that because they are a big part of our society -- I mean, the aboriginal issue is much bigger than what you're talking about here. I think it's incredible that a group such as the aboriginal community hasn't been given an opportunity to be heard. I mean, there's bureaucracy and there's bureaucracy, but at the same time it has to be common sense. I think it's pathetic that they have to hear from us that this process is taking place. So in terms of extending the hearings, I'm not going to speak for the other groups, but I think for the aboriginal community there should be an allowance made whereby they can make a presentation, whether it's oral or written. That's as far as I'll say.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you.
Mr David Winninger (London South): Point of order, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Rather than doing that, Mr Winninger, why don't we move on to questions or statements that you might have? Because I was going to clarify, as the Chair, in terms of what we've done as a process, but if you were to do that, that would be just the same.
Mr Winninger: I know my colleagues have questions. I just wanted to deal with that specific point because I do know a little bit about it and I hope you'll extend the same latitude to me that you've just extended to Ms Witmer.
The Chair: Yes. Go ahead.
Mr Winninger: I too was concerned that the Ontario Native Women's Association was the only group that appeared on the list of presenters, so I did some inquiring into that to find out which communities were written to. I have a list which I could share with you afterwards which indicates the communities and groups and representatives that were written to by the clerk. Of course, all of the communities that met with the Employment Equity Commissioner during her consultations in late 1991 and 1992 were given notice as well.
I'd just like to say this in addition, though, because I think it's important to know. While the aboriginal groups during the consultations expressed broad support for the goals and objectives of Bill 79, and that's why indeed aboriginal people are included as a designated group, there was some concern about the application of the statute to aboriginal workplaces and the need for in-depth consultation was emphasized. Bill 79, as you know, in section 91, allows for the development of separate legislative provisions dealing with aboriginal workplaces. Those discussions have been initiated but they're going to resume in depth, I understand, in September.
As a member of the round table, which the Chair of this committee also sits on, as well as I do, we know the important work that can be done there. So no one is seeking to minimize the importance of in-depth consultation. We would like to see more people at these hearings and that's why I was going to make some efforts to get more groups to come forward, but this isn't the end of it. There is a unique provision that is made to serve the needs of aboriginal people. I don't know if you have a comment on that, but I wanted to get that on the record.
Ms Stephanie Allen: In fact, we were part of the 1991-92 consultations at the Native Canadian Centre and I'm quite positive that we weren't contacted, nor have many of the other agencies that I contacted been contacted. For whatever slight, it's now over and done with.
But now what we're asking is at the very minimum to be allowed to make an oral deputation. This isn't anything near what we had hoped for. From the consultations back a year ago, you probably know that the aboriginal community provincially was calling for a moratorium on any legislation that dealt specifically with aboriginal employment equity issues. I don't want to get into that in this forum; we would like to make our own oral deputation. We don't want to take away time from the alliance. But at the very bare minimum, we would like to make an oral deputation, as I said. What the community is actually asking for is much more extensive than that.
Mr Winninger: As I said, my colleagues have questions. I can discuss it outside as well.
The Chair: Very well. Thank you. One question from you, Ms Harrington.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): Very briefly, you mentioned that the committee was not travelling and your concern about that, and that it had not been advertised the way it should be. I just want to tell you that in subcommittee with the opposition parties they held to ransom this committee, they did not want this committee to travel. In fact, they threatened to have the House, the Legislature sit all summer with regard to this issue. So it's incredible what the opposition has done and the kind of political games it has played with this legislation.
I want to ask you about the regulations and what is in the bill. That has been raised several times by various people. I want to call upon the ministry spokesperson to clarify what the status of the regulations is as opposed to what is in the bill in a court of law. Mr Chair, could we have the ministry person, please?
Mr Scott Bromm: Shall I just --
The Chair: Yes, that will be fine.
Mr Bromm: I know the issue has been raised that in a court of law if a challenge is made to the legislation, in fact the court will only give credence to what is in the legislation and ignore what is in the regulations, but that is not the case. A regulation has equal legal effect to what's in the legislation. The legislation refers specifically to the regulations, and if a regulation is in place, it has equal binding effect.
Ms Harrington: Would you like to comment, sir?
Mr Schryer: Yes, I'd like to make another comment to that. If something comes before a court of law to a tribunal and there are no regulations on a particular part of the statute, that could create quite a lengthy time period, because then the tribunal, the court, will have to define the regulation and the process, so to speak. In many cases, you know, a case we dealt with in months can take years to work out.
Mr Onyalo: I'd just like to comment.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Onyalo: I would just like to say that this committee has the power to make a report, it's our understanding. We are really concerned that this due process is taking place, the regulations process and the bill, and in our brief we've made several suggestions whereby we feel that there are a lot of substantial issues that are in direct relation that should be part of the bill. It's our understanding that this committee has the power to write a report around the regulations.
The Chair: Okay. We've run out of time, unfortunately. I want to thank all of you for coming and thank you for your informative and cogent presentation. Mr Mills.
Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): While we're changing presenters, can I just have a point of clarification? I'd like to say that there was some suggestion by the opposition that there were several equity-based commissions. I'd just like to put it on the record that there are only two: the Human Rights Commission and the Pay Equity Commission, for the record, Mr Curling.
The Chair: Okay.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN AND THE LAW
The Chair: The next presenters, the National Association of Women and the Law, Ms Erickson and Ms Kilgour. I'd like to welcome both of you to this committee. You have a half an hour for your presentation. Please leave as much time as you can for questions and answers. Begin any time you're ready.
Ms Maureen Kilgour: Hi. My name is Maureen Kilgour, and beside me is Kate Erickson. We're with the National Association of Women and the Law, which is a national, non-profit feminist organization that's concerned with legal research and law reform. One of the mandates of NAWL is to promote equality for women through law reform, so this is a very good opportunity for us to comment on the bill before us.
What I'd like to do, first of all, is to make some general comments about the legislation, give you our overall impressions and sort of highlight a few of the concerns we've raised in our brief, which you probably got yesterday and spent all night reading, hopefully, and after that Kate will make additional comments on some of the other areas of concern that we have. So if that's okay, we'll proceed that way. If there are any questions as we go along, feel free to interrupt or anything like that.
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I guess, generally, I come to this process by having a lot of experience in actually implementing employment equity policies, pay equity legislation, that type of thing. Kate will address it more from the perspective of a legal practitioner having to deal with this type of legislation.
One of the things that struck me as I was doing a bit of research on this legislation, as I went through my files from 1986 when I was working in Manitoba on the Manitoba affirmative action policy, which was not legislation and which only dealt with the public service, was that what was contained in this legislation is less rigorous than what was in that policy in 1986. It was a bit disappointing because I guess a lot has happened since 1986 in terms of equality and what we know can be done in the workplace and the advancement of law in these areas. So it's a bit discouraging to not feel that we're advancing on a policy level.
I guess the other impression I had was that there was nothing really exciting in the legislation. When we look for legislation that's going to deal with systemic discrimination and systemic problems, we like to find something that's sort of exciting and that we think actually will do a job, because there's nothing worse from an employee perspective, from a union perspective, from an activist perspective or from an employer's perspective than legislation which creates a whole mess and doesn't accomplish anything. I hope I'm not being too critical. Buy anyway, I'll go on to some specific concerns.
I guess, first of all, what we believe is that the Employment Equity Act should serve two primary functions. The first is to educate employers and employees and those who are in the job market, sort of the citizens of Ontario, and the second function should deliver results. We have some specific suggestions which we've included in the brief to enhance the ability of the bill to deliver results, and I guess the result would be to make Ontario workplaces more representative of the communities in which they find themselves.
Before we get into those, I'd like to make a brief comment on the other function which I think is important in this type of remedial legislation, and that is the education function. First of all, we know from experience that employers won't do this type of thing voluntarily. They've had a sufficient chance to do this voluntarily. Canada's international obligations have been in force for a long time on issues of equality for women in the workplace and nothing really has happened in Canada. We've seen a few voluntary programs in some organizations but we know that employers aren't leaping on the bandwagon to do this voluntarily. So it's very nice to see legislation dealing with this.
The second point I'd like to make, in terms of my own experience in working with employers in the area of employment equity, is that employers welcome as much direction and guidelines as possible once they're required to do something. So if you've tabled this legislation with the idea that you're going to make employers do something, you might as well give them as much guidance as possible, and it's important that that be included in the act for educational reasons and for enforcement reasons.
There have been a lot of situations in other pay equity legislation in Canada where the legislation was very, very poorly drafted and introduced in a matter of weeks. In Nova Scotia, I think it took a week to draft and pass the legislation and it was very weak. The employers were as upset as the people who stood to benefit from the legislation. I'm sure all of you are familiar with those types of situations.
So the act itself needs to be much more detailed, and I think it needs to provide a checklist for employers and for unions and for interested individuals to educate them about the simple steps that are required to actually deal with the issue of employment equity.
If the act doesn't include these things, what you're going to see, from both perspectives, I guess, is chaos. You'll have a lot of employers talking about the chaotic nature of this bill, you'll see a lot of consultants coming out to make money off the process and you'll see a lot of confusion and haphazard implementation of employment equity principles that are stated in the preamble.
There are a number of clear examples of employment equity policies and laws which provide direction to employers, and one example of that is the Police Services Act of 1993 in the regulations. It's much more detailed than what we have in Bill 79 and than what we have in even the regulations, which I'm not going to comment on at this time.
There are a lot of examples where these easy steps to pay equity implementation are provided for employers.
What I'd like to do is just briefly talk about -- we have our recommendations at the back of our brief on page 21. We've got a summary of our specific recommendations. They're not all-inclusive, but they were the ones we felt were important to provide to this committee.
We looked at the preamble, which generally sets out the principles. I think it does a good job for educational purposes, as well as for some legal ones. However, we did feel it should be amended to clearly state that the object of the legislation is the elimination and redress of systemic discrimination, because one's left with the impression, as you read through the legislation, that the object is really to get good employment equity plans together. This seems to be more of a focus on the plan, rather than on the actual results of sort of removing barriers to people in the workforce.
I guess my perspective, and one that NAWL has supported, is that the act is essentially centred around two key sections, first of all, section 10 and section 11 of the bill. I do a lot of working with employers and employee groups and one of the things I say is, there are easy steps to implementing employment equity. The easy steps are: First of all, you see what's wrong, you do an audit of your workforce and your workplace and then you fix it, you take steps to fix it and everything else should fall into place. Those two easy steps -- we see them appearing in sections 10 and 11 and I think we have, in the current draft of Bill 79, a good skeleton for moving this process along.
One way of strengthening section 10 would be to include standards on how to achieve barrier elimination measures, to give employers and affected people guidelines on how to do this, because there are a lot of employers who do not have really adequate human resource personnel people working with them and can't afford consultants. I think, for that reason, it's very important to spell out what we mean by looking at barriers. It's very easy; there's not a lot of debate about what barriers are, so it's not a very contentious thing to insert in the legislation, like we have in the Police Services Act in the regulations.
For example, just write down that employers should look at the recruitment policies and employers should look at what job qualifications they're requiring for certain positions. What are the hours of work? These are all very standard, that you find in all employment equity policies, but they should be incorporated in the legislation to deal with the education function.
I guess section 11 also -- the reference to positive measures: Once you have assessed what the barriers are and recommended they be eliminated, you also need to take positive measures to open up the workforce and make it more equitable in your own workplace. Again, this is a very easy amendment that could be made to include definitions of positive measures. We've given you some language here that may be appropriate: hiring policies, where you advertise, that type of thing. Those are all positive measures. There are standard employment equity procedures and there's nothing to be lost by including them in the legislation. Employers I've worked with would actually welcome having them in the legislation for that guidance.
The final point I'd like to make is: Once you have looked at what barriers exist, you've removed those barriers, you've implemented positive measures, there has to be a way of monitoring this to see that it's done, of telling people that you've done it. For that reason, in our recommendations 16, 18, 19 and 20, we deal with the posting of the equity plan. There's no reason, if the employer is required to develop a plan, why it shouldn't be posted. You're not causing any additional work by making an employer post the plan. What you're doing is providing access to a wide range of individuals who have a stake in the process, to have access to that information and to see what's being done. You want to educate employers and employees as well.
As well, the employment equity plan itself should be filed with the commission and, again, it isn't that employers will have to do more work, because they're supposed to be doing a plan anyway. It's the cost of a stamp. There's no extra work required to put it in the mail and send it to the commission and file it. It's not like they're going to have to hire millions of people to try and do this. We're concerned about those types of aspects.
I'd like to pass the microphone to Kate so she can explain some of the other concerns that NAWL has.
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Ms Kate Erickson: Maureen has talked to you a little bit about what should -- in order to increase the likelihood that this act will deliver substantive rights, she's talked about beefing up, if you will, sections 10 and 11. NAWL has several other significant concerns with the way the bill is currently drafted. Let me just take you through the key areas and then I can say a little bit more and we'll then be happy to take your questions.
One of the key concerns for NAWL is that the way the designated groups are defined in the bill means that you haven't included enough people among the members of the designated groups and you haven't been consistent with the Human Rights Code. You're eroding human rights legislation in this province with the way the definitions are drafted.
The definition of "employer" also isn't as extensive as the definition of "employer" in the Ontario Labour Relations Act. And the definition of "employer" in the Labour Relations Act, which includes related employers so that employers can't reform their businesses to avoid their obligations under the act -- which is absolutely clearly established in law -- goes on in this province on a regular basis. By not including a definition of "employer" that has been established over decades in law in Ontario -- again, you're eroding Ontario law in an area that will be very important in terms of enforcing this legislation.
Another key concern that NAWL has is, you've exempted employers. This is an extension of human rights legislation in this province. Employment equity and pay equity legislation is an attempt to extend human rights legislation because the problem is pervasive and systemic. If your mission is to extend that legislation, you shouldn't be writing legislation. And it doesn't work to write legislation, again, that erodes human rights legislation in the province.
The Ontario Human Rights Code doesn't exempt employers. If you're an employer and you're discriminating, which is what this act is attempting to pull out, you shouldn't be exempt. Every employer in the province should be required to look at its practices and fix them so that they're no longer discriminating against members of the groups.
You've given too much time to employers. Some of the time lines in this piece of legislation are absolutely -- there's no substantiation for them. You've got a requirement in this legislation that employers amend their plans every three years, yet they don't have to take a survey for nine years. How can anybody responsibly amend a plan if they can't even measure what they've accomplished over the last three years.
The other reason why it's important to resurvey is: As employees begin to understand that their work environments are changing and that they are becoming less discriminatory and that they in fact are becoming safer environments for those employees, more employees are likely to disclose information about themselves. So the next survey, if the plan is effective, will gather new information about employees who were in place three years ago.
I'm an employee in an unsafe work environment; I'm only willing to disclose a very little bit of information. Three years later, if I'm a lesbian or if I'm a person with a disability that's not visible, but I see that I'm now in a work environment that's much safer for me, I'm quite a bit more willing to disclose. Obviously, if the aim of the legislation is to get reliable information, you want to be taking that information at much more significant intervals.
It's a significant concern to NAWL -- and I've mentioned this a couple of times already. Where you're eroding, with this bill, other legislation in the province, another area that this bill, as it's currently written, is doing that is -- Maureen's already talked about the Police Services Act. It's a lot more extensive. Its regulations are a lot more clear than this particular piece of legislation. NAWL believes that you should be going beyond the Police Services Act. So that's one sort of area that NAWL would like you to be looking at.
Leaving that issue aside, you're not only not going beyond legislation we've already got in this province, you're eroding it in another area. This bill is eroding the duty to accommodate under the Human Rights Code. The duty to accommodate is contained in three sections of the Human Rights Code. You've made reference in this bill to two of them. You haven't made reference to a critical section of the Human Rights Code and in so doing you've confused the issue of whether the duty to accommodate extends to all of the designated groups, to every member of the designated groups. You've covered off only a very limited area.
Those are my comments. I've sort of tried to rough this out for you and give you the general areas where we have concerns. I'm happy to go into more detail in those areas or, if you're satisfied that you've had an opportunity to review our brief and people have questions, we're happy to take your questions at this point as well.
The Chair: We'll take questions. There are approximately three minutes per caucus. I would remind you the three minutes go by very quickly. It means one long question or two short ones. We'll begin with the third party.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'll be very brief because I know Mr Carr has a question as well. You mentioned the preamble here and the need for change. Are you suggesting, then, that some of the preamble as presently written would be removed and replaced by what you've proposed here?
Ms Erickson: The only thing in the preamble that we feel it's important to remove is, in the first full paragraph of the preamble you've got the words that the people in the designated groups experience more discrimination than others. It's NAWL's position that the suggestion is everybody in the world experiences discrimination and we don't believe that. We disagree with that position.
What would be important to NAWL, in terms of taking out anything in the preamble, would be to take out the word "more" and then the words "than other people," so you'd leave in the word "discrimination." It would be important to take those words out because they're unclear and they're untrue. Because you've left out gays and lesbians as a group in this legislation, which is part of how you've undermined the Human Rights Code, it may not even be true. It may not be true that members of these four designated groups experience more discrimination than gays and lesbians. Who can measure that?
Mrs Witmer: That's right.
Ms Erickson: So that's problematic. However, what our brief attempts to do is to ask this committee that you strengthen the preamble in terms of -- you've got some very strong language in the preamble, which is extremely important and it's good language. You've made it absolutely clear in the preamble that this act is designed to extend human rights legislation in the province. That's really important. You've included all people in the preamble. If you extend sections 10 and 11 and strengthen those, and if you extend the definitions of "designated groups," consistent with the words "all people" in the preamble, you'll strengthen this bill considerably. Our brief is intended to take the position that the preamble needs to be strengthened, so you can leave much of what's in it. There's some strong language in the preamble, but the preamble needs to be strengthened.
Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): Thank you for your very solid and thoughtful and constructive suggestions here.
You mention that one of the main objectives of this bill should be to educate everybody concerned. I'm just looking at section 41 of the act and that does seem to me to fairly clearly state that is a function of the Employment Equity Commission, both to help employers, employees and bargaining agents to comply and to educate the public. I think that is seen really as one of the prime things the commission will do. Does that not cover your fears there?
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Ms Kilgour: I guess one of the concerns is that when people are sitting down with us, an employer, a union, an individual, trying to implement this legislation, what you carry around with you is the legislation itself and you always look to the legislation for guidance. It's nice to have the Ontario Pay Equity Commission put out binders and binders of material and videos and have people come and talk, and that's fine, but when it comes right down to implementing, what you carry around with you, usually enlarged so you can read it properly, is a copy of the legislation.
So the education that the commission will be doing will probably be addressing special-interest groups or Rotary club luncheons or meeting with employers and doing videos, how to easily implement this and tips and guidance, but the fundamental of educating is actually carrying this around and having it clearly spelled out in the legislation what you have to do.
I like the role of the commission in educating, but I think what you actually have to do should be also included in there.
Ms Carter: Okay. I just quickly wanted to raise also the question of how to include gays and lesbians. It has been suggested that there's a problem with numerical goals there because the statistics aren't there, and also they might not be willing to self-identify for various reasons. Do you feel that there would be some way of including them in a less specific way and, if so, could you elaborate on that?
Ms Kilgour: We have one recommendation, I guess, for dealing with CIS issues, saying that in a separate section there should be a recognition that gay men and lesbians are a group which has been historically discriminated against.
Part of addressing the concern about self-identification is breaking the legislation down where an employer is required to look at barriers and take positive steps to make the workplace a more hospitable one for gays and lesbians, and maybe in 10 years the workplaces of Ontario will be so gay- and lesbian-friendly that people won't mind self-identifying and we can actually get some numbers on it.
But I think you can break down the legislation to say: "Look, we know there are gays and lesbians out there, we know they're in our workplaces. Let's look at what are possible barriers. Let's implement anti-harassment policies, anti-discrimination policies etc." So taking that step, let's undertake positive action for educating the people in our workplace and then the self-identification becomes a moot point, I think. So you can undertake those types of steps.
Ms Erickson: I agree with that. I think also one of the things that is important certainly to gay men and lesbians and probably to many other people who are members of the designated groups is, people will disclose if they can limit their risk in disclosing. So if these questionnaires were going to be confidential, which your bill does not provide for, but if the questionnaires could be confidential, if people didn't have to put their names on them, they might be quite a lot more willing to self-disclose if the risk was minimized to them.
If the questionnaires won't be confidential, NAWL has a concern that what you will run into is a conflict with the Human Rights Code, because under the Human Rights Code in this province employers can't ask questions like whether you have a physical disability or what your country of origin is. If the act makes disclosure confidential, you'll eliminate one of the significant problems of gay men and lesbians and one of the reasons why they wish only very limited participation.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms Carter: I have a question --
The Chair: I'm sorry, no, we went way over time. Mrs Carter, sorry, we went way over time. Mr Callahan.
Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): I want to take a look at the issue of what you had said about the Human Rights Code. By bringing in this legislation and drawing only a few people out of it, you have in fact weakened protection under the human rights --
Ms Erickson: No.
Mr Callahan: -- legislation. That's the way I read it.
Ms Erickson: Okay. You have a Human Rights Code that includes -- are we talking about gay men and lesbians at this point?
Mr Callahan: Well, I actually want to take it one step further. Maybe I should make that clear. In my constituency I often get calls, as I'm sure many of our members do, from older men who have lost their jobs because the company has disappeared and gone south of the border or just folded up. They go out and they try to get another job and they're told, "No, we can't give you a job." They sometimes say they're overqualified, but more often than not what they're saying to them is, "We don't want you in here at this stage because we've got a pension plan which we don't want to put you into," and so on.
They have rights under the Human Rights Code because they can't be discriminated against on the basis of age, but by being excluded from employment equity, they in fact have no rights under that legislation so they're required to bring their case under the human rights legislation per se, and that doesn't necessarily get them their jobs back. All it does is perhaps get them a remedy under the Human Rights Code.
What concerns me is that by not including them -- and perhaps gays and lesbians as well is another area -- you leave them to the remedies under the Human Rights Code, which may not be the appropriate remedy for them in terms of being employable.
I'd like you to comment on that.
Ms Kilgour: I suppose our position would be, you have to look at whether -- so your question is, do we have a position on whether elderly people or age discrimination should be included?
Mr Callahan: Yes.
Ms Kilgour: You would have to look at whether older people, and what would the age be, are discriminated against systemically. Are people over -- pick an age, whatever age you're particularly concerned about, historically excluded from employment? And you have to make choices, as you've recognized.
In our opinion, at least the four designated groups that have been singled out for this legislation, and in our opinion gay men and lesbians should be included as the fifth designated group, those designated groups capture the significant majority of people in this province who have been pervasively and historically discriminated against.
There certainly is discrimination on the basis of age, but these designated groups are singled out on the basis of stereotype and require protection.
If you want to extend this legislation to other groups, and you've got statistical bases for doing so, catching more areas where people are historically discriminated against is a good thing. I've never heard, actually, that that has ever been seriously considered.
I think at this point, you've got legislation. If it needs to be further developed once it's been put in place, who would resist that? That would be a good thing as well, but don't hold this legislation up and begin an investigation from ground zero about whether other groups --
The Chair: Thank you. We have gone over our time limit, and I want to thank you. You've made a very important contribution to these discussions. Thanks for taking the time.
ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPALITIES OF ONTARIO
The Chair: The next deputation is the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. I want to welcome all of you to these discussions. I think all three of you are very aware of the process. Leave as much time as you can for questions and answers and please begin any time you're ready.
Ms Helen Cooper: My name is Helen Cooper. I'm currently the mayor of Kingston and I'm a past president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. With me today are people who have considerable expertise in the practice of employment equity: Mary Dauphinee, the director of the equal opportunity division of the city of Toronto; Paul Scott, the director of human resource development and employment equity for Metro Toronto; and Charlotte MacFarlane, who's a policy analyst with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Charlotte, why don't you join us?
I'll very quickly go over the brief with you and I appreciate that the questions are the interesting part, so I'll try as best I can to leave time for that.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario in 1989 indicated support for the principle of employment equity. Since that time several association committees have worked to follow the issue in its various stages. Most recently AMO has been actively involved through a representative to the Minister of Citizenship's employment equity advisory task force and a representative to the regulations development committee, and I trust by the quality and the commitment of the people who have worked in this exercise that we have truly demonstrated our interest and involvement as an association.
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In a 1992 letter to the Employment Equity Commissioner, AMO set out areas of particular concern. AMO recommended that goals and timetables for hiring and promotion of designated groups not be legislated by provincial standards. AMO also indicated that regional disparities in population composition should be considered when goals are established. We asked that small employers be required to conduct only an employment systems review. We indicated that equality was a right and should not be bargained. AMO expressed concern about the potential repercussions of data collection, which is something I think we would like very much to talk about this morning. Finally, we asked that implementation schedules be based on population, not sector.
First of all, I'll report the good news. In this regard, we will not accuse government of not being responsive, because in the drafting of the bill the government has been responsive. While goals and timetables are required, some flexibility has been built into the application. The government appears to have given consideration to the differing populations in the various parts of the province. Broader public sector employers with fewer than 10 staff are not subject to the legislation and those with 10 to 49 employees are subject to modified requirements. While we have been concerned that employers and employee groups would have to negotiate about equality rights, section 14 of the bill requires that employment equity be negotiated separately from the normal collective bargaining process and stresses that responsibilities be shared between the employer and any bargaining agents.
We have continued concerns, however, about the interface of the proposed legislation with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Unfortunately, the government chose -- in this case, as you can see, we're not entirely satisfied -- to make a distinction between the private, public and broader public sector employee groups for application of implementation schedules, instead of using the criteria of size.
We want to ensure that if the government proceeds with passage of Bill 79, the legislation and its regulations can be operationalized. Recognizing that there is considerable resistance to this legislation, as there is with anything that requires attitudinal shifts, the process must be effective and uncomplicated.
We state that they were not intended to diminish the importance of this piece of legislation but simply to highlight the fact that the cumulative impact demands simplicity of implementation and maintenance. I speak for an association that has a membership of approximately 650, but there are over 800 municipalities in the province of Ontario, with electoral rolls close to a million or electoral rolls literally in the hundreds.
The legislation and the draft regulations are comprehensive yet contain little flexibility. There should be a section that allows employers to negotiate with the commission on their progress towards meeting the intent of the legislation but which does not result in contravention of the legislation or automatic referral to the tribunal. The process for implementation should be made as easy and user-friendly as possible. Because of the significant constraints all employers face, the legislation should facilitate the best use of limited resources, and I say this particularly and emphasize it very strongly in the context of what municipalities have faced in the past four months. Conditions have changed dramatically, and I will refer to it again a bit later in terms of the expenditure control plan, the social contract.
In the milieu in which I work, most councils are consumed at the moment with how to reduce their workforce. I would say, in terms of labour relations, that's the number one topic of discussion at the moment. In the case of municipalities under 100,000, I would predict a huge number of councils have adopted policies whereby council has to review every individual hiring and it has to be justified to that council. The intent is not to review for the purposes of employment equity but to determine whether the position is required or needed in the first place.
So, therefore, in that kind of milieu, implementation of this legislation in a way that is seen to be confrontational I predict will not be particularly workable, and I doubt that the province has the capacity, either to be able to enforce in a very offensive manner.
Education is of paramount importance. I believe other groups coming before me this morning have talked about that as well, so I won't dwell on it. But subsection 8(3) of the police services employment equity plans regulations should be emulated. That section refers to educational training for employees on race relations, diversity and human rights. In my experience in my own municipality, the implementation of employment equity for the plans for the police services has worked extremely well.
The commissioner's office is encouraged to be prepared to provide a high level of technical assistance to employers to ease their compliance with the proposed legislation. Because the process is complaint-driven, sufficient financial resources should also be allocated to finance adequate numbers of review officers to expedite investigative procedures.
There is a sense among some municipal administrators that the commission is abdicating some of its more difficult responsibilities, leaving employers to fight the hard fight. Employers are not given enough direction on the more sensitive issues. The regulations are only clear on such soft issues as flex work hours, which many of us have already, but they are not clear on the more sensitive issues such as positive measures, seniority and goals.
Regarding the question of seniority, and that's one we particularly wish to point out, Bill 79 is inconclusive and the regulation evades the question altogether. The regulation and the legislation must make specific reference to seniority as part of the systems review.
We do have a problem with some of the definitions. I don't think I'll go into that, because that's relatively technical and not as politically interesting as some of the other points we're making, and certainly those issues are there for you to review.
We would, however, like to talk about the issue of the workforce survey, and I bow to my colleagues in that regard, who can certainly give you more information. The inclusion of voluntary self-identification will inevitably lead to inaccurate counts of designated group members. This is stated from experience. As the bill currently stands, employers cannot verify results, leaving the process open to manipulation. AMO recommends reinstating supervisory identification or introducing mandatory self-identification as an approved method of data collection for employment equity purposes.
We do, however, as I pointed out early, wish to address that. For municipalities as employers, there is this act called the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and we ask that you ensure that this bill is compatible with that existing act.
In terms of employment systems review, we recommend that employers be permitted to have a plan to do a systems review within the next 18 months, but not to have to do the review itself in that period. At the expense of sounding extremely repetitive, employers, particularly in smaller municipalities, are under a great deal of strain at the moment because of the events of the last four months. I think this is an entirely reasonable request, particularly under those circumstances.
Now we'd like to talk about employee participation. We think that's extremely important. There is in the bill reference to joint responsibility but not to joint accountability. The commission should issue guidelines on the selection or election of non-unionized or excluded employees to participate.
I did get here a few minutes early this morning and listened to the coalition presentation. I think the point they were making is one I'm reiterating: There are non-unionized employee groups, and they should be represented in this, and they should be represented by their own duly elected people. We wish to strongly emphasize that point.
While we were pleased to see that, unlike the bill, the regulations acknowledge the importance of equal representation for employers and bargaining agents on joint committees, we want to convey that it is imperative that this change be reflected in the bill itself.
I'm sure you can read the conclusion for yourself as well, so at this point I would simply like to thank you for listening to us this morning and invite any questions, though I won't necessarily be the one to answer them. Thank you.
The Chair: Five minutes per caucus. Government members will begin.
Mr Mills: Thank you, Helen and other people here this morning. In your presentation here, page 7, "Employment Equity Plan," I know you said this is not exciting to talk about, but you've said that there needs to be a definition of what is meant by the term "reasonable." We've had a number of people come here before this committee and either it is that "reasonable" is unacceptable, they want stronger language or -- so my question to you, although you sort of indicated that you didn't really like to get into the technicalities of it: How can you help us define then that word "reasonable"? What are your ideas?
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Ms Helen Cooper: I'm quite happy to get into technicalities. I just thought it was kind of boring to read them, that's all. You're quite able to do that for yourselves.
Mr Mills: Okay.
Ms Helen Cooper: I suppose "reasonable" is a totally subjective interpretation. What I deem is reasonable is not necessarily what somebody else deems is reasonable. Who would like to respond further?
Mr Mills: I'm looking for some sort of recommendation, if you can give it to me.
Mr Paul Scott: Tell me if I'm right off the mark, but what I believe this refers to, Charlotte, is reasonable as it relates to reasonable accommodation.
Mr Mills: Yes.
Mr Scott: My sense, as a practitioner for years and my running a human rights program in Metro as well, is that the definition in the Human Rights Code of "accommodation," short of undue hardship, provides clear guidance on what accommodation is required. The word "reasonable" introduces a subjectivity which we don't find at all acceptable. So "undue hardship" is defined in terms of cost, in terms of service to the public, and in terms of what you can really expect from a staff and what you can expect from a municipality in terms of funding staff, is a much better definition.
So I prefer, as a human rights practitioner, not to have the word "reasonable" anywhere in our lexicon.
Mr Mills: Anywhere. Okay, right.
Ms Carter: You have suggested a very active role for the commission in providing assistance to employers and in other ways. Now, some people have suggested that it would be an extravagance, if you like, on the part of government to have a separate commission for employment equity, given that we have other related commissions in place. Do you think it would be a waste to have a separate Employment Equity Commission?
Ms Mary Dauphinee: Certainly, with the number of tribunals that are being set up, there is a process that we think would work just as well as a separate tribunal, which is through the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission is there. I have some concerns that the act takes away from the Human Rights role. The Employment Equity Commission I see as doing the audits, and the complaint process and the adjudication I feel should be with the Human Rights Commission.
Ms Carter: Okay, and just one other point: You are advocating mandatory self-identification. I'm just wondering how that would work. Would you bring sanctions against people? How would you know against whom to bring them? How would you define very clearly those people who did need to self-identify? And this brings us to the question, for example, of racial minority and what subgroups are to be included in that, who in fact would have to self-identify as a racial minority. Could you comment on how workable that would be and how you would do it?
Ms Helen Cooper: Yes, we've had quite a discussion among ourselves about this, but Paul --
Mr Scott: I think that within personnel systems there are a number of forms of documentation that are mandatory. It's necessary, you know, to do certain kinds of documentation in order to have a person work for you. You get their social insurance number; you get a number of other things. I think that mandating a confidential self-identification is quite conceivable. The person, presumably, could have the option of not identifying, but at least we would know that was the option they'd chosen.
I think many of my colleagues would prefer that you had the combination of supervisory identification and self-identification so that even those who don't identify would end up in some category. At the federal level, you get the bizarre situation of employers spending $80,000 to $100,000 on accommodation for a disabled person and then discovering that there's no such person identified within that workplace, and it's frustrating for employers.
I totally respect the concern that the employees have about our misusing that information, and we probably deserve the fear and paranoia that exists. I hope we can earn better trust.
The other thing I'd like about the freedom of information and privacy is that right now I have a situation where my freedom of information coordinator is telling us we don't have that 80% response rate, a high enough response rate to do an accurate goal-setting according to the regulations of the freedom of information legislation. I used three full-time staff maintaining an 80% response rate, going back all the time, asking over and over again, and in today's economic environment it's very difficult to justify that kind of employee outlay for what is strictly a compliance exercise as opposed to a proactive programming exercise. That's why I feel strongly about this.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm sorry, we've run out of time. Mr Murphy.
Ms Helen Cooper: I'm sorry to interrupt. Could I very briefly respond to member Carter's question as well as the municipal politician? It's not just the issue of how many commissions there are. It's the issue of how these bodies in this kind of issue conduct themselves. As a municipal politician, one has frequently dealt with provincial regulatory bodies that presume guilt and we are required to prove innocence. I would suggest that what we're trying to say here as much as anything else is that it's extremely important how the commission conducts its business as well as whether it's big or little, and that if it is not the threat that so frequently provincial bodies have been in the past, it's more likely to get further faster.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Murphy.
Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): Thank you very much for your presentation, and I appreciate it. One of the things we've heard quite a bit about is the definition of "employer." You've referred to it as part of the technical part and I did want to follow up on it. Obviously, in the municipal sector it has a different application and there is some further definition within the regulations.
The question I have is, in an area where it is a small municipality but it's covered by the act, so there are more than 10 employees, I could see it having some real problems in terms of what the comparative community is for the purposes of employment equity. I'm wondering if your organization has looked at that issue at all in terms of how it works in the municipal sector.
Ms Helen Cooper: I can certainly recall our experiences under pay equity, which isn't answering your question, but I will get somebody who will. Municipalities are rather diverse in terms of employment. For instance, pay equity -- we got hung up on whether police were municipal police employees or not. There were contradictory definitions in the legislation in that regard. Homes for the aged, depending on the jurisdiction, went back and forth as to who was to be compared to which group as to the circumstances. In other words, it's a very diverse employer, and the legislation simply did not adequately address those problems and in some cases contradicted itself. If there's more to be said about that in terms of what you're asking, I would have to bow to another member of the group.
Ms Dauphinee: I think it's just to have the clarity in the act so that we're very clear about what the definition is. That's what we're asking, that it be detailed.
Mr Murphy: All right. If I can follow up on that, one of the other concerns that we've heard about is the way in which the joint committee, at least for the unionized part of the workforce, is going to be set up. What you'll end up with is some employer saying, "Look, we have diversified workforces where parts of it do entirely different things," and it's following up on your point, your worship, the question of homes for the aged, police and other things, and they're all sitting at the same table devising the employment equity, the plan. In theory, the police service union could be sitting in judgement on the employment equity plan for the homes for the aged group, and I'm wondering if you've thought about that issue as well.
Ms Dauphinee: The police have their own employment equity plan.
Mr Murphy: Yes. The police obviously is separate in this case.
Ms Dauphinee: Certainly, having people around the table is a positive thing for us. There has been some problem in the past of including everybody. Our concern is that not everybody is there under the act. We think that the non-unionized employees are the ones we have concerns about and should be at the table.
Mr Murphy: Absolutely. I think my colleague has a question.
The Chair: It will have to be quick.
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Mr Curling: It's good to see you, mayor. My question is of the same nature: those who are non-union and are not around the table, their representation. Who do you think should formulate that group? You said a joint committee, you mentioned it here, and they are union people and the employers. The non-union people, the last presentation stated, should select their own people to bring to the table. They think it's extremely important that this happen. The government legislation or regulation stated "consultation," and that is not defined. I see you're quite concerned about defining terms. It said they will be consulted. Do you think it is very important that they are at the table?
Ms Helen Cooper: Definitely. This raises another issue for me that I neglected to mention because I was trying to go too quickly: The issue of temporary or seasonal employees is another extremely important issue for us. There's a great deal of work in municipalities that is seasonal in nature, as you can well understand. Very often it's seasonal which requires certain skill levels. I, for instance, would not attempt to drive a snowplow without being adequately instructed beforehand, but that's an obvious seasonal job.
If there are not employment equity considerations for seasonal employment, that is very systemic in terms of ongoing discriminatory practices. Obviously, if I learn on a seasonal basis to drive a snowplow and a full-time regular employment opportunity arises which requires that skill among other things, I will then be more likely to be hired for that job than somebody else. Therefore, it's extremely important in municipalities that temporary and seasonal positions be scrutinized under the terms of employment equity as well. Otherwise, particularly in public works departments and parks and recreation, we will have a long way to go for a long time.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): Thank you, Helen. You've been in many committees over the last little while, particularly when you're president of AMO. We appreciate that.
I wanted to ask you a question along these lines: You talked about the seniority issue, and I think the word you used was "evasive." I believe one of the reasons it's evasive is so that they can say to both sides, depending on whether they support that issue, "Yes, it should be included," and to the other people who don't like it they say, "No, it should not." What's your feeling? Why did they leave it, as you say, so evasive?
Ms Helen Cooper: I don't know. I can't answer that question because I didn't write the bill. All I can do is repeat myself. Particularly at the moment, when we're looking at early retirement packages, everything we can possibly look at to avoid layoffs in our systems, a seniority clause is very obviously a barrier to introduction of new employees into the work environment. If employment opportunities were expanding, it would not be an issue. I don't know if somebody else wants to tackle this.
Mr Carr: I think you're right. With people I talk to, it's true that the big concern is just having a job. I think you mentioned particularly in the municipalities what's happened.
I appreciate that you made some very good recommendations in here. Assuming now that there are no changes, will AMO still support the bill if it stays as it is right now?
Ms Helen Cooper: First of all, it's difficult for me to speak for an organization as diverse as the association.
Mr Carr: You're on the hot seat now, though. They're tough enough to speak for any time.
Ms Helen Cooper: I've just come from the convention; I don't know how many I won at the convention. But I'd go right back to the beginning of the presentation. We support the principles of employment equity I think in the same way we supported the principles of pay equity. I think the record of municipalities in the implementation of pay equity is highly commendable. I think we did a great job. I think that if we say we support something, then we --
Mr Carr: So you'd have to support the bill as it is? A lot of people have talked about the principle, but it's this bill we're going to be judged on. If it stays as is, AMO still --
Ms Helen Cooper: What we're trying to do here is point out to you that the bill as written is going to give some of us some really serious problems, but I still think there's a firm and strong belief in employment equity. That's the goodwill that underlies, and I'm sure that's true across partisan areas in the province as well. But we'll have some problems: You may find that certain municipalities simply are in a position where they can't come to terms with the bill because of their circumstances. It's not ill will.
Mr Carr: Would they be the smaller municipalities, principally?
Ms Helen Cooper: I talked earlier about there being over 800 municipalities. A significant number of those 800 have fewer than 10 employees, so the ones that would have had the biggest problems with this are now not subject to the legislation.
Mr Carr: Thank you. Good luck.
The Chair: I want to thank the delegation for coming, for your presentation and for participating in these hearings.
Ms Helen Cooper: Thank you very much.
WORKING SKILLS CENTRE
The Chair: Working Skills Centre: Welcome, Ms Chu and Ms Suryo-Atmojo. You have a half-hour for your presentation. You've seen the process in terms of allowing questions from the members to you; please leave as much time as you can for that.
Ms Liana Suryo-Atmojo: My name is Liana Suryo-Atmojo. I'm the language training director of Working Skills Centre.
Ms Christina Chu: And I'm Christina Chu, the placement officer at Working Skills Centre.
Ms Suryo-Atmojo: We wish to thank those who have brought this legislation forward and this committee for the opportunity to present our point of view on the act.
The Working Skills Centre has been a job skills and language training centre for immigrant women for over 15 years. Our main goal is to assist in breaking down the barriers blocking these women from finding appropriate employment. Over 600 women from more than 50 countries of origin have graduated from Working Skills Centre training programs and over 80% have successfully gone on to further training or have found jobs. Working Skills Centre also provided employment and training referrals to thousands of immigrant women through our counselling, referral and intake programs.
WSC believes that employment equity considerations should be taken into account during all stages of hiring and promotions. Job advertisements should specifically encourage equity groups to apply and advertising special outreach should be done in appropriate places so as to produce an ample pool of appropriate candidates; interview questions should be reviewed for bias; and hiring committees should reflect target groups being targeted.
I would like to present our experiences now. We want to share with you a number of our experiences which will show you how this legislation and changes we propose to it will best help the population we serve.
Our experience with the federal employment equity legislation of 1986: After this legislation was enacted there was a noticeable increase in the quantity of job postings made available to WSC from major companies in the private sector. These job postings specified interest in hiring from the equity target groups. There was also an increase in the number of telephone inquiries made to Working Skills Centre by firms seeking job-ready target group applicants. From the public sector the change was even more visible, as there were special procedures for hiring people from various target groups.
While not labelled as an employment equity program, the mandatory hiring of francophones in the federal public service has been very successful in a relatively short period of time. We now see francophone men and women at every level of the hierarchy in the federal public service.
This new provincial legislation will broaden the scope of private sector companies being regulated and influenced to change their approach to hiring and promotion. This legislation will also bring this policy to the broader public sector, and such changes will dramatically affect the number of job opportunities for the population served by Working Skills Centre. This experience clearly identifies the fact that systemic change comes through legislation.
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Ms Chu: As a placement officer, I would also like to share some of our experiences with you. Before I do that, I just want the members here to know that one of our presenters, Adar Mohamoud, had a car accident this morning, so she may or may not be able to come in today. We hope she may be able to join us.
Some of the experiences of myself as a placement officer, of my predecessor who was also doing placement for the microcomputer training program and my predecessor who was doing the placement of the mailroom trainees, as you can see, show very clearly that there is systemic racism in the workplace.
For example, one employer told us they wanted a Vietnamese person because they have nimble fingers. Another example is that a personnel officer said, "My boss really admires those who are from eastern European countries," a hint that it would be appropriate for us to send someone from those countries.
Another situation was that our placement officer was referring an immigrant woman to this particular company and the person said, "We want a Canadian." Then our officer said, "This particular person is a Canadian; she is a Canadian citizen." The reply was, "Well, we want a real Canadian."
Mr Mills: I'm not a real one.
Ms Chu: Another employer was speaking with the placement officer. After giving the full name of the person, the employer said, "No, I don't think we can interview that person." And there are other experiences. We can't really put our finger on it, but the experiences of our trainees are that they see an ad in the morning, at 9 o'clock they call, at 9:30 they get through. As soon as she spoke, "I'm applying for the job in the ad in the Star," she was told that the position was filled.
My sister was a receptionist one summer and her experience was that her boss instructed her that as soon as she heard someone who has an accent, turn them down, tell them the position is filled.
Again and again, there are common things told to us by the trainees, that if there are people of a certain ethnic origin who are already in a particular work site, who are from their same country of origin, they will feel, "Hey, I may have a chance there." But if not, their experiences and their perception is that they will not have a chance.
Because of those experiences, it is really important for us to implement a very good law, a very strong law. I have to say that in today's climate I applaud the government for bringing forth this bill.
In our brief we have suggested that in collecting the information about the designated groups, it is also important to collect information on the subgroups, precisely because of the experiences we had mentioned earlier. A particular employer would say, "We want people from a certain group. We know the Chinese are more hardworking," or whoever has the nimble fingers. We hope to add that into your legislation or regulation.
There's another thing I also notice, which is that a lot of the firms are saying, "We have a specific image to present to our customers and, as a result, we want a certain type of looks." By so doing, for example, when I said to one employer that this particular woman from an East African country wears a scarf -- in fact Adar, who couldn't come today, wears a headscarf -- then it was told to her, and it was also our experience, that the employer feels that is not really the image of the company, that will not present well for them.
Things like that, you can't really use the Human Rights Code to come back because that will take ages. That's why the bill here, as we can see it, is more proactive and allows this kind of systemic racism to be removed from the workplace. I know that the Alliance for Employment Equity has been here earlier and that we have seen their position and we like their position. Here we'd like to endorse their recommendations for the committee.
Ms Suryo-Atmojo: I would just like to close with a couple of comments. An Employment Equity Act with mandatory requirements and specific goals and timetables is long overdue. The implementation of such an essential program should not be delayed, we feel, even during a time of major economic downturn, as its effects are not just geared for the short term but very much for the long term.
We wish to firmly state that dismissing an incompetent employee is always appropriate, whether from a target group or not. Employment equity should simply mean giving individuals from target groups a chance to prove themselves. We are promoting access and opportunity, and it can and should be implemented through the selection of qualified, capable target group members. Anything less than applying minimum qualification standards can only serve to undermine the purpose and the effect of the policy.
Although the American model is widely regarded as flawed in many aspects, it cannot be emphasized enough that the American example has shown that employment equity benefits corporate employers as well as qualified individuals of the target groups.
The implementation of affirmative action in the US brought real opportunities to members of target groups. When President Ronald Reagan's administration proceeded to dismantle affirmative action legislation, it met with resistance from large corporations such as AT&T, Levi Strauss and Kellogg's, whose experiences brought them to the conclusion that affirmative action was good human resource planning and management. Even those who were not in the target groups, the able-bodied white males, seemed to like it, as hiring and promotion acquired more consistency. Instead of hiring done on the basis of who belonged to the same country club as someone else, hiring and promotions became based on real skills and abilities.
In conclusion, Working Skills Centre highly commends the government for finally bringing forward this type of legislation and trusts that the recommended changes will be incorporated.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Curling, four minutes.
Mr Curling: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I want to thank you for your presentation. It is one of the few presentations that brought the live situation right into the committee here on knowing how do we put legislation in place that will address those issues, and you rightly say that. There are certain things that legislation will never address, but maybe education and gradually people who are conscious of some of the systemic discrimination or other types of discrimination that are in the workplace before we can eliminate that.
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There was a presenter here earlier on who stated that a weak bill will not only fail to advance equality rights in the province but will actually undermine some of the important legal principles which were developed over time and sometimes for years. We have brought some consciousness to people that you cannot discriminate in the workplace or anywhere else, for housing or what have you.
The concern that I have and some of the groups have had is that having a legislation that is not properly defined allows employers or allows others, even agencies, to perpetuate -- I'm talking about employment agencies -- those discriminatory practices. Do you find it is extremely important for us to have a very strong, defined legislation more than a weak legislation?
Ms Chu: First of all, yes, there are many things that need to be changed in this bill, but I think -- I agree totally with the black professional group that made the presentation yesterday that it is still a ground-breaking bill. We need to make improvement, there's no question about it. For example, some of the things in the regulation right now should be in the legislation. But on the other hand, we have been waiting for a long time for this bill and then we would hate to see, because this is in some way not to the absolute perfectness, that it be removed from the process.
Mr Curling: My other question to you, and it seems to me your organization has been dealing with immigrants who are in dire need of -- correct me if I'm wrong -- certain groups who need English-as-a-second-language support. Employment equity cannot in its own self, just as some people have presented it, seem to be isolated in one area, but you need a lot of supported areas in which to bring an effective employment equity program. Do you see the government itself putting behind it money in order to get these programs going, not cutting back, as we see them? Quite a few of these programs, English-as-a-second-language programs, have been cut back. I have a tremendous problem in my constituency of people coming back and saying they're losing this money, they can't keep up with that support in supporting English-as-a-second-language program. Are you finding that in your community too?
Ms Suryo-Atmojo: If employment equity is seen as long-term human resource planning and management, I can see that putting money in English-as-a-second-language programs, even in a recession like this, would really pay off very much in the long term. So this is generally our position, that yes, we have a recession going on and it's difficult for everybody economically, but putting money in ESL programs in the long term will pay off economically.
Ms Chu: You are right that our experience is that some of the federal government's program has been removed from the -- the money there has been diverted somewhere else. It is true; that's our experience as well.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for your presentation. On page 4 you talk about the situation where a personnel officer called up and asked for somebody from eastern Europe, and I think almost everybody on this committee would say that would be terrible. But I was wondering if you could explain the difference between somebody calling up and saying, "I want somebody from eastern Europe" and the government saying to a company, "You will hire somebody based on being one of the four categories: a woman, a minority, a native or disabled."
Could you explain to me what the difference is between saying to people who call up, "I want somebody from eastern Europe" and classifying that way, and can you see how some people say what you're really doing is classifying, just changing classifications based on past discrimination? Could you explain the difference to me?
Ms Chu: I'm not too clear about your question. You're saying that --
Mr Carr: Maybe it was my fault; it probably wasn't clear. You've got somebody calling up, saying to you, "I want somebody from eastern Europe." You said you've got some people who call up and say, "I want Chinese because they're hardworking," and so on. That is discrimination based on their origin.
What the government is saying in this bill is that you will hire and you will promote a certain percentage based on being from the four categories: a woman, a native, disabled and minority. There are some people who are saying what the government is doing with this bill is the same as what the people are doing when they call you up to say, "I want somebody from eastern Europe"; that really it is a form of discrimination, and we'll use the words "reverse discrimination," based on no other reason than past discrimination against these four groups.
How do you handle it when they say, "Oh, what you're doing is the same thing, only helping these four groups" and that really what you're doing is reverse discrimination?
Ms Chu: First of all, I think that study after study has said that these four designated groups have been discriminated against severely in the past.
Mr Carr: Everybody agrees with that; everybody agrees.
Ms Chu: Okay. That's one reason why the bill is necessary and why those four categories are necessary. I think what we want to see, and I think the bill to a large extent addresses this, is that the workforce or the workplace in a particular locality reflects the population. Let's say the company calls me and says, "We want people from a certain ethnic origin," and the reason is because of their ethnic origin. That is very clearly discrimination.
Mr Carr: What we're doing is now --
Ms Chu: Hold on.
Mr Carr: Sorry, I don't want to interrupt.
Ms Chu: Now, if the company is calling us and saying, "Okay, I want one of the equity target groups," because they have been discriminated in the past, then that is different.
Mr Carr: How is it different?
Ms Chu: They are precisely not looking at the skills, not looking at the qualities of the person. They're looking at something that they cannot control. I am born in a certain country; I happen to have a certain skin colour. I think you understand what I mean.
Mr Carr: What people are saying is it works the other way. If there's a job opening -- and of course my group has been one of the ones that have been at advantage, white male -- a lot of them are saying you're now picking from these groups, the same thing is happening.
But I did want to go on to another question. We'll leave that because I know that's the crux of the whole issue, and it's a tough one to answer. On page 1 you talk about job advertisements. In my area, Halton, we had a problem. I won't name the group because they apologized. What happened was the executive director of an organization that gets government funding put an ad in the paper requesting somebody. I think it was lesbians; it was right in the advertisement. As it turned out, the executive director didn't know. Somebody down low put it in. It raised tremendous controversy in my area.
In this whole issue, don't you see that there's going to be a real problem, and let me use the word "backlash," if we are putting advertisements in saying this is the one group that we want and identifying them, whatever that group may be? Presumably it's the four categories. Don't you see a tremendous backlash in the public if we put ads in for a particular company saying, "These are the qualifications and this is the person by category that we want"?
Ms Zanana L. Akande (St Andrew-St Patrick): Who's going to do that?
Mr Carr: They said they should, the job advertisements should be encouraged, page 1.
Ms Chu: About the target groups, right?
Mr Carr: Yes. Page 1. That's what you said you'd like to see.
Ms Chu: I believe Mr Williams from the National Grocers yesterday made a very good point, that one of the first steps in the implementation of this bill should be education, educating his own workforce, and to extend that to the larger society in Ontario. We should also educate the population why we have this bill.
I can't speak to that particular incident because I don't know the context but, to my way of thinking, as soon as people understand why such a bill is necessary, there will be a lot of -- I think a lot of businesses are saying, "Hey, this makes business sense," and then for the employees to understand, "Hey, in the long run, we will benefit as well."
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Ms Suryo-Atmojo: May I just respond very quickly to this also? About your mentioning that members of the target groups are encouraged to apply, it may have a backlash but it may not either, because some members of the general public have been educated. Another thing also is that without this little insertion, "Members of the four targeted groups are encouraged to apply," very often members of targeted groups are not applying, because they feel that very often they wouldn't get an opportunity anyway. From an employer's point of view, an employer would still have a larger pool of people to select from.
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Thank you for your presentation. A couple of things you said are interesting. Well, most of the things you've said have been interesting, but in particular it's the education part. Part of the intention of the act is that the employer and employee groups, whether they be union-organized or not represented by unions or what have you, sit together to discuss the employment equity plan.
I believe this time of sitting together to discuss the employment equity plan, to identify barriers, is probably the best time for employers and employees to educate one another as to what is going on. That, as the gentleman said yesterday -- I think that's where he was talking about the start, that we have to talk. One of the biggest barriers to employment equity is the way people think. I believe again that once we start getting into employment equity, the thought barriers will start to come down.
You said in your presentation that when the federal legislation came through, all of a sudden there were more people asking about minority groups. In the community newspapers that you see, do you get a lot of advertising from the big companies as far as job opportunities?
Ms Chu: Some of the companies are approaching organizations like ours directly, so they can skip the step of advertising in the paper, but those that have advertised in the newspaper, I've noticed that there are more and more companies that are saying that they are -- the catchword is "equal opportunity."
Mr Fletcher: Equal opportunity employers, yes.
Ms Chu: We feel that the bill itself will create a general atmosphere to allow a lot of the companies to say, "Hey, we better get on with it."
Mr Fletcher: Right. Once they start to advertise and start coming to organizations such as yourself, then what we are seeing is all of a sudden a change in perception. It begins to start the change, whether it's good or bad. As you said, they pick from different subgroups, but there is a change that goes on. I'm hoping that's where the legislation will take us. I think it will, especially with the support of community groups. I think that's important.
The Chair: Mr Winninger, do you want to ask one final question?
Mr Winninger: Sure. I think you put it very simply and eloquently when you say on page 6 of your brief, "Equity should simply mean giving individuals from target groups a chance to prove themselves." I think Mr Carr is trying very hard to grasp the meaning of this bill but isn't quite there yet, because he's still talking about reverse discrimination, which the opposition members were talking about early last week.
Mr Carr: Don't worry about whether I grasp it.
Mr Winninger: I think we've come a long way from that point. People have recognized that subsection 15(2) of the charter provides for special programs for the disadvantaged, to redress inequities. Section 14 of the Human Rights Code provides for a similar exemption and section 51 of the bill before us deals with that issue as well. So we've come a long way from the attitude that this is a case of reverse discrimination.
I think that in your brief you sum up what employment equity is all about, because it's simply ensuring that there be fair and equitable access to employment opportunities, to promotion and to training on one's merits. In the past, unfortunately, all too often the merits of these designated groups have been overlooked through the use of extraneous hiring criteria. I wonder if you could comment on that.
Ms Chu: A lot of time I know that the catchword today in hiring is that, "We need people to have good communication skills." I talked to one placement officer the other day and he was saying that another employer used also another type of words. The employer was saying, "We need somebody who has a harmonious accent." After a while, we do know that a harmonious accent is not my accent.
Mr Mills: Or mine.
Ms Chu: Communication skills sometimes can be brought to -- do you think that I do not communicate well?
Mr Carr: You communicate very well.
Ms Chu: I communicate well. I think so too. But I do have an accent. Okay?
Mr Callahan: Are your fingers flexible?
Ms Chu: Sorry?
The Chair: Please disregard that.
Ms Chu: But a lot of time it was interpreted that because I speak with a certain accent or because I speak my words or the diction is not the one that is used in the Canadian workplace or corporate world, then I don't have that communication skill. This is one example that I can think of.
The Chair: I would like to conclude this morning's session by allowing Mr Mills to end it with some humorous remark that I think he has for us.
Mr Mills: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I just want to thank you for bringing the real world into 1993 and into your problems. I must apologize, I wasn't laughing at you but with you when you said, "I want to speak to a real Canadian." In 1957 I was a policeman in this country and I used to have to enforce the law. I remember writing out a ticket and I'd say, "There you are, sir, thank you very much." And I'd bet on it, they'd always say, "Well, a five-dollar Canadian, eh?" or they would say: "I'm sure there are lots of criminals back where you come from. Why can't you go back there and look after them."
I'm telling you that in 1957, almost 40 years ago, the problems that we faced are still here in 1993, and we've got to do something about it, because I am sick and tired of it. Even today we've been having some remarks. Thank you for allowing me that, Mr Chair.
The Chair: I want to thank both of you for coming and for sharing those personal work histories with us.
This committee is adjourned until 1:30.
The committee recessed from 1209 to 1333.
AFGHAN ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO
The Chair: I would like to call the meeting to order. I call the Afghan Association of Ontario, Mr Duranai and Mr Tahiri.
Just for the record, to remind the members that you've received the interim summary of recommendations, part 1 and 2, and I hope that will be useful to you as we get into the discussion of the bill.
Welcome to this committee. You have half an hour for your presentation. Please leave as much time as you can for the questions and answers from the different members.
Mr Ahmad-Shah Duranai: Our community, the community we represent, the Afghan community in Ontario, is a very new community and this is our first time that we come in front of a committee and present our stand on a particular issue. If there are some issues of protocol that we are not following, I would like your allowance in that respect.
Mr Mills: Don't worry about it, it's just like family here.
Mr Duranai: That's good. Our community is new in Canada and, as you all are aware, is here because of the turmoil in that part of the world. We have come here as immigrants and our community, the majority of our members, are not born in Canada. They are immigrants and they have done their education and most of their time they have spent outside Canada. So a community like us, we have specific problems that we are facing here.
A couple of issues that we have brought up in our submission here I would like to go over, and then you can ask as many questions as you would like. We did not have any legal counsel in reviewing this proposed legislation so we have gone over it ourselves and we have come up with these two issues that we want to bring to your attention.
The first issue is the definition of a "racial minority." The bill itself only mentions as members of the racial minority to be a designated group, but there is no definition per se as to what the racial minority represents.
In the proposed regulation that accompanies this legislation, it refers to a specific definition. It says a "`member of a racial minority' means a person who, because of his or her race or colour, is in a visible minority in Ontario."
While this might be fine, we have a certain problem with it, and that is that there are many people who belong to racial minorities but are not visibly distinct. That's what we have a problem with. We have seen many applications in the federal government where they are more specific about whether you come from south Asia, west Asia, you are oriental or black or north African or African.
We propose that there be a more clear-cut definition in this regard and certain minority groups that will not come under the definition of "visible minorities" to be included in the benefits that this legislation will have.
The second problem that we face in communities like ours -- there are many other communities that we have been in contact with -- is the underemployment of the professional groups. We have a lot of educated people, engineers, doctors, scientists, economists and others, who cannot find work or jobs that are of the same standard as their level of education.
First of all, there are some problems for their certification here. We face a lot of problems in getting licences and certification because of either the lack of knowledge of the legal system here or climatic conditions in Canada etc for engineers and architects or, let's say, the liability insurance regarding medical professions and others. In this respect, a lot of our professionals cannot get certification.
Even those few who do succeed for one reason or another and they do get the certification, the work that they get is only in small firms. Most of the consulting, engineering and architectural firms hire maybe 20 people or 30 people and this legislation excludes these companies to comply with the requirement of the legislation. So in this respect this big resource that our community has, if they are fully employed to their education level, will have a great impact on the future generation of these communities. They don't play a role model for our children because most of them are either delivering pizza or they are taxi drivers or doing some other work and they cannot get the proper employment that will benefit our small communities.
In this respect, we have reviewed the issue, but we don't have a clear-cut solution as to how to propose that these people could benefit from the advantages of this legislation.
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One thing was that if a specific provision can be made regarding these consulting firms -- like there is already in the legislation some specific proposal made regarding the construction industry -- if a similar provision is made in this respect that could include these firms that hire engineers and architects or medical professionals, pharmacists, to be included in the requirements of this legislation.
Thank you very much. I think that's what we had in mind. That's the problem our community is facing.
The Chair: Thank you. Six minutes per caucus. We'll begin with Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to listen to some of your suggestions. I was interested in the problem, page 2, the problem number 1, definition. Could you just clarify what solution you would like to see to the problem number 1 again?
Mr Duranai: Okay. If, for example, in the survey there is a questionnaire that would be submitted to the various employees in the various companies -- if there is a further detailing of it as to people who consider themselves as members of minority groups, not to be just distinct, because they're either black or they're oriental or they're north African or African or Caribbean. If there is a more elaborate division of it, where people who come -- I come from Afghanistan and I don't know under which category I will be considered as a minority member. I have applied for some jobs in the federal government and they say, "south Asian or west Asian," and when you go to details of south Asian or west Asian, Afghanistan is included in neither of them. South Asia stands just at the border of Afghanistan and west Asia also stands just at the border of Afghanistan. Afghanistan, for example, is not included anywhere in those distinct categories.
I propose that somehow some phrases or clauses are added where new immigrants to Canada as a whole could be included in this.
Mr Carr: The other question relates to the professional groups -- and I know because I've had some occasion -- some of the different qualifications between different countries. I know this question's been dealt with in a lot of other different areas as well, through a lot of different groups, but what is your recommendation? How can we best be able to allow some of the educated, skilled professionals who come over here and who are underemployed -- because I know of a couple of instances in my riding where that's happened, people with degrees and educated and so on. They come over here and because of some circumstances they can't get into the field, not so much -- but because of some of the difference in qualifications. I know it doesn't deal specifically with this issue, but I think that would go a long way to being able to assist some of the people. Is there anything else you think can be done?
Mr Duranai: I think that in this respect I don't know how much can be done at the provincial level, but the Department of Employment and Immigration can do a lot in this respect. People who are coming new and their education level is established, in our opinion, I think they will require very little training in terms of those specific areas that are related to Canada. If I can just bring you an example: I'm a professional architect; I'm registered in the province of Ontario. This is my eighth year that I've been here and, besides my level of education, whatever requirement that was here, I managed somehow to pass all the requirements to get my registration. But in this respect I did not get any help from the Department of Employment and Immigration; it was due to my own efforts.
If certain training facilities are provided for these professionals, especially those of younger age, let's say, between 25 and 40, who, after one year of full-time education could be as proficient in their professions and trades as a person who has done four or five years of university education here, it could be a great asset to the Canadian society. I think that in terms of a national education policy maybe there can be a lot of rapport between the provincial and the federal governments in this respect, and it will reduce the burden on situations like this legislation is all about. If those people know about the legal system -- an example would be the construction industry. The first thing that I had to know here was to be familiar with the building codes, the national building code as well as the building code in Ontario. If a person who comes here with an engineering degree or an architectural degree is given a crash course, through federal funding or provincial funding, to become familiar with the legal system here, with the climatic requirements that are different, it could alleviate the problem.
Mr Carr: Almost the time?
The Chair: One short one.
Mr Carr: Yes. Unfortunately, the question was a little bit long.
I was speaking to some manufacturers yesterday. One of the problems they've got in this is the high skill that's necessary for things like statistical process control. With a lot of older workers, they don't have that training. One of the keys to getting and keeping the good jobs is the education. Is there anything else we can do? You mentioned people coming from other countries. Is there anything else we can do to ensure that they get the skills necessary when they get here to get the high-paying jobs?
Mr Duranai: There are some programs, on-the-job training, that have been funded through various organizations, I believe provincial sources as well as federal sources. But I don't think they go far enough to alleviate the problem on a mass scale. I think this is a problem, a very massive problem, for these small communities, and the amount of funding or the activity in this regard is not sufficient, or I don't know whether it's used efficiently, because we don't have any resources to investigate or to study how effective they are.
Ms Carter: Welcome to the hearings. I'd like to comment on your second problem here, which is the one of access to trades and professions. Obviously, this is related to what we're dealing with in this bill, but it's not really central to it. I think I should just point out that it applies only to people who are recent arrivals in Canada, which is not the case with most of the people who are being dealt with under this act. This doesn't mean to say that it's not an important matter, but I think it's being dealt with in what you might call a different part of the package than this particular act, that the Ministry of Citizenship is working with certifying groups to see if they can adapt their requirements to allow immigrants fairer access, and I believe $2 million has been made available for that. So I think that that is being looked after in that way and that that's where it belongs rather than in this legislation.
Also, you suggest that small firms be included. I think again, we're looking at the whole issue of inclusion of small firms from a wider viewpoint, and that is part of the picture. So I don't know whether you have any comments on that, but I think that's the situation.
Mr Duranai: In this respect also, we have been in contact with the chief of staff of the Ministry of Citizenship. We had raised this issue, and we are aware of this access to professions and trades, but at present it's running just as a two-year project and I think it's experimental. We of course support this act and hope that it will expand and solve some of the problems of, I call them, immigrant professionals. I think it will reduce the burden on these communities. It's a psychological burden on these people, because after 18 years or 16 years of education, they feel as if it was a waste of time.
Ms Carter: Well, I agree with you that something needs to be done, but I'm just pointing out that it's not really this particular act that would do that.
Mr Duranai: In terms of small firms being included: If they somehow get included in the requirements of this legislation, it will definitely help some of these professionals to get into their professions or, let's say, some of the strategic barriers that are now put in their way will be broken down.
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Otherwise, in general we support the legislation. It goes a long way to solving the problem in the minority communities, but somehow it does not address this problem. It's a major problem for the new communities in Canada, especially in metropolitan areas like in Toronto.
Ms Carter: Do I have more time or does somebody else --
The Chair: Yes, you do.
Ms Carter: Then your other main point I guess is the definition of racial minority. Some people have been to these hearings and suggested that subgroups be included in the definition of racial minorities. Is that what you're suggesting? Do you agree with that?
Mr Duranai: Yes. I think that could somehow resolve the problem. In racial minorities, if there are subgroups or subcultures or whatever terminology you use for it, I think it will alleviate some of the problems. If I go somewhere I could argue in that respect that I do come under this legislation. But otherwise I don't think -- if I go there, before I speak anybody will realize that I belong to a minority group.
Ms Carter: I just wonder where the boundaries of this would be. Would somebody from, I don't know, Greece or Poland or what, would they be included, do you think?
Mr Duranai: In our opinion, yes. I think if they are new immigrants -- if my son, for example, is educated here, he will not have any problem. I think he could proceed like the mainstream, majority Canadian society. But people who are immigrants here and they have language barriers as well as lack of so-called Canadian experience, these are the people who I think should somehow be included in the benefits of this legislation.
Mr Curling: Thank you for your presentation. I just want to follow up on Mrs Carter's comment that she wasn't quite sure if your second problem and solution fits into employment equity directly. Let me say, it does. One aspect of employment equity is access to employment. You're quite familiar with the Task Force on Access to Trades and Professions. One of the things actually that should have been done before and she commented on it that her government is now acting on it, and they are. They're acting on it in a pilot project.
Those recommendations have already identified those professions that are being hindered by professional organizations that do not get, as you said, certification. These are qualified people, also as you have said, who have been shut out. The whole idea of employment equity is to identify and eliminate systemic barriers. Those recommendations tell us how to go about that.
Let me put a question to you then. Would you see legislators putting groups, either professional organizations, those who really certify some professions, to come under employment equity, that they could more or less conform -- making the law be relevant -- to the legislation to break down the systemic barriers?
Mr Duranai: In this respect, being myself a professional and belonging to one of these self-governing bodies, I think that, no, I would not require them to comply with it. But they can help a lot the new arrivals of these people who have done professional education in particular professions, that these organizations help them with what I call the pre-employment phase, which is licensing and certification.
But it will still not resolve the problem because after they get their certification and after they have their licence, only those people who belong to, let's say, very large minority communities and have entrepreneurial experience could start their own business, their own consulting firms etc and rely on their community base for their survival and getting work. But the others who look for employment will be employed only in these firms, because they are very small firms. In Toronto, maybe there are four or five firms in consulting engineering and architecture that hire more than 50 people. All the firms are very small, so if even these professionals do get over the hurdles in the pre-employment phase, which is the phase of certification and licensing, they will have employment problems.
Mr Curling: Let me give an example, because I'm not talking about small firms; I'm talking about professional organizations.
A young lady came in to see us yesterday and make her presentation. She was a doctor who was trained in Europe and practised in Spain and other places of that nature. When we came here she had to do certain upgrading, of course, which is required in order to meet the standard of Ontario, Canada. She did that and, again, she had to do an internship and could not get in to do her internship -- here, as you said, is a qualified person who wished to do that -- a hindrance for full employment and to avoid underemployment and to utilize those resources.
It seems to me that some of those organizations need to be looked at very closely, either the certification and they who have the power of access to, say, the hospitals, for them to do internship -- that is being denied and something has got to be done to break those barriers down so that people can have access to employment regardless of the profession they are in.
Mr Duranai: Definitely, in this respect, I support that all the legislation that governs these self-regulatory bodies should be reviewed, although most of them in their beginning say that the purpose of this legislation and this body is to keep the high standard and quality of these professions. But at the same time, that could also be a barrier to new arrivals and it can be used and it has been used, especially in the medical profession. We have many doctors here who have been struggling for years, reading thousands and thousands of pages of new material in order to pass the exams.
I can assure you, in my own experience, when I was sitting for my professional exam I had done about 4,000 pages of reading, and after I passed the exam I went and talked to people where I was working, with architects who have 15 and 20 years' experience; they couldn't pass those exams.
Mr Curling: You don't seem to be quite enthused about that approach that I'm talking about -- implementing those recommendations in access to trades and professions and also monitoring those professional organizations as much. You don't seem to think that is going to help in any way. Do you agree that the government should continue to proceed only on a pilot project then and not implementing those recommendations?
Mr Duranai: I think as a result of the pilot project, they might realize where the main barriers are in the legislation itself and how the legislation which, let's say theoretically, is for the purpose of keeping a certain standard in the profession, is utilized as a strategic barrier for newcomers.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Curling. We ran out of time. We appreciate your coming today and we thank you for the submission you made.
Mr Duranai: Thank you very much, everybody.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE NETWORK FOR RACIAL MINORITIES
The Chair: I'd like to call upon the Ontario Public Service Network for Racial Minorities. I'd like to welcome all of you to these committee hearings. Ms Cossar, are you the spokesperson?
Ms Yvonne Bobb: No. We share the responsibilities between two of us.
The Chair: Fine, then Mr Lawson and Mr Burkett are just here in these discussions as well. We have half an hour for your presentation and we urge the deputants to leave as much time as possible within that half hour to allow the members to ask you questions. Please begin.
Ms Bobb: The Ontario Public Service Network for Racial Minorities appreciates the opportunity to present to you today. I'm Yvonne Bobb, vice-chair of the network and accompanying me, to my left, is Jim Noel, and George Anand to my right, executive members of the network.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm sorry. I just wanted to apologize. I was reading the names of the next group that will be presenting, and you didn't respond; I'm surprised. Thank you for putting that on the record correctly.
Ms Bobb: The OPS network was formed in 1989 as a result of racial minorities being disfranchised, many of us relegated to low-paying categories in the OPS with no opportunity for training or career development. The network was inaugurated by former minister Honourable Tony Silipo. Our network serves as an advisory body to the Management Board secretariat, the review committee on employment equity, and also serves on several subcommittees specific to policy and implementation of employment equity and employment equity programs in MBS. We are also an advisory group serving racial minorities in both management and bargaining unit categories in the OPS. Our executive and steering committee is structured to encompass provincial representation.
Racial minorities make up 12% of the OPS and only 5% are represented in the executive compensation plan. For racial minority women, the statistics are more horrific. Racial minority women outnumber racial minority men two to one in the bargaining unit. However, in the management group, racial minority men outnumber women two to one.
The network believes that strong employment equity legislation will create a more equitable, fair and just workforce where skill, knowledge and experience will be the criteria in all aspects of employment.
I will now turn to George Anand, who will do our submission for the network.
Mr George Anand: Thank you for the opportunity. To start with, I must congratulate the government in power for introducing this legislation on social justice, which to our understanding has been the strongest so far on employment equity that has been introduced on any other level of government.
With this, we fully concur with the basic principles stated in the preamble, especially on page 3, second paragraph, which states that lack of employment equity is caused by systemic and intentional discrimination. Therefore, from our point of view, it is unrealistic to expect that employers would employ all those reasonable steps to redress the system issues. Therefore, it is all the more important that the language which we state in the bill should be as specific and definitive as possible and that accountability is clearly enshrined into the bill itself.
Coming back, we have heard arguments that in our present state of fiscal restraints, can we afford employment equity? We believe yes, we can. We believe that by introducing employment equity, especially at this time, we'll improve our competitiveness by removing systemic barriers and wastage in underutilization of our most valuable resource. That's manpower. It will add to the existing resources rather than take, and all this will add to increasing our competitiveness.
Second, I'm sure this committee has heard a host of personal tragedies, the people who have been the targets of systemic barriers, their personal horrific tales, which definitely translates further into shifting the cost, because if you have unfair practices at work, definitely there's going to be more burnout and it does add to the existing health and welfare resources, and when it shifts, it's shifting the cost. When you shift a cost to health and welfare, there's not that much return you are getting back.
Again, we also believe that by eradicating systemic barriers it would not force disadvantage to any group, that by adding something we are not taking something from other individuals, but what we believe in is that it will add. It will add to the existing resources, rather than take something.
We also believe that the merit principle has been enshrined in the preamble to the legislation as we read it. We also believe that on merit or ability, it should not be based on one's gender, race, nationality and other forbidden grounds of discrimination. We also believe that the merit principle is lacking in its implementation at the present stage.
We also believe that there's a need for a separate Employment Equity Commission and tribunal, especially at this stage. We believe so because we feel that these bodies are needed to attack systemic barriers. We also believe that by creating these bodies, this will not weaken provisions contained in the Ontario Human Rights Code regarding equality of opportunity in employment. We believe it would strengthen those very provisions which are contained in the Ontario Human Rights Code, rather than weakening those provisions. We also believe the Ontario Human Rights Code as it presently stands is too broad in focus and in terms of scope of responsibility too wide to respond to the critical need to eradicate systemic barriers.
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We also believe that the report of the Task Force on Access to Trades and Professions enhances the regulations pertaining to Bill 79.
About the bill itself, Bill 79, definitely we would have liked more time for feedback and clause-by-clause analysis. We also believe that the definition of designated groups, accountability and enforcement provisions presently left to regulations should be incorporated into the bill so that they are not amended and changed because of the vagaries and whims of a particular bureaucrat.
We also believe Bill 79 should be specific, with explicit provisions of accountability, enforcement, deterrence, reasonable progress and what constitutes essential ingredients of an employment equity work plan and should be able to define joint responsibility so that the designated groups with a lack of financial resources don't have to turn to the tribunal to define all these above terms. But if these terms are very specific and very understandable, then advocacy groups like ours may not have any hesitation to represent the designated groups that we are supposed to represent.
Lastly, we believe we have long waited for this legislation. Considering the time period we are left with, let's use that time to strengthen the legislation, but for God's sake, let's not postpone it. We have waited a long time for this legislation, and as we move along, we should have the mechanisms in place which monitor the legislation and strengthen it as we learn more out of the experience.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Margaret H. Harrington): Would you like to continue or are you completed? Thank you very much, Mr Anand and Ms Bobb. We'll begin with the government members, and I have three on the list. Ms Akande?
Ms Akande: Thank you very much for coming forward. It takes a great deal of courage and determination to speak of your situations in this place.
The Ontario government has had an equity policy for some considerable years. Do you remember what year? I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter -- for a long time. They've also had people assigned to equity positions. They've also had a process in place. Why then are the results so poor, the results you referred to at the beginning of your presentation?
Interjections.
Ms Bobb: Maybe seeing that I am an old veteran, they've passed it on to me.
In terms of what the Ontario public service has had in terms of equity, I think you're referring to affirmative action.
Ms Akande: That's right.
Ms Bobb: I think for us, particularly racial minorities, affirmative action did not address our concerns because we were not able to access training or promotional opportunities because of the systemic barriers that are in place, for instance, language, how jobs are posted, the interviewing process. It was not fair and equitable. It is still not. So I think that is one of the reasons why affirmative action was not successful in the public service.
Ms Akande: What do you mean, "language"?
Ms Bobb: The language in how we post jobs, how we advertise jobs and the methods we use to advertise to attract racial minorities. They are barriers more than enhancements.
Ms Akande: Are you in favour of subgroup identification in specific targets, for example, if we're talking about visual minorities? Are you in favour of there being subgroup identification beneath that broader category?
Mr Jim Noel: Yes, we are in favour of identification. We think that it's necessary to be able to be clear on which groups are involved and which groups are being affected most significantly by the processes and procedures that we have in place now. It's only in that way we can really target the remedies that might be necessary for those groups. We have been trying to deal with this process, sort of all visible minorities. There are some visible minorities that for one reason or other -- in other words, we have to recognize that within a general category there are differences and we need to have the flexibility to take those differences into account.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Mr Winninger.
Mr Winninger: As you know, Bill 79 confers on bargaining agents joint responsibility for developing employment equity plans in unionized workplaces. I was wanting to ask you whether those bargaining agents should have access to workplace data, particularly as those workplace data affect an individual's designated group status.
Mr Anand: Yes, we strongly support the joint responsibility, we strongly do endorse this partnership and we also believe, as we have indicated in the presentation, that it should be more clearly defined because the union representatives are supposed to be one of the key stakeholders. Along with that responsibility, they also need certain powers too, at the same time, and those terms are lacking in the present bill, the definition of joint responsibility.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. I now have Mr Fletcher.
Mr Fletcher: You were going to say something else?
Ms Bobb: I was going to add on to his response in terms of the union having access to data. I think for many of us in the bargaining unit, and I'm in the bargaining unit, unless the union has access to the data, it would not know exactly what the true picture is. So I think it's important that the union does have access to the data.
Mr Fletcher: I see. As far as Bill 79 is concerned and some of the other statutes that have been enacted, the pay equity affirmative action that we talked about previously and now employment equity, we're trying to move along in a certain approach, a certain way that we can start eliminating some of the discrimination that goes on. But as I have said before, a lot of the barriers are up here in the mind. That's where a lot of barriers exist. As far as the access to trades, I know that the task force was releasing a report this morning on access to trades and professions, so the government is acting in that area. Whether it's going to be fast enough or not, we're not sure, but hopefully we can move in that area also.
When I look at employment equity in the government sector -- and you may not want to answer this question; I'm not sure -- is OPS, is the government sector any better than anywhere else?
Mr Curling: Good question. I like it.
Ms Akande: Answer it.
The Vice-Chair: Can you make it a very short answer, because I'd like to move to Mr Curling in a moment?
Mr Noel: I do not think that the OPS is significantly better than anywhere else. There are a number of plans that have been put into -- or at least attempts have been made to implement a number of programs. The point is that after three years or so, there is no very visible change and the real bottom line is change in the faces that you see there, especially at the senior management level. You look there and you don't see the visible minorities. So no matter what action has been taken, the fact is it has not been bearing fruit.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call on Mr Curling now.
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Mr Curling: Thank you, Mr Fletcher, for opening up a question that I hope I can do justice to by asking you this too. If I were answering that, of course, from the reports I'm hearing from people who are coming to me, absolutely it should never be the example, as Stephen Lewis said, that we should use to epitomize as a good example.
Maybe you could comment on this. The NDP government decision lately to cancel the employment equity internship program, is this sending a message that in tough times those are the first things to go? The government is an example, when I heard of the cutting of the internship program. Do you have any comment on that, when they have cut the internship program?
Mr Noel: Yes. I think it's a sad thing that the government has made such a decision. From personal experience, I know that some of the best staff we have developed, some of the best resources have come out of that apprenticeship program because of the way people are screened, because of the kind of training they go through and because you eventually get people who are really motivated, who are really bright and who are really flexible to deal with some of the issues and the problems that we have. We get really good people out of them. So it is a sad thing that program has been shelved. But in terms of organizational dynamics, you find that whenever things get tough, things like training and development and recruitment and so on are the first to get cut back.
Mr Anand: Just to add to what Jim has mentioned here, we also believe that employment equity, as an application of the human justice system, should have precedence over any other legislation, including the social contract.
Mr Curling: It doesn't seem so when times get tough for the government. Could you comment on the seniority part in the employment equity legislation? Do you feel that seniority conflicts in any way with employment equity principles?
Ms Bobb: I think I'll answer that. I think that is just a smokescreen, because if seniority really applied, many of us wouldn't be here fighting for employment equity. Many of us are women and men who have served in the service for 30 years and are still at the entry level. So seniority is not an issue in terms of employment equity. I disagree with that argument of seniority, because racial minorities have seniority.
Mr Curling: And they're still not getting promoted?
Ms Bobb: They're still not, and I'm saying it's not an issue in terms of equity.
Mr Curling: Many groups have come before us, groups like yourself, that have been subjected to systemic discrimination. I'm very happy that this Bill 79 has come forward and I'm happy that it has been presented. I'm very disappointed that the bill is very vague; it's extremely vague and lacks definition itself. Someone earlier on said in a presentation here that to put legislation forward that is weak could do more damage to the gains that have been made. Do you believe, as someone says, it's better to get the crumbs than to get the bread and to be grateful for what is gotten now? I'm asking, do you think this bill needs a lot more improvement to make it effective?
Mr Noel: We do. However, we recognize the realities of politics and this bill is part of the fallout of the political system. I think the concern is that if the bill were deferred for one reason or the other, it may not see the light of day again, and therefore this is the reason why some people might be saying, "Even if it's not as good as we would like it, at least it's a start, so let's get that in and then try to move from there."
Mr Curling: Let me just comment here, if you count over here, one, two, three, four, five, six and the Chairperson, there's no way that this bill will be put off, no way. It will go through. I want to get that bit out of people who are presenting here. There's no way. They have the majority and they'll put it through.
Our job here is to make sure that we have strong legislation, so I want to tell the people out there that Bill 79 will go through. We're going to make sure that your presentation will make that change so we have an effective bill, so don't let them scare you that they'll postpone it because of the opposition.
Mr Anand: As we said in the beginning of the presentation, this bill is still the strongest bill --
Mr Curling: Because it's the only one.
Mr Anand: -- compared to what we have seen at the federal level, employment equity, which virtually everyone has dismissed as irrelevant.
The Vice-Chair: We'll just move to the third party. They may want to continue in that direction. Who would like to ask a question?
Mr Carr: I'll go. During your presentation, you talked about how the present plans have been a failure and you gave some of the indication, percentages, and I guess governments in implementing them thought they were going to be effective; when they happened they were not. What's the difference between those plans and this bill that's going to allow, two years from now, for you to come forward and say now it's been a success? Specifically, what's the difference between this bill and what we've done in the past? Why will we be successful now when we haven't in the past?
Ms Bobb: First of all, I'd like to say that if there is legislation, I believe that employers will have to comply with legislation. In terms of affirmative action, there was no need for the employer -- you can do it if you want, you can have affirmative action if you want or if you don't want, and I think that's what has happened, and affirmative action when it was implemented only addressed the needs of women, and particularly white women. I think it's incumbent upon me to make that distinction as a racial minority woman, and I think if there's legislation, I believe that this legislation over racial minorities and the designated groups will have a better chance and a better opportunity within the OPS.
Mr Carr: I understand that different groups may have benefited to different degrees, is what you seem to be saying. Let me be specific then with regard to women. You say that the program the government has implemented already, and let's just take them specifically, has it been a success for women then?
Ms Bobb: For racial minorities, no.
Mr Carr: But for women in general.
Ms Bobb: For women, yes, white women, yes.
Mr Carr: So on the one hand you're saying the present program doesn't work, although it has worked for women.
Ms Bobb: Yes.
Mr Carr: Would the same principles, if we applied them for example to minorities, if the same principles applied without this bill, would we be successful like we have with women in the public service then?
Mr Anand: Part of our argument, as Yvonne said, is that there's a difference between having volunteer action rather than having the legislation. The legislation definitely has more force, and it does instigate the right kind of debate that we already see has taken place. It's since the bill has been introduced and the kind of discussion that has taken place; we have been looking for that kind of discussion for a long time, but as a result of the introduction of this bill, we find that kind of discussion being generated. It does put more responsibility on the employer and on the other stakeholders to participate in the bill, and there's more joint ownership.
Mr Carr: You seemed to indicate that seniority isn't working now. In answer to one of the questions, you said that seniority isn't working, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
To put it bluntly, there's sort of a grey area with the issue of seniority. It's been left, as Helen Cooper said this morning, very vague. To be very cynical, I think it was done that way purposely. What would you like to see in terms of seniority working in conjunction with this bill? You say it isn't working now. How can you see it working?
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Ms Bobb: No, what I said was that seniority is not an issue. That's what I said.
Mr Carr: Didn't you say if seniority was working --
Ms Bobb: I said seniority is not an issue. It's just a smokescreen. If opportunities were equal, then many of us in the designated groups --
Mr Carr: Who had been there longer.
Ms Bobb: That's what I said.
Mr Carr: So how do you see seniority working? How would you like to see it work in the second part?
The Vice-Chair: Could you quickly answer this question, please? We're almost at the end of our time.
Ms Bobb: I have no problem with seniority at the moment. It works. It would work in conjunction with legislation.
The Vice-Chair: I would like to thank you very much for your presentation on behalf of the Ontario Public Service Network for Racial Minorities.
Mr Curling: Could I just ask if the government officials could present any statistics on, say, the last five years on how many minorities have been employed within the government services, and how many have been let go, laid off, in the last five years? That would be helpful with some of the concerns I've heard expressed here.
The Vice-Chair: I will ask them and let you know before we dismiss today if they will be able to give you that information.
Mrs Witmer: Madam Chair, have we been receiving, or am I somehow missing, the presentations that are coming in from individuals who are not --
Mr Fletcher: They didn't have one.
Mrs Witmer: No, not these individuals. I've been made aware of presentations that have been sent to the committee and I'm not getting those copies. I wondered if we could receive those as quickly as possible.
The Vice-Chair: I'll ask the clerk; just a moment. The clerk has informed me that there are presentations that have been sent to the committee. They are presently being photocopied and we hope to get them to you today.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much.
INSTITUTE OF EQUALITY AND EMPLOYMENT
The Vice-Chair: I would like to welcome the next presenters. We have three presenters, I believe, on behalf of the Institute of Equality and Employment. Would you please introduce yourselves. You have half an hour, and could you make your presentation 10 to 15 minutes to allow for questions. Please go ahead.
Mr Brian Burkett: I am Brian Burkett from the law firm of Heenan, Blaikie. I'm here on behalf of the Institute of Equality and Employment.
Mr James A. Lawson: I'm Jim Lawson. I'm with the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
Ms Jocelyne Cossar: I'm Jocelyne Cossar with Eveready Battery of Canada.
Mr Burkett: We've provided a paper which I hope has been distributed. We'd like to thank you initially for the opportunity to speak before this committee. The comments that we are going to make I think mirror what's contained in that paper.
The starting point is that we would like to note the positive direction set by the regulations that were passed in June of this year. In that regard, there would be five or six points that we'd like to quickly just refer to.
First of all, the regulations permit individual employers to implement employment equity initiatives that are most suitable to their own organizations. This is a positive development.
Secondly, in terms of numerical goals, in the regulations, specifically section 21, they have based numerical goals on the concept of opportunities for entry. Again, this is a positive development.
Thirdly, in the area of duplication, the regulations have tried to avoid duplication in respect of a number of items, including workplace surveys in section 7 and the review of employment policies and practices. That's another positive development.
Next is self-identification, a concept that the institute endorses. The regulations are predicated on the concept of self-identification, a positive development.
Finally, in the area of comparisons, there are two positive developments that we have seen. First of all, the geographic scope has been based on a municipality standard in section 22, and in section 24 of the regulations a qualified and available labour pool has been referenced.
Having noted those positive developments, that's the context in which we make our subsequent comments which may touch on continuing problems that we see or refinements on changes that have been addressed in the regulations. What I would like to do over the next few minutes is simply catalogue those problems or refinements that we would like noted. I would mention once again that they are dealt with more fully in the paper that's been provided to you.
The first area is that of harmonization. By that, I mean harmonizing the statutory obligations found in both the provincial and federal statutes. There are a couple of concerns in this area that we would like to see addressed. The first is in respect of the definition of "visible minorities." There is a different definition in the two statutes. It is hoped that the existence of the different definitions will not cause the commission to conclude that the results of a survey conducted under the federal law is not, and I take the language from section 7(b) of the regulation, "likely to be the same as" a survey that's been mandated under Bill 79. The solution to this potential problem of course would be a common definition for "visible minorities."
The second concern, under the heading of "Harmonization" that you find in the paper, relates to seasonal employees. As you are aware, employers covered by the federal contractors program do not have to survey seasonal employees. Under Bill 79, the same employer would have to conduct a separate survey for seasonal employees. This gives rise to some questions and concerns. Can the employer use the same survey instrument in dealing with seasonal employees as has been used under the federal contractors program in respect of the other employees? If this same employer must use a different survey instrument, that being the one mandated by Bill 79, then it gives rise to potentially two sets of data that are difficult to consolidate. That is the second issue that we would like considered in connection with the harmonization features of the employment equity legislation in Ontario.
The second issue I'd like to address is that of self-identification. As expressed before, it's a concept endorsed by the institute; however, there are a couple of concerns. The first relates to the experience at the federal level. At the federal level, the experience has been and was that initial surveys were sometimes inaccurate; inaccurate because individuals did not want to self-identify or because individuals inaccurately self-identified, to give a couple of examples.
As a result of this reality that occurred in the federal sector, the submission that we're making is this: first, that employers have an opportunity to express, for example in reports to the commission, deficiencies they have found in the initial survey; second, that there be an opportunity, and that it be clearly stated in the legislation, to resurvey, hopefully following further education and communication with employees and in anticipation that the subsequent survey will be more reliable than the initial survey.
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The third area we'd like to touch on is in relation to comparisons, in particular the concept of "working-age population" which is found in section 24 of the regulations, section 24 of all the sections being the most difficult read, I think. I think as you work your way through section 24, what you'll find is that there's a range of mandated comparisons, from the broadest, being designated group members in the working-age population, to something narrower, which is designated group members in the population who are qualified and available to do the work.
Briefly put, the position of the institute is that the first category is so broad as to be irrelevant and that it's really the second category that's the correct comparison, that being the labour pool of qualified and available individuals.
Moving to the issue of accommodation, in section 19(2) of the regulations the concept of accommodation is extended to all designated groups; further, in the case of the disabled, section 20 of the regulations sets out specific measures of accommodation. This gives rise to some concerns, and they really focus on the tension that's generated between potentially two pieces of provincial legislation, the human rights legislation and employment equity, tension that should be resolved before we do end up with two pieces of legislation.
The difference between the employment equity legislation as proposed and the human rights legislation is that accommodation in the employment equity legislation will apply beyond the disabled, which is a significant difference from the Human Rights Code. The Legislature, in its wisdom, has chosen not to amend the Human Rights Code in the past to extend it beyond the disabled. What we are identifying, we believe, is a significant difference, yet one which has not received a lot of attention and may remain somewhat ill defined at this stage.
In the specific case of the disabled, first of all there's probably no need to identify specific measures of accommodation. Employers will attempt to accommodate, in their wisdom, in a way that's appropriate in the circumstances in their organizations. If they haven't done it properly, the human rights legislation exists as a means to ensure that it is done properly.
Secondly, though, and more troubling, we have a duplication of proceedings, an overlapping of jurisdiction, which can only lead to some confusion, to a multiplicity of proceedings, something that we believe should be avoided.
The final point we'd like to make on the heading of "Accommodation" is that when you read the regulations, wherever the word "accommodation" appears, that's all that's there. Our preference would be that it refer to "reasonable accommodation." The concept of "reasonable" efforts is certainly not foreign to the bill or the regulations; I refer you to sections 19 and 23. Similarly, that approach should be taken in connection with the concept of accommodation.
The final point -- and I will be brief on this -- is what we have called codetermination. Simply put, in Bill 79, subsection 14(6), a trade union representing employees, the subject of a survey, has access to a very broad range of information and data, information and data that may very well go beyond the bargaining unit and that may very well relate to strategic planning information. I assure you that if the legislation stays just the way it is, I would have thought there would be a lot of litigation, unfortunately, over exactly what is the scope of that section.
Our submission today would be that while fully accepting the wisdom and need to work with the trade union in effecting employment equity objectives, the flow of information should be a little more curtailed and it should be confined to the bargaining unit and it should relate to historical data.
On that point, I would mention that once again there may be some tension developing between two pieces of provincial legislation: on the one hand employment equity, on the other hand the Ontario Labour Relations Act. Under the labour relations act, under the duty to bargain in good faith, trade unions have access, by way of inquiries and in certain instances on the initiative of the employer as required by the law, to all kinds of information that is relevant to the bargaining process. It may be that what's being created here is some tension in the sense that the trade union is acquiring information that really transcends what's required under the labour relations act.
Those are our initial comments. The context is that there are many positive developments in the regulations, as noted. We simply have these remaining concerns, which we've tried to address quickly in these 15 minutes.
The Chair: Thanks very much. Four minutes per caucus, Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: Thank you for your presentation. As I was trying to read along with you here, I didn't see anything about the seniority rights. What is your feeling about seniority, whether or not it conflicts with the principle of employment equity?
Mr Burkett: We weren't trying to address that issue. In fact, in the time allotted, we have tried to prioritize the concerns of the institute, and so we weren't dealing with what is a very difficult issue, actually, that of seniority and balancing the interest of a number of parties.
Mr Curling: Let me deal with one that you have identified, and I appreciate your candid view there, joint responsibility. It seems to me that when drafting up the employment equity plan at the table with the unionized individuals and the employer, nowhere is the non-union person there. It is mentioned somewhere very vaguely that they will be consulted. I'm not quite sure what that means. What is your view on that?
Mr Burkett: Well, I think what you want to have happen in the workplace, whether you're dealing with unionized or non-unionized employees, is that they have a proper role in the process in defining what the objectives are and then obtaining those objectives.
Mr Callahan: Can I ask you -- you were very pleased that the government finally brought out the regulations so that you could review them. I wasn't sure whether in your presentation you expressed what has been heretofore a common thread that's run through these hearings, the concern of people that much too much of the substantive provisions of this act are dealt with by regulation.
It's interesting for people who don't know how this place works. Perhaps for the people watching and perhaps the people in attendance, they talk about them as being regulations made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. I guess everybody has this concept that Hal Jackman or Lincoln Alexander comes down the hall and gives his blessing to this, when in fact what it is, and I think everybody should know, the cabinet of whatever government's in power simply saying, "Fiat" and that's it; no debate in the House, no protection for the public, a totally dictatorial way of dealing with legislation.
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Having explained that hopefully to the people watching and anyone else who doesn't understand it, have you addressed that or does it give you concern that the real mechanism behind making this thing work is left in the hands of the government of the day of whatever political stripe and can be changed in a flash behind closed doors?
Mr Burkett: I'm not sure that the question actually requires an answer from us.
Mr Callahan: It's somewhat rhetorical.
Mr Burkett: I think it's probably best left in your court. What we have tried to do is take the substance and try and put some priority on the issues that we think remain to be addressed. I'm not commenting on the validity of what you just said. That's part of the political process and I think you're identifying what you see as a problem. But I'm not sure it really requires our input.
Mr Callahan: Just as a lawyer, is it not a legal principle that regulations should deal with the mechanical workings, not the substantive portion of a bill? That's what is happening here.
Mr Burkett: There's no question that as between a statute and its regulations, the key document, the major document is the statute, not the regulations. What you find, though, in this statute is that it is very bare bones.
Mr Callahan: That's a very large basket clause.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr Burkett. Just to follow up on the regulations, is there -- and I do appreciate very much the focus you've given as to the need for some changes to be made and the priority in which you see them to be made. But regarding the regulations, is there any section within the regulations that you feel would most appropriately belong within the bill if any changes were to be made? We've had numerous presenters ask us to make those changes. Is there one section?
Mr Burkett: I find that question, actually, fairly similar to Mr Callahan's in that I'm not sure I am here today to advise you on what should be in the statute and what should be in the regulations. I sense that your view would be that there should be more in the statute, which would prompt a series of different proceedings. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with it; I leave that to you.
Mrs Witmer: I appreciate that; it's just that I guess many of the groups before us have asked that some changes take place and I just wondered if your group had given any consideration to that.
You talked about the self-identification and the problems that had been experienced at the federal level. I think you're the first group to suggest that an employer should be able to resurvey, if necessary, at any time. Do you see any problems from the employee perspective with giving --
Mr Lawson: Maybe I could comment. I'm here as a living example, being a bank, of a company that has had some experience with employment equity. We had this very experience where first of all we surveyed, as we were required to do under the federal Employment Equity Act, and our numbers were quite good. But then we started looking around at people who particularly were visibly disabled and those in our organization who have the confidentiality about the information started intimating that there was some concern between the numbers of people who had identified as disabled and individuals who they knew of by seeing them who in fact had not identified.
We did some thinking around this subject and ended up going back and resurveying with a much better communication program and our numbers changed dramatically, particularly in that area.
Mrs Witmer: How did you communicate? I think that is the key if you're going to get accuracy in the survey. What tools did you use and how did you accomplish that?
Mr Lawson: We used whatever we could. We used meetings; we used employee communication vehicles and really went back and tried to explain and help people understand what the categories meant so that they would feel more comfortable with the process.
I would add a further thing, though, that the whole process of employment equity is really evolutionary within a company. It's formed initially to a company's culture. When a company first introduces this, you almost have to assume that given that self-identification is voluntary, many people will be somewhat reluctant, for whatever reason, to identify themselves. But as time goes on and as communications -- if the company is responsible about communication -- continue to take place, more and more people begin to realize that this isn't something that could be detrimental to their career or their future or whatever, and that, plus the communication program, would probably result in much better statistics in a second go-round.
The dilemma, though, that a company faces is that if it does its first survey, it might well be that people who have an opportunity to review those numbers will look at them and say, "Ah, that's bad; the numbers are awful," and make some assumptions. Perhaps it could even lead to some legal action against that company based really on what we would call preliminary data, given the fact that employment equity, being a cultural thing, has to get built in and does take time.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, and then Ms Harrington.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. Unlike what other people are saying, I do have faith in other governments. Each party has said, "Yes, we believe in the commitment and the need for employment equity." I can't see another government coming along and doing something strange to the legislation that is going to put an extra burden or take away or something once it's in place. So I'm not worried about that. Once something is in place usually -- and as I said, the other parties have agreed that there is a need for employment equity, so I think the commitment is there from all parties. I don't look that far ahead and distrust governments as much as maybe we do ourselves.
I'm looking at your part about the information for trade unions and I recognize, in fact I know there are some unions which would say: "We don't want anything to do with this because it's not our job to hire people. It's management's job to hire." So there could be some reluctance even to get involved, from a trade union.
As far as the information is concerned and the discussions that go on with the trade unions for the implementation of the plan and what's necessary for the plan, it's a grey area. Where do we end? I mean, where does it end? Where does the information-gathering end? Do you have suggestions on how we can get around this bit of a dilemma that we are in? I agree with you that there is some information that's totally unnecessary for the bargaining agents to have as far as an employment equity plan. I'm just wondering, do you have something in your mind? Have you formulated some area?
Mr Burkett: No, I haven't drafted any language, for example. But as I was saying earlier, I think if it was confined to the bargaining unit -- and this may be more conceptual -- and it relates to historical data, those may be the sorts of parameters that you want to set, because as it's drafted, you're right that some unions will say, "I don't want any part of that." There are other unions which will say, "I want to get as much of that as I can get." It can apply in ways beyond employment equity and I think that's to be avoided.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, I agree. There has to be some area where we, instead of getting into the strategic plan of the corporation, of the company, for years down the road and things like that --
Mr Burkett: We have very well developed jurisprudence from the Ontario Labour Relations Board as to that type of information which the trade union is entitled to, and it's quite extensive. In fact it has to be tendered by companies when that plan has become a probable decision, for example. So it's very well developed. It's very mature.
The Chair: Ms Harrington, one last question.
Ms Harrington: I appreciate all of your input and your expertise because having this background of what you have already done certainly helps us formulate this legislation. I'm sure our staff are listening to some of the technicalities that you have referred to that we are concerned about. I was especially struck by your comment that several surveys are needed and communication in the meanwhile to make sure that you're getting an accurate picture.
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My question is with regard to firms that have a smaller number of employees than 50 and how they are exempt from the legislation. Do you see this in any way as being unfair, that those firms, the larger firms, have in fact more human rights, as one of our presenters put it this morning, or a higher level of human rights?
Mr Burkett: I suppose sometimes, and you find this in most legislation, you have these arbitrary cutoff points: Is it 50? Is it 45? I think that's all that the legislation is trying to do. It may in part relate to the ability of smaller employers, especially in this difficult economy, to undertake this sort of exercise. It may be an acknowledgement of that fact. But I'm just presuming; I'm not the drafter.
Ms Harrington: I think we're all presuming that this legislation eventually should apply to everyone.
Mr Burkett: Well, employment equity comes about not just by legislative initiative; it should end up as a cultural thing, and in fact that's already happening in this province. So there are other ways in which, although a smaller employer as defined in the legislation is not included in the legislation, employment equity is very alive in those operations in any event.
Ms Harrington: But we still don't have a measurement to ensure that.
The Chair: Okay, we ran out of time, unfortunately. I want to thank all three of you for the submission you have made here today, and thank you for participating in these hearings.
Mr Burkett: Thank you very much.
MICHAEL ALEXANDER
The Chair: I call upon Mike Alexander as the next presenter. Mr Alexander, you have half an hour for your presentation. I don't know whether you're reading your submission or not, but --
Mr Michael Alexander: Yes, I'd like to read a submission, Mr Chair, for about 15 minutes and then --
The Chair: Very well. Please begin any time you're ready.
Mr Alexander: First of all, I'd like to thank the members of the committee for allowing me to speak here today to my concerns about Bill 79. I'm not here representing an interest group or a business or a political party; I'm simply appearing as an independent. I work in this province as a lawyer and a public policy consultant.
This afternoon I want to take issue with the claim that Bill 79 is an equal opportunity measure that will promote a merit-based employment system. This claim has been made by members of the government, witnesses at these hearings and it is also contained in the government's consultation paper entitled Opening Doors: A Report on the Employment Equity Consultations, which promises a public relations campaign "to dispel tenacious myths such as employment equity means hiring unqualified people."
I believe that employment equity in its current form does mean hiring unqualified people. To see why it does, we must consider the meaning of "equal opportunity."
Simply stated, equal opportunity in employment means that people are not discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, ethnic background, sexual orientation or physical handicap, and that people are therefore hired and promoted on the basis of individual merit. Under this definition, I submit that Bill 79 will not secure equal opportunity for the people of Ontario.
Bill 79 will undermine equal opportunity because the bill's overriding aim is to ensure that the representation of the four designated groups in the workplace equals their representation in the community. This is a praiseworthy goal. However, nowhere does the act state that considerations of merit must ultimately govern employment decisions. Nowhere does the act guarantee that the principle of equal opportunity will prevail.
Thus, the real danger of the bill in its present form is that it will compel employers to set quotas for the designated groups and hire and promote individuals on the basis of their membership in those groups -- that is, on the basis of race, gender or ethnicity -- in order to achieve the goal of representational parity. In other words, the act will force employers to discriminate in favour of members of designated groups and against everyone else.
In what follows, I want to briefly address three points. First, I will explain how the act will force employers to establish quotas and disregard merit. Second, I will argue that the element of quotas may make this scheme unconstitutional. Finally, I will argue that Bill 79 will tend to increase discrimination and division in the workplace.
We must begin by recognizing that the basic goal of the act is radical; it is to ensure that each designated group is represented in every job category of every public and private enterprise in proportion to its representation in various communities around the province.
Since it is very unlikely that any employer will already have a workforce that is perfectly engineered to reflect the representation of designated groups in the community, the act will force every employer to establish an employment equity plan that will eliminate discriminatory practices and "implement positive measures for recruiting, employing and promoting" members of the designated groups.
In pursuit of these aims, the employer must establish qualitative measures and numerical goals which are to be achieved during the three-year term of the plan. According to the draft regulations, numerical goals represent the proportion of opportunities -- that is, hirings, promotions, or transfers to fill new or vacant positions -- reserved for members of designated groups during the three-year term. As the act expresses it, the plan must be linked to "specific goals and timetables." The language of the act and draft regulations could not be more precise: Employers must establish quotas, that is, reserve positions for members of designated groups.
By forcing employers to create their own quota systems the act will institutionalize reverse discrimination in the workplace. In many cases, individuals will be given employment opportunities based on race or gender rather than individual merit, which means in turn that the most qualified individuals will be denied the same opportunities because they lack these arbitrary attributes. In other words, meritorious candidates will be excluded from opportunities because they are not members of government-designated groups. And note that white males will not be the only group to suffer reverse discrimination; qualified men who are visible minorities could also be excluded on the same basis if their group is not included in an employer's plan, which may happen if the group is overrepresented or the government has not placed the group on the list of designated groups. There could also be discrimination between designated groups as, for example, when an employer must pass up hiring or promoting a qualified man who is a visible minority in favour of a less-qualified woman to meet the plan's goal for promoting women.
In defence of the act, it must be pointed out that employers can expand or limit quotas depending on whether skilled individuals exist within a business or in the relevant labour pool. This seems to suggest that employers will not be required to fill positions with unqualified candidates but need only hire those who truly have the skills. However, the danger of hiring and denying people for the wrong reasons will remain. The issue in most affirmative action plans is not whether someone possesses the minimal skills or qualifications needed for the job, but whether the most qualified candidates must be passed over in favour of the less qualified. Since the primary goal of the act is to increase the representation of designated groups in the workplace without any reservation on behalf of merit, the act will tend to compel employers to hire people who are only minimally qualified, that is, if they wish to avoid trouble with the authorities. So, in the end, people will often be hired and promoted on the basis of race, gender or ethnic background in order to meet quota targets.
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Turning now to my second point, I would like to address the issue of the act's constitutionality. The leading constitutional decision on the use of quotas to create a "representative" workforce may place the legality of Bill 79 in doubt. In CNR v Canada (CHRC), Administrative Law Reports 172 (1987), the Supreme Court reviewed an affirmative action plan which the CNR had been ordered to adopt by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to improve the representation of women in its blue-collar workforce. Since only 6.7% of blue-collar jobs were held by women in the CNR, the St Lawrence region, as compared to 13% of the blue collar workforce nationally, the Human Rights Commission found that systemic discrimination existed at CNR. As a result, it ordered CNR to reserve one in four blue collar jobs for women until they represented 13% of the company's local workforce. In making this order, the Human Rights Commission relied upon its authority under section 41 of the Canadian Human Rights Act to order "special programs to prevent future discrimination." The court held that affirmative action could be used to remedy past and future discrimination and ruled, therefore, that the CNR scheme was legitimate.
At first glance, the CNR decision appears to provide direct support for the basic principle of Bill 79, that is, that the underrepresentation of a minority group proves that the group's members have suffered historical discrimination and that they deserve special treatment. But there are two points which might distinguish the CNR's plan for future employment equity plans in Ontario.
First, while the court in CNR indicates its approval of an affirmative action plan designed to increase the representation of a disadvantaged group, its ruling is based on the interpretation of the human rights statute. The case did not decide the issue of whether the statute and the plan developed under it were consistent with section 15(2) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which legitimizes affirmative action programs for disadvantaged groups. In other words, while we know that section 15(2) allows the provinces to establish affirmative action programs, the CNR case does not tell us whether section 15(2) will legitimize a program that leads to reverse discrimination, as the Ontario program surely will.
In this vein, it should be noted that the CNR plan dealt with low-skill positions, which means that hiring women over men on a quota basis may not have led to reverse discrimination. Therefore, this case cannot be used to support the notion that affirmative action and reverse discrimination can and must go hand in hand.
The second point to notice is that the CNR decision does not necessarily support the premise of Bill 79, which is that the underrepresentation of a minority group proves in itself that the group's members have experienced historical discrimination. The court noted that the Human Rights Commission based its findings of systemic discrimination on the fact of underrepresentation as well as strong evidence of deliberate discrimination. This means that the mere existence of underrepresentation might not be enough to trigger employment equity remedies under the Constitution. In short, based on these points, it cannot be said with certainty that Bill 79 is constitutional.
Finally, I turn to my third point, that employment equity will create intolerance and division in the workplace. While many believe that employment equity will eliminate discrimination in the workplace by increasing tolerance for minority coworkers, I believe the opposite will be true. Once employers and employees know that people will be hired and promoted on the basis of race and gender and ethnicity, a new kind of discrimination will emerge. Employers will doubt the abilities of those they hire and promote, and employees will secretly suspect that a minority employee is unqualified. While minority employees are deemed to be equal by the act, they will be regarded as unequal by others. This will, no doubt, cause resentment on both sides, especially in cases where qualified employees are passed over for promotions in favour of less qualified minority employees. Race and gender will be identified in the minds of others in the workforce as never before, thus perpetuating the discriminatory frame of mind that employment equity is supposed to eliminate.
This points to another serious problem for minority candidates. Every minority person who is hired or promoted under an employment equity plan will be forced to wonder whether her achievement is justified as a reflection of talent and experience, and anyone who does earn a position based on merit will have his achievement stigmatized by those who believe that he or she was hired to meet a quota.
With all these problems, the question is what to do? If the government really wants to promote equal opportunity, guarantee the recognition of merit, avoid constitutional challenges and promote tolerance and unity, it could do so in the stroke of a pen. It could add the following provision to Bill 79: An employer has the right to hire and promote the most qualified candidate.
By way of postscript and just for the record, in case there is any question about my point of view, I would like to state that I believe in the principle of equal opportunity and I believe that government must guarantee to every citizen the right to be free from discrimination of any kind in the workplace, in our schools and in our neighbourhoods. I hold to the ideal of a free, diverse and democratic society where equal treatment is the rule, not the exception. I'm opposed to Bill 79 as it now stands because I believe it will lead us farther away from that cherished ideal.
The Chair: Thank you. Third party, five minutes per caucus. Ms Witmer.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr Alexander. You have talked about the bill. Certainly some of the concerns that you've raised have been shared by others. There does appear to be a need to transform the bill and to blend together and make it more fair and more workable. Without that happening, I think you've indicated and certainly the fears have been echoed by others, there is this fear of quotas and there is a fear that lower standards will be incorporated.
Have you taken a look at how further this act could be improved upon in order to make it more workable, more fair and more equitable?
Mr Alexander: I find I certainly approve of many of the provisions of the act. In fact, in my brief I refer to the work of Neena Gupta, who is --
Mrs Witmer: I saw that.
Mr Alexander: Yes, and I don't know if she's appeared before the committee, but she has suggested various guidelines for a minimal employment equity review that's consistent with merit. If I just might refer to some of her points, I think they're better than anything I can come up with on the spot.
Mrs Witmer: Because I think that's what necessary at this point. It's absolutely critical that the members of this committee look at ways in which the bill can be made more fair and more equitable.
Mr Alexander: Just, for instance, I'll raise a couple of her points. Here she suggests that there should be an analysis and revision of job descriptions with a firm to ensure that positions are described accurately and comprehensively and that the skills and qualifications required are not artificially inflated.
I think there is a problem, at least in my own experience in the workplace, with invidious distinctions, unnecessary distinctions. I think you can find this in probably just about every organization you go to. I think employers should give an account of what their criteria are for every position and be able to justify hiring an individual in relation to those criteria. In so far as the act would require that or could require that, I think that would be a real step forward.
Mrs Witmer: Is there anything else that you think would be beneficial?
Mr Alexander: I do have some concern about the way in which the Employment Equity Commission and the tribunal may be staffed. I believe there is a perception in some quarters that, in the case of human rights commissions, political considerations tend to dominate the appointment process and people who, as it were, have an axe to grind or a particular political agenda, end up trying to forward that agenda through their participation on the commissions.
I think in the case of employment equity, we need to staff these bodies with people who are independent, who have judicial experience or experience in the law, so that there is hopefully an objective frame of mind and temperament brought to the administration of the act. I think that it could imperil the perception that this is a fair scheme if people are appointed on the basis of the employment equity principle to the commission and to the tribunal rather than on the basis of experience, in particular in dealing with statutes of this kind.
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The Chair: Mr Mills, to begin with.
Mr Mills: I listened to your presentation, Mr Alexander, and I must say that at times I thought for a moment that I was back in the 1800s, you know, with your perception of the way the world works today.
Mr Carr: Gord lived in the 1800s too.
Mr Mills: Not quite.
I understand that you're a lawyer. Is that right?
Mr Alexander: Yes, I am.
Mr Mills: You're a lawyer, so you must be very familiar with the report Touchstones for Change that came down from the former Supreme Court Justice Bertha White. Are you familiar with that?
Mr Alexander: Wilson.
Mr Mills: Wilson. You're familiar with that.
Mr Alexander: No, I'm not familiar with that report.
Mr Mills: She has some pretty hefty things to say about your profession and particularly white males.
Mr Alexander: I'm sure she does.
Mr Mills: She said that women and ethnic minorities encounter discrimination at all levels of the profession, starting in law school, where there is a "poisoned environment of pervasive sexual harassment and discrimination." Now, sir, I say to you, that you come here and you lecture me as a member of the government about what's right and what's wrong about equity. I would suggest to you that your own house is obviously in --
Mr Callahan: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Witnesses appear before this committee voluntarily. They really don't need to be dressed down. We're here to listen to them and perhaps to discuss things with them, but not to put people down.
Mr Mills: I'm not putting anybody down. I am stating facts.
Mr Callahan: We'll soon find if we do that, we won't have any witnesses that even want to come before us.
Mr Mills: You are the worst one to tell somebody --
Mr Callahan: I think, Mr Chair, in fairness, you should be protecting the rights of witnesses and not allowing that to happen.
The Chair: Mr Mills, just as a matter of --
Mr Carr: Settle down.
Mr Mills: No, I'm not. I'm just going to say, sir, do you think that you have any sort of relationship between Bill 79 and your own profession, having read the report of the former Supreme Court judge?
Mr Alexander: First of all, Mr Mills, I'd prefer to stick to the documents that relate to Bill 79, and I'd like to point out to you that in the consultation paper we don't have any analysis, statistical or otherwise, that supports the preamble to the act, which states that all of these designated groups are suffering from historical discrimination.
I think that we have to examine each of these groups on their own terms, address their specific needs and not homogenize them and call them "designated disadvantaged groups." I'm quite concerned that there has not been enough analysis of each group and the measures that would be needed to promote equal opportunity for each group.
As far as Madam Justice Wilson's report goes, I can't speak to it because I haven't read it. As far as there being a poisonous atmosphere in the legal profession, that's true, but I don't think it has anything to do with discrimination.
I would say, in my own experience in law school both here in Canada and in the United States, I've never seen in six years of attending law school the discrimination that Madam Justice Wilson is speaking about. In the profession itself, that's another matter. I may not have enough experience in the profession to speak to this issue in the way that she can. She's been around longer and practised longer than I have.
Mr Mills: My final little question is -- yesterday we had the Canadian Bankers Association appear here. They said it makes good business sense to tap all pools of labour market potential, including people who historically have not been part of the economic mainstream. Demographic studies over the decade have made it clear that the traditionally dominant group of white able-bodied males is shrinking in relative terms. Competition for qualified candidates is increasing and the employer for the future will be the one who develops and manages well a truly diverse workforce. Would you agree with that statement?
Mr Alexander: I absolutely agree with that.
Mr Mills: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Ms Akande, one final question.
Ms Akande: Your presentation seems to imply opposition or some kind of difference between meritocracy and employment equity. You state that quite frequently throughout your presentation. Certainly, equal merit was something that was implicit in the legislation, so implicit in fact that it was felt that there was not a need to state it. I want you to hold on to that when I connect that with the fact that you say that there isn't adequate research to demonstrate that these designated groups are not proportionately represented within the workplace.
Mr Alexander: That's not my statement.
Ms Akande: That's not what you're saying. Then would you clarify, please, what you're saying in terms of there not being adequate research.
Mr Alexander: The point that I was making in relation to Mr Mills's comment is that this bill is not accompanied by a comprehensive study of the place of these different groups in the Ontario economy today. I think that we should undertake that kind of study to see what degree of underrepresentation actually does exist.
In this regard, I might note that Statistics Canada will be publishing the results of the most recent census within the next few weeks as it affects visible minorities. They've already published it in relation to women. This will provide us with quite a bit of information, I think, to begin to reflect on what the situation is for different groups.
Ms Akande: Rather than your saying what there is or is not, you're saying it should be presented here with this legislation so that in fact people could be informed by it.
Mr Alexander: Yes.
Ms Akande: One of the points that I want ask you about, if I may -- am I off?
The Chair: We're running out of time. You're doing fine, but we're running out of time.
Ms Akande: We're running out of time so that means go or stop.
The Chair: We ran out of time in fact. Mr Curling and then Mr Callahan.
Mr Curling: Thank you very much for your presentation. I quite enjoyed the direction Mrs Akande was going in her questioning. Your entire paper, though, seemed to take the position that the groups who are identified in the bill are unqualified.
Mr Alexander: No.
Mr Curling: One second. If you take the position further --
Mr Alexander: No.
Mr Curling: Let me complete, you can't say no when I haven't completed what I'm saying, just like that. You've taken the position further that upon recruiting them, it is to recruit unqualified people, and I was saying, even if the statistics don't bear out that this is so, that they are being discriminated against, upon reaching the area of employment, it will lead to employing unqualified people. Could you explain that to me or correct me if my thoughts are running in the wrong direction.
Mr Alexander: First of all, my position is not that all of these groups, because they've been designated as historically disadvantaged by this act, are unqualified. I believe in treating people as individuals, and I think the question of merit has to be decided in each case according to talent and experience and what the job requires. So that's not my position at all.
Furthermore, I don't suggest that if employment equity is implemented in its current form that reverse discrimination will occur in every case. It will happen sometimes, it will happen often, but I'm not suggesting that it will happen every time or that merit won't triumph in certain cases.
Ms Carter: So a few designated groups could qualify.
The Chair: Please continue. You were addressing Mr Curling's question.
Mr Alexander: Yes. I just want to dispel any notion you may have that I think the groups which are designated here are underqualified. I don't make that assumption at all. I'm concerned about how people are treated as individuals.
Mr Curling: This is it exactly. Now if you are with me that you are concerned about how people are treated as individuals -- and that's what's it's all about, denying access because of some of the specific identification that is said here -- would you agree that you said that in your profession, although you want to deal specifically with this bill and not your profession, but your profession has a lot to do with it. It's a professional organization that also is seen to somehow deny access to a certain group of people, and they say that we have to start taking a serious look at it now for access to that profession.
For a lawyer and someone who is a statistician who said, "In my experience, I've not faced that," and immediately -- many blacks and many disabled have said, "You know, I've worked 30 years and I've never faced discrimination," but that does not say there is no discrimination. Would you say that there is discrimination?
Mr Alexander: Yes, in fact my position would be there's discrimination everywhere. I'm not suggesting that the world is a perfect place, and I think discrimination is a very serious problem no matter where you find yourself in life. I think that the government has a role to play in ensuring that people are not discriminated against. In my postscript, I think I stated that quite clearly.
The question is how you do it. You say you're concerned with the individual. What I'm suggesting here is that considerations of group representation can in many cases under this bill eclipse the consideration of individuals and their merits, and that's my concern. My concern is for the individual to be treated fairly.
Mr Curling: It's difficult for me to say this now, I'm out of time. But just as a rounder here, the bill is moving in the right direction to get equity, but it's rather weak.
Mr Alexander: No. It's moving in the right direction, but the principle of merit needs to be entrenched in the bill.
Mr Curling: I agree with that --
The Chair: Unfortunately, we've run out of time. I want to thank you, Mr Alexander, for the presentation you made and for taking part in these discussions.
Mr Alexander: Thank you very much.
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ONTARIO MARCH OF DIMES
The Chair: I would like to call upon the Ontario March of Dimes, Mr Bill Hoch. Just before they come, I wanted to complete the thought that I was going to say to Mr Mills earlier. I think it's perfectly legitimate for members to attack the arguments that presenters make. We just have to be careful, at times, in attacking the arguments, that we not attack the person. I just wanted to simply pass that on to the members.
Mr Mills: That's the last thing I would like to do, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Of course, I understand that. Welcome, Mr Hoch. You have half an hour for your presentation and I hope you will leave plenty of time for discussion at some point in that half-hour. Please begin any time.
Mr William Hoch: My name is William Hoch. I'm a board member with the Ontario March of Dimes. Joining me today is Mr Jerry Lucas, who is the program director for our provincial office. We would like to take the opportunity to highlight some of the items that you have in the written brief and deal with some of those issues, and then certainly we would be pleased to try and elaborate perhaps on some of the areas that we don't speak about, but someone else may want to ask questions. I welcome the opportunity to be back in front of a legislative committee.
The Ontario March of Dimes welcomes this opportunity to participate in the formulation of the Employment Equity Act, Bill 79. The Ontario March of Dimes believes that a policy of employment equity should be embraced by all levels of government. Legislation should be designed to bring to a point of equal competition on the job market those groups of people which have faced discrimination, whether by design or by impact. Employment equity legislation must identify and remove each barrier; it must require employers to treat people the same despite their differences and provide special measures to accommodate these differences or overcome barriers which are current and/or historic.
The Ontario March of Dimes supports the legislative initiative to provide employment equity for the four target groups: aboriginal people, visible minorities, people with disabilities and women. However, there are areas which we believe can be strengthened to better serve these groups and we'd like to take a moment to highlight some of these.
The Ontario March of Dimes has been working since 1951 on behalf of persons with disabilities. Our mission statement is very simple; it reads, "To assist adults with physical disabilities to lead meaningful and dignified lives." We work in over 100 communities in this province. The reality is that one in 10 persons is affected by some type of mobility impairment and in many instances turns to the Ontario March of Dimes and other organizations for assistance, not necessarily related to employment equity but to a variety of issues.
In January 1992, we made 28 recommendations in a presentation to the committee. At that time, all 28 were listed. I'm only going to go through a number of these so that we can shorten those down and deal with the key points.
The first one, I think, is worth noting and that is that the employment equity legislation should have three major components: a requirement that employers implement it; that any program intended to benefit the designated groups should be designed with their input. The most efficient method of accomplishing this would be the establishment of employment equity committees including, but not restricted to, representatives of management, labour and the designated groups.
The third point is a requirement, subject to the above, that employers collect and file annual data on the participation rates, the occupational distribution and income levels of disabled employees in their workforces. We're highlighting the disabled in this case simply because we are representing that particular position today.
We're going to assume that items 2, 3 and 4 in the paper are given as written.
In terms of item 5, we would draw your attention to the data collection and reporting process and ask that it be standardized. It should also be compatible with other jurisdictions in Canada. The commission should specify the data requirements and standardize the process of collecting and reporting. The commission should make efforts to ensure that data requirements and processes are compatible with those used by other jurisdictions and that the paperwork demands on employers are reasonable, given the need for effective monitoring and evaluation.
Item 6: There really is, or should be, an obligation in order to achieve equity for employers and employees throughout the system and to ensure accurate data collection and reporting. The way we are suggesting this happen is not through an entirely voluntary self-identification system but through one whereby the system would work diligently, carefully, in order to have people understand the necessity of working within a reasoned employment equity system. Identification should be voluntary. In other words, it shouldn't be necessarily by your supervisor, but it should also be through education and knowledge that people come forward and understand that identifying is not necessarily a detriment. In some places today, being identified is a detriment and can be career-limiting and in some cases doesn't even allow you to get into the workforce.
Item 7 we will also take as a given, and item 8. I'm not reading these, because you have the written record and I don't want to take your time on those.
We would like to move, if we could, to item 9. Item 9 really is a position that we feel strongly about, the definition of disability. The definition of disability, from our position, should be the one found in the Ontario Human Rights Code. This should be given preference over other definitions. The definition is stated as follows:
"Any degree of physical disability, infirmity, malformation or disfigurement that is caused by bodily injury, birth defect or illness and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, including diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, any degree of paralysis, amputation, lack of physical coordination, blindness or visual impediment, deafness or hearing impediment, muteness or speech impediment, or physical reliance on a dog guide or on a wheelchair or other remedial appliance or device,
"a condition of mental retardation or impairment,
"a learning disability, or a dysfunction in one or more of the processes involved in understanding or using symbols or spoken language,
"a mental disorder, or
"an injury or disability for which benefits were claimed or received under the Workers' Compensation Act."
The federal definition really is inadequate. We recommend the more practical implementation of the above definition because it really spells out what is a disability. It doesn't leave some people to interpret their own situation, either because of pressure at work or because they may not understand their own disability to be included in the survey. This would allow people to have a better and clearer definition of disability.
Item 10: Unions should negotiate employment equity clauses within their contracts which allow for entry and movement in the workplace of persons with disabilities. Any limitations to seniority rights should be left to the collective bargaining process. Employment equity legislation should not include provisions restricting or further protecting seniority rights.
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Item 11 needs a little bit of clarification. Employment equity committees could assist in worker participation. We note that they are included in the legislation. We consider this to be a positive step forward and, wherever possible, they should involve all of the partners in the decision-making process within the workplace.
To highlight item 12, we believe that steps have been taken, are being taken, last week and others, in the direction of working on training, things like the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Other items related to skills development and so on are ongoing. We think all of these things are particularly important and we would urge the government to continue those and to work with the Employment Equity Commission in ensuring that these become part and parcel of some type of supporting process.
Item 13 we think is particularly important. We have seen somewhat of an erosion in the educational system when the dollars become short. The opportunity for persons who may have individualized needs in the education system begin to see those shrink. Things like identification and placement review committees are becoming less likely to classify people, because it means devoting more resources and other things to people, so they're not necessarily getting the support. We would urge that educational facilities and, in the broader sense, training centres -- and I'm not talking about schools but the broader context of training centres -- should in all respects be accessible to disabled persons.
Item 14: We would note that universities -- it shouldn't be just restricted to universities, but we are implying colleges here -- and colleges should undertake creative recruitment policies aimed at attracting students with disabilities into courses and professions in which they are underrepresented.
Item 15: Businesses with 10 to 49 workers should be encouraged to undertake a moral practice to employing designated groups. There could be the tendency to look at a cutoff number and suggest, "We're exempt from legislation," but through education and through processes the commission could set up, we're suggesting that be undertaken.
Item 18: Incentives that include financial, educational, technical and advisory services, along with public recognition awards provided by the commission, are encouraged. We were encouraged to see the positive approach of the commission that there would indeed be incentives or items that were not punitive which employers could take advantage of. We certainly see that as an advantage for the company, as well as the workers and all of the participants in this partnership.
I'll skip over to item 23. There's a lot of talk about standardization of data in the other items, and collection. I'm not sure we want to get into all the nitty-gritty, but certainly we'll entertain questions if you have some concerns about our position.
Item 23: The obligation on employers to collect data should take effect upon the development of standardized data collection. We've not been able to see regulations relative to this, so we're encouraging regulations that would standardize how people report, what they have to report. We think that was implied in the legislation, but we would like to stress that.
Item 27: We make a differentiation here between the employment equity office and the employment equity hearings section. We're suggesting here that the employment equity office has a definitive role to play. That role would be education, working with business as partners, working with advocacy groups, working with designated groups, working generally in the community to provide support, as opposed to the hearing or tribunal stage, where things can often become controversial. We think that it may be better to separate those somewhat so that the person who is perhaps heading the employment equity office is not heading the tribunal stage, because they may be at odds at times. But I think that may be something that the commission and certainly this committee will have to take a look at.
Item 28 just I think requires slight clarification: an advisory council comprised of designated groups. What is missing there is really that it's not just for designated groups that we're looking for an advisory council. That advisory council should be ongoing and it should be all of the partners that are involved in the process of employment equity. It should be ongoing and it should be developmental so that it's not dealt with five years later and then the holes in the dike are patched as they crack open. It can be an ongoing process where everybody can benefit, and certainly everyone then can see how things are developing.
I'm going to stop at that point, Mr Chair, and entertain questions.
The Chair: Very good. Four minutes per caucus. Mr Mills and then Ms Carter first.
Mr Mills: I thank you for your presentation. I've long supported your organization. I think it's a fine organization. I'm glad to see you here this afternoon.
First of all, what I'm going to do is read something and then I'm going to ask you to comment on that. I'm going to read from Hansard, dated July 13, 1993, and it concerns the second reading of Bill 79. The Conservative member for Leeds-Grenville said:
"Currently, the reality in the workforce is that the candidate most suitable or most qualified for the position is going to be selected. What this government is suggesting or indicating or mandating by this legislation is an additional consideration which is paramount in respect to these decisions being made by private sector employers. That paramount consideration will be, is this candidate, is this applicant for the job or for promotion a member of a designated group, one of the designated groups laid down by the government? If not, that employer will in all likelihood be forced to hire a less qualified individual.... A less qualified individual will be the successful candidate because the government is saying that individuals selected for promotion or hiring have to be from this designated group."
I'd like to ask you your opinion of Bill 79. Do you see this as what this member for Leeds-Grenville said, as being that an employer will be forced to hire someone who's unqualified because he's in the category, and I put it to you, perhaps someone disabled even?
Mr Hoch: Is it appropriate, Mr Chair, to ask who the member for Leeds-Grenville would be?
Mr Mills: Mr Runciman.
Mr Hoch: Thank you.
Mr Mills: It's parliamentary to call people by their riding.
Mr Hoch: I just wanted to try and get in my own mind --
Mr Mills: Mr Runciman.
Mr Hoch: Thank you. If I understand your reiteration of a question or a statement --
Mr Mills: It's a direct quote from Hansard and I'm asking your comments, sir.
Mr Hoch: Thank you. It's our position that in every case, the most qualified individual will always be hired. That really is the employer's job. It is their position to make money for their particular organization, or if they're a not-for-profit group, to have the best employee there. If the best employee happens to be from that designated group, so be it. As I read the legislation, as our organization reads the legislation, there's nothing that will compel someone to hire someone of a lesser qualification.
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Mr Mills: Right. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Ms Carter, one question.
Ms Carter: I also would like to say that I appreciate the March of Dimes and the work you do.
It has been suggested that the definition of disability might allow a dilution, that employers would tend to hire people who were less rather than more severely disabled. How would you respond to the idea that a more restrictive definition could be used to ensure that those who really need that protection so that they can get employment would have it?
Mr Hoch: Can I defer, Mr Chair, to my colleague?
The Chair: Absolutely.
Mr Jerry Lucas: I think there are a number of reasons we're taking this position. First of all, I think, with consistency with the other designated groups in the legislation, that's not the approach taken in defining women or visible minorities, for example. It's a very simple definition, and the reality in those groups is that those with the most education, the most qualifications, are going to get hired first and you'll still need ways of addressing the needs, for example, of women who have not had, let's say, considerable access to education, who may have other barriers to overcome.
The second reason that we are going with a more simplified definition is consistency. We're dealing with a complex issue in employment equity. First of all, your base data are coming from Statistics Canada, which takes a very straightforward definition of disability. You then have employees or potential employees going for job interviews or working in a workplace who are protected under this definition by the Human Rights Commission. To then create a different definition of disability for employment equity creates a situation potentially where I, let's say, as an employer might not hire someone with a mild disability, based on the fact that I want to comply with employment equity but I'm therefore violating the Human Rights Code. You can get into some real problems.
I think the real issue is that there are additional barriers to severely disabled persons getting employed, and this legislation won't address them by changing the definition. What will address them is dealing with attendant care in the workplace, dealing with assistive devices, dealing with how workplace modifications are made, dealing with education, but the definition by itself is not going to overcome those barriers.
Mr Callahan: I think on that last part, just very quickly, it seems to me that if you don't expand it to put them on the same footing as a visible minority or a woman, which are self-evident, you might have someone, particularly if it's self-identification, who might have a learning disability, might have -- what do they call it? -- an attention deficit, which is probably the most common one. He or she may not think it's important to identify that and thus lose the benefits of the legislation. So I appreciate your larger definition. It doesn't take any more printing by the Queen's Printer and I think it would make sense.
I notice you don't refer to the question which has been a common one from many of the groups that have come before us about the problem that much of the meat of this legislation, as opposed to the mechanics, is in regulation.
The reason I say that is because -- I tried to clarify it before and I'm going to do it again, and I think the group should know this -- regulations are known as the silent laws of the province of Ontario. They are never debated in the House, and in fact, unlike our federal brethren, who at least have a small process whereby regulations are brought before a public committee and debate can be made on them, in the province of Ontario, once a week in the regulations and private bills section of our legislative committees, we simply receive these regulations that have been made by cabinet. We say yea or nay to them based on a set of rules that are given to us, and those are that they not contravene the charter and I think a couple of other things, but they're nothing significant.
But nobody ever gets any notice of them. They can be changed in the twinkling of an eye by the cabinet, the government of the day. The way they become effective is that they have to be printed in the Ontario Gazette. I have to tell you, the Ontario Gazette, even though it's got a sexy name, I don't think there are too many people who have a subscription to that document, nor do I think too many people read it.
So in essence what it means is that if the government of the day -- and I don't want to ascribe any improper motives to this government or any other government -- decided that we can't afford this or there's a backlash to it or the polls tell them that this is not popular or whatever, for whatever reason they decide they want to change it, they can change this act significantly by just a flip of the switch and no one will ever know. I mean, they'll know eventually, but it'll take a long time for it to filter down.
You haven't addressed it, yet many of the groups that have come before us have, and I think it's absolutely critical to the whole thing, because otherwise it becomes a great centrepiece and a great sort of thing to do for those people who need this type of legislation, but in fact it's smoke and mirrors and any government of any day can change it by the flip of a switch.
Did you intend to comment on that?
Mr Hoch: I alluded to it through item 23. I think in responding to that, I would suggest to you that in how we have written many of our comments in the brief, many of which I didn't speak into the record here today but would become part of the record, we are, we hope, clear enough to help this committee and to help those who are writing the regulations establish things like standards so that standards -- which we are assuming would become a regulation then -- would be clear, would be consistent and so on. That's part of it.
So the hearing process is extremely important. The noting, in terms of the detail that we have throughout this also, while it doesn't mention regulation, we believe speaks directly to how the regulations must be written.
The third item of course is that we believe that the public wants a partnership in an ongoing monitoring. Perhaps monitoring is not necessarily a good word, but an involvement. So that advisory committee that would carry on and work with the government of the day, regardless of who they are, would have the opportunity then to bring forward positive and appropriate change which would affect everyone.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation. You talked here about voluntary self-identification. I think there was some acknowledgement that there could be some problems with the self-identification process. However, you didn't want to see the identification taken over as a responsibility for the supervisor or the manager.
There was a suggestion made by one of the previous presentations this afternoon that an employer be allowed to resurvey his or her workforce if the first survey did not produce the data that were going to be necessary, I guess, to make employment equity work. Do you see any problem with that?
Mr Hoch: I'm just going to very quickly answer the first part, and then if I could defer to my colleague.
At the federal level we've seen instances where this has been abused, where the definition was so loose that, without pointing to a particular sector, one particular sector did a survey and people with glasses were considered to have a disability. I think if those things are clearly spelt out and carefully dealt with, those issues initially can reduce the likelihood of having to resurvey. At this point, I'm going to defer.
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Mr Lucas: I just wanted to maybe tighten up how this section was presented, because we use the word "voluntary." I think one of the issues that does concern us is that first of all we see all employer-employee relationships as one of mutual obligations, and in employment equity or human rights, the concept of reasonable accommodation is an example of that, where there are obligations on both sides to get the job done, but to accommodate.
Employment equity is very much a data-driven system and it relies, as its base data, on census data which is collected in a -- it's an enumeration of all Canadians, and really we see this as an enumeration of all employees in the same form. Filling out the census is a mandatory responsibility because of the importance of the data, and I think we are leading in the direction of the commission seeing this with the same amount of onus, that the employee see this as critical data for this process to work. So it's to the benefit of everyone, for the employees, the employers, the commission and the general public, to believe in the data if this is going to have any weight.
Mrs Witmer: I'm not sure now -- are you suggesting that the surveying, that it should be mandatory to fill out the form?
Mr Lucas: I think it's something this commission should seriously consider. Just like with the census, I think it's very critical that information be confidential and that access to that information be extremely limited. At the same time, the implications, especially if you get into penalties, of the use of the data is so great that the obligation of the employee has got to be stressed.
Mrs Witmer: That's interesting. Thank you for your definitions.
The Chair: I'm sorry, we ran out of time. I want to thank you both for taking the time to participate in these committee hearings.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNITY LIVING
The Chair: I would call upon the Ontario Association for Community Living. Mr Kyle, you've seen how the whole committee operates. You can begin as soon as you're ready.
Mr Gordon Kyle: I am, if I can figure out how the mike -- oh, it just goes on. Okay.
The Chair: It comes on.
Mr Kyle: Yes, everything's easy.
I apologize that I wasn't able to get my brief together beforehand to send to the committee, and I don't have copies with me other than my working copy, but I've got the address to send copies tomorrow, so I'll make sure they get to you.
I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to come and present for our association. The Ontario Association for Community Living, which I'll refer to as OACL because it's short and it will speed up things considerably, has a membership of 15,000 people from across the province, and we are made up of 116 affiliated local associations which, you may know from your own communities, are often referred to as associations for community living, whatever town they're in, and by a number of other names. Our local associations have been set up to provide a variety of supports and services for people with developmental handicaps. That's our main interest in being here today: to bring some of the issues forward as they pertain to people with developmental handicaps.
OACL is a member of the Disabled People for Employment Equity coalition, which made a presentation to this committee on the 17th, and I just wanted to lend our support to the presentation that it tabled. We developed a lot of our positions around employment equity, over the year, through consultation with other members of that coalition, and you'll see some similarities today as I'll be reiterating some of the positions they brought forward and trying to put them in the context of our concerns.
It's the goal of the Ontario Association for Community Living that all people live in a state of dignity and share in elements of the community and have opportunities to participate effectively. To this end, we're extremely interested in ensuring that people with developmental handicaps have every opportunity to obtain employment.
The employment record to date, for people with developmental handicaps in Ontario, is not good. For the most part, people have been segregated in sheltered workshops which pay little or no wages. Over the past few years, there have been specialized services developed which have supported a number of individuals with developmental handicaps to achieve gainful employment, so we've had some movement. Still, there are barriers which continue to exist which hinder access to employment for many people.
The most significant barriers that we find are related often to attitudes of society and just the failure of employers, for a number of reasons, to accommodate the needs of individuals with disabilities within their workplaces. While the vast majority of people, including employers, acknowledge the rights of people with disabilities to participate in employment, little has been done over the years to ensure that this occurs. OACL believes that effective employment equity legislation is the key to providing increased access to employment by requiring employers to plan for and provide accommodations that are required.
I want to make just a couple of general comments on Bill 79 and then I'll get into some of our issues.
The employment equity principles contained in Bill 79, in section 2, we feel are adequate and provide a good framework from which to build effective employment equity legislation. This brief that we're presenting here is going to take the view of identifying components within the bill itself that we feel support those principles and others which we think would detract from the principles.
You'll see, as we go through, that we have quite a number of concerns where we think that the structure of the bill is not going to result in the recognition of the principles that have been identified. We also do have a concern that the bill is not complete in that there has been a lot left in regulations that we feel should be in the bill, and we touch on a number of those.
I'd like to start with some comments on the bill around issues related to persons with severe disabilities. People who have been labelled as having a developmental handicap are often the most disadvantaged members of society in regard to access to employment. Much of this is related to attitudes which tend often to categorize disabilities. While we've had some advance, in the last few years, of people with lesser disabilities, some physical disabilities, getting some acceptance in society, persons with a developmental handicap are often seen as incapable of participating actively in society.
Given these attitudes and the extreme isolation that many people with developmental handicaps have experienced over the years, due to institutionalization and so on -- excuse me, I've lost my place here.
The Chair: That's okay. So do we sometimes.
Mr Callahan: We lose our way.
Mr Carr: Someone said that about the NDP government.
Mr Kyle: I've found it. Okay, we're fine.
So given these attitudes and the isolation that people have experienced, we do acknowledge that often the range of accommodations that are required for people with developmental handicaps and other severe disabilities can be significant to get people under way in society. This, we believe, must be seen, however, not as a reason to exclude people, but we must accept it as a challenge and, on principle, find ways to support people.
OACL doesn't expect that we're going to have the perfect piece of legislation the first time out. We're already going into this anxiously awaiting the review of Bill 79 at the five-year period so that we can build on what's in the bill and try to improve what's in there now and what's going in this time around. We must, however, attempt to make this bill as effective as possible for people with severe disabilities.
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In Bill 79, subsection 5(1), it is stated: "It is not a breach of this act to...deny employment to someone if the...denial is one that is permitted under the Human Rights Code by...section 17 (handicap)," to paraphrase. Unfortunately, there are many people with disabilities, especially those, but not limited to those, with the most severe disabilities who will be denied employment. These are people who will be denied employment although their primary concern in life is to get a job and to avoid poverty that is imposed on them by our society.
In order for Bill 79 to cover all persons with disabilities as a designated group, it is essential that subsection 5(1) be amended to put an obligation on employers to hire persons with severe disabilities and persons with disabilities with severe disadvantages, if the supports and employment services that are required by the employer and the individual needing the support are available in the community. The need for special provisions for persons with severe disabilities should also be acknowledged in the preamble or principle section of Bill 79.
OACL is pleased to see that the government plans to establish a commission and tribunal as vehicles for ensuring successful implementation of employment equity. Many questions still exist, however, regarding the relationship between Bill 79 and the Human Rights Code. While Bill 79 provides mechanisms for addressing systemic employment problems, it does not hold much promise as a means for dealing with individual complaints.
While the Human Rights Commission has not always been an effective avenue for dealing with individual employment complaints, it is an important mechanism for protecting the rights of people with disabilities. It is our hope that Bill 79 will address many of the systemic issues that have led to human rights complaints in the past and will thereby ease the pressure on the Human Rights Commission and allow it to deal more effectively with the complaints it does receive. However, the relationship between Bill 79 and the Human Rights Code must be clarified to ensure that they are mutually supportive and do not detract from protections that currently exist for people with disabilities.
Subsection 11(1) outlines the requirements of an employment equity plan, and I'd like to talk about that for a moment.
OACL agrees that the components listed in the bill are appropriate but worries that, given the level of detail provided, employers will not understand and effectively carry out the required planning process. While the draft regulations for Bill 79 provide some additional detail on the planning process, OACL believes that the bill itself should be enhanced to provide clear guidelines for planning.
Beyond the establishment of the bill, the Employment Equity Commission must give priority to resources for education of employers on mechanisms for the planning and implementation of employment equity. Experience tells us that even when an employer has a sincere desire to hire and accommodate an individual with a disability, he or she often has no idea how to go about doing so. This is particularly true in regard to the identification of the removal of barriers. Employers must be provided with explicit information on how to review policies and practices and to remove barriers within their workplace.
OACL has participated in much discussion over the years on an appropriate definition for "disability" for purposes of employment equity, and I would assume that every disability group that has come before you has probably addressed the issue. The current plan is to use the definition that's contained in the federal Employment Equity Act, and while we recognize that the federal act has failed people with disabilities in many ways, we don't necessarily relate these failures to the definition used in the act. Problems with the federal definition relate more to the government's failure to insist that employers adhere to the definition.
OACL supports the use of the federal definition, as we feel it's workable and provides continuity with the federal act. We, however, want to see much stricter enforcement of the definition than has been seen in the federal act, and to this end we believe that the definition of disability should be contained in the bill and not left to regulations.
We are concerned with the impact that Bill 79 could have on the responsibility of employers to accommodate the needs of a person with a disability. Currently, under the Human Rights Code an employer must accommodate a person with severe disabilities unless to do so would cause undue hardship, as interpreted in the "Guidelines for Accommodation."
According to Bill 79, accommodations are addressed within the employment equity plan which the employer must produce. Since the bill only requires that an employer "shall make all reasonable efforts to implement...an employment equity plan," we are concerned that this weakens the requirement to accommodate people.
Employment equity may effectively deal with the identification and removal of systemic barriers. It does not, however, provide adequate protection to individuals. The requirement of an employer to accommodate an employee with a disability should be maintained under the Human Rights Code "Guidelines for Accommodation." And we want to say, since we have an opportunity here, for the record, we'd like to see those accommodation guidelines entrenched in some legislation rather than just being left as guidelines as they always have been.
I'd like to take just a moment to look at the issue of mandatory numerical goals and timetables. We believe that the heart of effective employment equity strategy is the requirement for establishing mandatory goals and timetables for hiring people from a target population. Employment equity is an attempt to ensure that the workforce of any particular employer represents the community in which the employer operates.
This is one of the weakest components of Bill 79, which proposes to leave the establishment of targets to employers. Employers cannot be expected to generate information for the establishment of appropriate targets. OACL believes that the Employment Equity Commission must generate the data and establish the numerical goals for each target group within each community. These targets can then be used by employers to establish their employment equity plans.
I'm going to skip because -- how's my time doing?
The Chair: You have a few minutes left.
Mr Kyle: Okay, I'll go through it all. I was going to jump a point or two, but I'll go through them.
I'd like to also look at access to workforce data. We've had some experience with the federal Employment Equity Act, which requires annual recording of data, which is then made available to the public. We believe that it's only when the public has access to information that third parties can intervene in the process to raise complaints and scrutinize the progress employers are making. It should also be stated in Bill 79 how and how often workforce surveys must be done and what form to use.
I would like to also point out that 1% of the population becomes disabled on a yearly basis, with approximately the same amount dropping off each year due to death rates and persons with temporary disabilities returning to the workforce. There is a danger that if a full workforce survey is only done once every nine years as proposed in the draft regulation, the workforce data can be seriously distorted over time, making it look like you have a lot more people in your workforce than you may in fact have.
The makeup of the commission and the tribunal: Designated group members should make up the majority of the commission and tribunals and their staff. Representation should be equal for all four designated groups. The same should be said of the advisory councils to advise the commission set up by the Ministry of Citizenship. Although these councils will have representation from employers and labour and designated groups, they should still be made up of a majority of designated group members with equal representation from the four designated groups. We feel this will just help us in the process of implementation of all of this.
Regarding the coverage of the bill, we believe the legislation should be focused to cover smaller employers as well. Most of the growth in the future as we see it is going to be with small employers. Many large employers have also reduced their operations into small profit centres as they started to become more efficient, and we think this is important as we move into the future. We recognize that there's an issue of administration and so forth that may be a consideration as we get this under way, but we'd really hate to lose the opportunity of having access and having those smaller employers opened up to us under employment equity.
Finally, I'd just like to take a moment to look at the review of the act. Section 52 of Bill 79 calls for a review of the legislation and the regulation by a standing or select committee of the Legislature after five years. As we stated earlier, we really feel that the initial bill is going to require some significant modification over time, because even we ourselves have struggled with issues of severe disability. I don't think we have all the answers as to how we can put together a fair system, so we need a process of review that we can build on our experience over time. We think the review of the act and the regulations should be done not just once after five years but repeatedly, and we're proposing every three years, after that.
Of the advisory councils referred to in section 45, one should be specifically established to do a continuous review of the act and regulations and to make presentations to a standing or select committee, to the Employment Equity Commission and the minister who is responsible for the legislation.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Okay, thank you very much. There are three minutes and a half per member. Mr Callahan.
Mr Callahan: I'd like to go back to a theme that's come through with a lot of people who have appeared before us, and you've mentioned it: the question of how the guts of this act, the real meat of this act, is all done by regulation. You talk about a review of the regulations. Nobody reviews those.
Mr Kyle: Sorry. If I said that, I meant the legislation, the five-year review of the legislation.
Mr Callahan: It would be nice if we could review the regulations because in an instant, snap, the twinkle of an eye, the cabinet of the government of the day could literally wipe out or certainly change dramatically the whole framework of the regulations. So in fact what you'd have left would be a tribunal that had been set up, which is merely the mechanism part of it, with nothing to do. That may sound ludicrous, but let me tell you, if this government is really, seriously legitimate about bringing this in, in fairness to those people who are affected, then why in heaven would they not be prepared to put it into the substantive -- put it into the area where it can be debated in the House, get it passed and then not let any government change it again without it again being debated by the elected members of this Legislature?
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In fact, I think the members on this committee, once they understand -- they probably do understand that regulations are the silent laws of Ontario. They never see the light of day. They are done in a cabinet room by the cabinet members, and that's it. They can change them up or down, whatever they like, and not one member of this Legislature or one member of this committee has any say over what happens in that regard. In fact, you might not even know it until after it was done.
So to my way of thinking, in this bill, the mechanism part is all that's before the public, is all that's cast in stone. The rest of it is all up for grabs. I don't want to sound machiavellian or suspect, but this is considered to be a very controversial piece of legislation. It's kind of like a trial balloon and you find out whether or not there's going to be a backlash. That may very well be why the government put so much in the regulation section of the act: so that they could change it according to polls or according to the feedback they got.
I think the people who are advocating this act should press the government to come clean and put more of it into the body of the act, take it before the Legislature, let it be debated, not let it be done by the guys on the second floor. And let me tell you, I think people should understand that we live in an oligarchy, not a democracy, of whatever political stripe is in office. You've got the Premier, four cabinet ministers and about six unelected people down on the second floor who from time to time come up with the policies that will govern the people of Ontario, and more often than not it's based on: "What are the polls? What do the polls tell us?" I think that's particularly significant here, when you recognize that this government promised all sorts of things and suddenly pulled the string on them.
Mr Mills: We promised this.
Mr Callahan: Well, you promised it, but you're not giving it, Gord. What you're doing is you're giving smoke and mirrors, because you're putting it all into regulations. I think it's important that the public understands just how regulations can be changed in the twinkling of an eye without anybody ever knowing. Unless you read the Ontario Gazette, which is a widely read magazine -- I mean, everybody's got a subscription to it -- you'll never know that it was changed.
Mr Kyle: May I make a quick comment? We're in a quandary in the disability community as well, though, because when the regulations were released, we had so many concerns. The regulations, I have more concerns about than this, because the bill itself in many ways is fairly --
Mr Murphy: An empty shell.
Mr Kyle: Yes. I agree with your concern. Our difficulty in coming to this presentation is that without doing a deep analysis of the regulations before we do this, we have difficulty just saying, "Put this in the bill." There are many parts of the regulation I would hate to see entrenched in legislation, because then they can't be changed. So we're really caught between a rock and a hard place. I understand your concern, but on the other hand, if they're left in regulations we can still fight that battle as we go on. It's a strategic issue for us.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Witmer.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much for your presentation. Certainly you've made us aware of some of the unique concerns that the members of your association have regarding the legislation, and I think you've made a good point regarding the bill vis-à-vis the regulations. There are some benefits to having the information contained in either place.
You talked about the small employers. I'm sorry that we don't have a copy of your presentation, and I look forward to reading it further. What size are you proposing? Were you considering all employers be included within the bill?
Mr Kyle: The bill refers to the broader public as to 10 --
Mrs Witmer: Yes, it does.
Mr Kyle: -- and I think something like that is a reasonable number. I think we need a statement of principle within this province that all employers work under a principle of employment equity, but as far as legislating, I think something closer to 10, something you can manage and do some administration on, would be better.
We're finding with the small employer, particularly working out of small communities as our local associations typically do -- our best success has been in smaller places, because for people with developmental handicaps, often their success comes through the relationships they can build in their workplace. That's where we're finding our greatest success. We would like some mechanism by which we can get into those places and build on what we've got now.
Mrs Witmer: So your suggestion would be 10 and more as a reasonable figure.
Mr Kyle: I didn't specify in the brief but I would suggest something in that general --
Mrs Witmer: I appreciate that, because there have been some who have suggested if you have only one or two employees, you should be covered within the legislation.
Mr Kyle: It's a discussion that we've had with other disability groups over time, including the employment equity coalition, and we've gone from at times saying that we need to support the higher number just so that we can administrate and make sure that we can have a way of dealing -- but I think at this point we're just looking at the growth of small industry in Ontario, that we can't leave them out of this legislation.
Mrs Witmer: And it's true: Many of the people in my own community who would be members of your association are certainly involved in the smaller workplace setting.
What about the definition? You've presented us with a bit of a problem, because the group before you felt that the definition --
Mr Kyle: Yes. I was here for their presentation.
Mrs Witmer: -- should be other than the federal definition, so I guess now we have to determine.
Mr Kyle: I think we've had such difficulty -- we're not necessarily married to the federal, although we see it as a workable one and also think that for employers who may fall under the federal already, it does provide them an easier continuity for dealing with identification of their workers.
We have a concern about the use of the human rights, though, as was recommended earlier. I really believe that the human rights definition and employment equity definition are trying to do almost opposite things in that human rights is trying to make sure that people don't suffer as a result of any issue, physical or mental, that may afflict them, no matter how minor, that that shouldn't be a consideration for people.
Employment equity, on the other hand -- I wear glasses; I have a number of things. I have a toenail that's a real mess, you know, a few things that are very, very minor and I don't think are any hindrance to my holding employment, and I don't feel disadvantaged because of those at all. We think that we need a definition that is narrower so that we can begin to target those people who really are excluded because of their disability. I think the human rights is good for what it does for human rights, but it's too broad for employment equity.
Mr Winninger: Thank you for your presentation. You've suggested that there be some kind of mandatory standards, perhaps a checklist of standards that need to be measured against progress in the workplace.
We've heard a lot from employers both large and small about the need for flexibility, and particularly I recall the grocers' association. They indicated that they knew their workforce better than the government could know their workforce, so they would oppose mandatory guidelines for employment equity.
You seem to go in the opposite direction to that, and I am just wondering what mechanisms you would suggest that would make a mandatory minimal list workable.
Mr Kyle: My comment was directed primarily at the issues of identification of barriers and the provision of accommodations and so forth. I don't see it as sort of a big stick on employers. I think we need to find some mechanism, though, by which employers have every tool at their disposal to make sure that they don't miss things that may be barriers. It's very difficult for people who haven't spent time with people with disabilities or who don't have a disability often to see what a barrier is in their workplace. For instance, for a person with a wheelchair to try just to get to the head of your table, he may have a great deal of difficulty in sort of just manoeuvring his chair. That's a minor one. I think an employer would see that.
But we often just don't understand it. I have talked to a lot of employers who just say, "We never have people apply for jobs at our workplace," but if you go through and look at just how they post their jobs and go through it, you can point out to them that, "You have so many barriers you created by just the way you go about doing your business." I'm thinking more to give some real assistance to employers so that -- it's like getting a checklist on your car to make sure that your car is operating and they have these 900-point checklists of things that the garage has to check for you to tell you that your car is operational.
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Mr Winninger: I see.
Mr Kyle: I don't see it as a big stick. I see it as a way of just easing the operation, the job employers have to do, and making sure that they've done it.
Mr Winninger: I believe there may be another question.
The Chair: Forty seconds left.
Mr Mills: Forty seconds and I'll be very succinct, Mr Chairman. Thank you, sir, for coming here. I'm going to go back to the second reading of Bill 79 on July 13 this year. I go to the statement made by the Conservative member for Leeds-Grenville, Mr Runciman. He said, "Again, I want to say it is a mandatory system of officially sanctioned discrimination, which certainly the Conservative Party cannot support."
Do you see Bill 79 as officially, government-sanctioned discrimination? We're trying to make this work.
Mr Kyle: No, I think it's a partnership of employers playing their role in providing access within the communities they operate to all the citizens who work there to have access to their employment. Employers benefit from a lot of things society provides them in the way of roads and infrastructure and so forth to operate their business, and I think they have a responsibility to take a look at their whole community. If that requires some accommodation on their part, then I think that's fair. I don't think that's an unreasonable --
Mr Mills: You fully support Bill 79, I think.
Mr Kyle: Well, what it's attempting to do. As I've said, there are some things that need to be fixed.
Mr Mills: You think it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing, right?
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Kyle, thank you very much.
Mr Kyle: Did it not get on record? I'm not sure.
Mr Mills: He rests his case.
The Chair: We thank you for your participation in this committee, Mr Kyle.
Mr Kyle: Thank you very much.
STUTTERING ASSOCIATION OF TORONTO
The Chair: We'd call upon Mr Pill. Is it Mr Pill?
Mr Jaan Pill: Yes.
The Chair: The Stuttering Association of Toronto. Welcome to this committee. You have half an hour for your presentation, and I hope you would leave some time for questions and answers at the end.
Mr Pill: Yes, I'll take about 10 minutes or so to make my basic presentation. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm speaking on behalf of people who stutter.
I work as a special education teacher in the Toronto area. I also do volunteer work on behalf of people who stutter. I have stuttered severely most of my life, but thanks to treatment I have achieved a measure of control over my stuttering.
I'm founder of the Stuttering Association of Toronto, a self-help group for people who stutter, and I'm cofounder of the Canadian Association for People Who Stutter, a national network of self-help groups which recently had its second national conference. This conference, which was in Ottawa, brought together 120 delegates from as far as away as New Zealand and Australia and featured simultaneous bilingual translation. This event was made possible through assistance from the Office for Disability Issues of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and from the departments of the Secretary of State and other funding sources. I am also chair of the support groups committee of the International Fluency Association, a worldwide network of speech professionals, researchers and self-help groups.
I've defined what stuttering is in the handouts, which I'm sure you've all had a chance to look at. The exact cause of stuttering is unknown, but there appears to be a neurological basis; a genetic element appears to be involved. Between 0.5% and 1% of the adult population stutters. The 1% figure means that there are about 100,000 adults in Ontario who stutter, and for Canada as a whole, there are about 270,000 adults who stutter.
Also, about 5% of children stutter between the ages of 3 and 6. Research has established that children are not to blame if a child begins to stutter. Many children outgrow the problem, and some don't. Traditionally, medical doctors have told concerned parents that the child will grow out of it.
I would mention in that context that I appeared before the standing committee on social development on August 8, 1991, in connection with the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991. The act originally said that only physicians and not speech-language pathologists should have the right to diagnose whether a child has a stuttering problem, but in the final version that was changed, which I think is a very good thing.
I would also add that the final version of Bill 43 still specified that a number of male-dominated professions can use the title of "doctor" if they're speaking of members of their profession who have PhDs, but that female-dominated professions, including speech-language pathologists, could not use the term "doctor" for members who have PhDs. In the spirit of employment equity, we would hope that the Ontario government will in future have another look at the Regulated Health Professions Act in regard to the use of the title "doctor" by health services professionals who have PhDs.
In terms of the proposed Employment Equity Act, our first recommendation deals with the fact that stuttering is a disability which, if it is effectively treated during childhood, in many cases can be prevented from emerging as a disabling condition later in life. When we look at Bill 79, inevitably discussion moves to the role of federal and provincial human rights commissions and to the role of federal employment equity legislation that's already in place.
In my written brief I've made the comment that it might be useful if the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Health looked at a pilot project that's now in place in Peel region. At the moment, many school boards in Ontario offer speech therapy services to children who stutter, but it's been our experience that most of these programs are not very effective. The pilot project which I have described in the written submission involves application of speech therapy by speech-language pathologists who specialize in stuttering. They also have a pilot project to have an early program in place for identification of children who stutter at a very early age. It's possible that more widespread application of such programs in Ontario might lead to the reduction in the percentage of adults who stutter and thus reduce the number of Ontario adults who would need employment equity assistance in the future.
I would add that our second point is that employers can assist employees who stutter to get specialized treatment for stuttering and we applaud employers who are already assisting in this way. I would add that in some cases treatment may involve going to clinics outside of Ontario. Treatment for adults can't cure stuttering but it can ensure that a person can communicate effectively in the workplace.
I would also add the third point, that about 20% of adults who stutter are not able to get lasting long-term gains from even the most effective treatment currently available, and the reasons appear to have to do with neurological functioning. I would say that persons in this category have valuable skills and abilities.
I believe that they, too, deserve a chance to apply for positions and promotions based on the merit principle. In this context of the merit principle I would cite the example of Alan Turing, a British mathematician who happened to be a person who stuttered severely. I would add that we don't remember Alan Turing as a person who stuttered. Instead we remember him as a person who played a key role in developing the mathematical principles that came to form the basis for today's computer technology. I would use that example to suggest that persons who stutter severely can offer skills and abilities that can be of tremendous benefit to our society.
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Our fourth point is that we support efforts to educate and influence employees about stuttering. It's possible that these efforts might be legislated. At the same time, they can be informal.
Our fifth point is that we support the concept of a level playing field which, as we understand it, is indeed based on the principle of merit. It may be useful if the legislation is amended so that the merit principle can be spelled out clearly and without ambiguity.
The final point is that it may be useful to consider if you take some of the details which are in the regulations and move those details into the legislation itself. If you decide not to, it may be helpful to explain why.
I look forward to your questions and I thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Six minutes per caucus. We'll begin with Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for a very fine presentation. I appreciate the opportunity to go through this with you.
One of the questions is the last one with regard to the regulation. You say it isn't clear why so much detail's left to the regulation. Do you have any thoughts as to why the government would embark on that?
Mr Pill: I just want to check which party you represent first of all.
Mr Carr: Which?
Mr Pill: I would like to check first and find out which party you represent.
Mr Mills: They're on the right.
Mr Carr: Oh, the party. I'm sorry, I thought you said the part; I said number 6. I'm with the Conservatives.
Mr Pill: Okay. Well --
Ms Harrington: But they won't support this.
Mr Pill: Well, in terms of where you're coming from politically, I would say as a person who stutters that what I'm interested in is simply the most effective legislation. I think, just in terms of the elegance of a piece of legislation, most of the time the most important elements in the legislation are actually in the legislation. It's too easy to change regulations.
So, I'm not sure what the reasons are, but certainly I do have a concern just in terms of procedures. I don't understand why there's so much detail in the regulations.
Mr Carr: What other changes would you like to see for your group? Is there anything else that you'd like to see changed in the legislation?
Mr Pill: At this point I think I would prefer to wait five years. At this point it's not clear to us whether the legislation is in fact acceptable to a broad range of groups in Ontario or whether it needs to be tightened. At this point I really have no comment. I haven't had enough time to really consult with all of our members on this.
Mr Carr: When you look at your best guess of where we'll be a few years from now, if the bill passes, do you see a dramatic improvement -- let's talk just specifically for your association and group. Do you see a big improvement three years down the road?
Mr Pill: I see a measure of improvement in the sense that, as a result of the legislation, people who stutter will have a chance to inform the public more about stuttering. It also means that employers will be better informed and will be involved in making life easier for people who stutter.
Also, it might mean that instead of having to go the route of the Human Rights Commission, which only applies to individual cases, it might be possible to put our agenda to a wider forum to the benefit of everyone. I don't see this as an exclusive kind of thing and certainly I support the Conservative Party's attitude about the merit principle. The only question I have is exactly what do you mean by the merit principle?
Mr Carr: One last question if I have time: One of the concerns when you set up any commission is what happens. The Human Rights Commission was passed, I guess, going way back under the Conservative government when it started. Great in theory -- now we're backlogged so many that I've had so many people who are so fed up with it. They said it's worse having a Human Rights Commission because of the backlog, and it doesn't matter what government. It got backlogged under all three political parties.
Is there some concern with setting up a commission that will become backlogged and really not serve the people? Do you have any concern that what we do, with all good intentions, ends up creating a bureaucracy that -- I think all three political parties would say the Human Rights Commission, for example, doesn't work right now. Do you have any concerns about that?
Mr Pill: I would say that the Human Rights Commission has a technical problem. I don't think the basic principles on which it's based are defective.
Mr Carr: But you agree it isn't working, I think.
Mr Pill: I agree there are problems, but I don't think the fact that we have a bureaucracy and we have problems at the bureaucratic level -- that therefore it follows that we shouldn't have a Human Rights Commission in place at all. If you're suggesting that what we should do is get rid of it, then I want to express my strong disagreement with what you're saying.
Mr Carr: No, I didn't suggest that. I just wanted to see if you feel like I feel. I get comments every day because I deal with it and, quite frankly, the people are so fed up with it. It isn't a case of dollars, because this government has come in and the backlogs got worse under this government. It doesn't relate to any political party. There just is some concern that we put these things in place. I can tell you with all good intentions, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is not working as we sit here today. I agree with you, the intention is great, but it is not achieving results. What everybody wants in here, and I guess I am more results-oriented than I am activity-driven, so I just wanted to see if --
Mr Pill: I certainly agree with you that results are extremely important. One part of my presentation dealt with the fact that, at the moment, speech-language pathologists in Ontario are, in some cases, getting paid and we don't see any results. We certainly don't support waste of taxpayers' money.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. I'm going to hit on the merit principle that you are talking about in your brief, that Bill 79 creates a level playing field and therefore qualifications are what are going to determine whether or not a person is hired or promoted. Then you go on to say that it encompasses merit, as you see it. Can you tell me what merit means to you, just so I can get your definition?
Mr Pill: I would give one example. In the federal civil service, if you have a person who stutters and they want to apply for an interview, they have a chance during the hiring process to identify themselves as a person who stutters and they would have the opportunity to take a civil service test to indicate that they have some ability. If it happens that they are able to get a sufficiently high mark on the test, it means they have the right to go to an interview and the interview is set up in such a way that the person who stutters -- everyone else knows that this person stutters and the fact that they stutter is not going to be held against them in the course of the interview. That's an example of the merit principle.
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Mr Fletcher: Right. Just to touch on what Mr Carr was saying, because the Ontario Human Rights Commission is overloaded with complaints, with people who are seeking justice, does that mean we forget employment equity and just fix the Human Rights Commission?
Mr Pill: No. I think the Human Rights Commission is concerned with individual cases. Individual cases are extremely important. My understanding is that they don't involve class action kinds of things, and some people don't believe there's such a thing as systemic discrimination. But again, I think we're talking about language and we're also talking about the fact that, in many ways, all of us are in agreement. What we have problems with is terminology.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, you're right. Thank you.
Mr Winninger: When I was reading your brief last night, at one point you indicate that a large number of stutterers are reticent sometimes even to speak and they remain somewhat silent for fear perhaps or concern, about disclosing the fact of their stuttering. I'm wondering how this would impact on the whole mechanism for self-identification that's built into the act and just what can be done so that people will self-identify and give us an accurate number.
Mr Pill: That's an excellent question and it's a concern that we certainly feel ourselves. I think part of the work that we're doing as people who stutter is encouraging people who stutter to take their disability out of the closet and to enable them to feel that this is in fact a disability. It's not their fault. It's not a psychological disorder. It's not an emotional disorder. It appears to have a constitutional basis. As we have more public information, we would hope that more people will step forward, but in the end it's up to each individual.
Mr Winninger: Thank you. I'm not sure if there's time or not.
The Chair: If it's a short one, Mr Winninger, yes.
Mr Winninger: I was just going to follow up on that by coming back to some comments expressed by employers, particularly, who appear before the committee indicating their fear that people wouldn't self-identify and they would be unable, without some kind of perhaps mandatory requirement, to enumerate the number of disabled people, for example, in their workforce. I just wondered how you felt about any kind of authority vested in the employer, if you will, to validate a disability list.
Mr Pill: At this point I really can't offer a comment, except to say that if a person who stutters behaves in such a way that he or she never speaks except under conditions where no one will realize that they stutter, then I think the employer will have as much difficulty as anyone else in determining that the person stutters.
Often we say that 1% of the population stutters, but it's not always easy to see that many people stuttering because one of the most important aspects of stuttering, of this condition, is the fact that a person deals with it by not speaking as much and, as a result, they are almost automatically shut off from the mainstream of life. It's a serious problem that we're dealing with and I thank you for bringing my attention to that potential problem.
Mr Callahan: Tell me when there's one minute left, because my colleague would like it.
First of all, I have to say I give you great credit for coming before us to make your presentation. I'm sure it's very difficult. But would stuttering come within the framework of being covered either under the Human Rights Code or under the disabled section of this bill?
Mr Pill: At the moment there are two human rights cases that I know of before the commission so, in terms of the Human Rights Commission, certainly it's considered to be a disability. In terms of the federal civil service, if a person identifies himself or herself as having a disability, then certainly stuttering would be considered to be a bona fide disability under the legislation connected with the federal civil service.
In fact, part of our whole agenda is to clearly define that we are dealing with a disability. It's not some minor problem that a person has or some kind of laughable affliction. The kind of impact it can have on a person's every aspect of life can be tremendous, to the point that some people commit suicide just because of the kinds of problems they encounter.
Mr Callahan: In a sense it's like learning-disabled people who have an attention deficit and sort of are captured within the framework of their thinking and so on. Would you and people who have a similar affliction feel more comfortable, and I certainly hope my colleagues in the government who have the ability to bring this about, if the definition of "disabled" were to be one something like that suggested by I think it was the March of Dimes proponent rather than being as limiting as it is?
It's nice to have court cases and determine you're covered, but I always figure it's better to cover you definitively. I guess until right now I hadn't really thought out and I don't think anyone here had really thought of how stuttering can in fact take away one of the major human characteristics, being able to communicate.
Mr Pill: Yes.
Mr Callahan: Would you feel more comfortable if that were to be included as a specific within the definition of "disability"?
Mr Pill: I think that some steps, certainly in the American jurisdiction, are being taken. For example, in the school systems in the States, if a person has some difficulty in completing an examination in sufficient time, then that's taken into account. In fact there's legislation in Ontario which takes into account the fact that some students have difficulties in learning.
I would also say that there appears to be some evidence that learning disabilities often have a neurological basis and also can be helped through very specialized training. So I think certainly that's an area which warrants investigation, and it's taken a long time for people with learning disabilities, dyslexia for example, to be recognized as having a real problem.
Also, we have a lot of examples in the literature and in the media of people who have been able to overcome their problems as a result of adjustments in the workplace on the part of employers or more often on the part of employees, who have found ingenious ways, often electronic ways, to deal with the fact, for example, that they can't read but they can tape-record things and so on.
Mr Callahan: I have to give my minute to my colleague, but I wish you the best and I would hope that the members of the government would take that to the minister and that it be specifically included.
Mr Pill: Thank you.
Mr Murphy: Thank you very much for the presentation. I appreciate it. I was interested to hear you mention the two human rights cases proceeding at this point, because one of the aspects of the bill that has come forward as a concern, especially to various disability groups, is the different level of accommodation required in the two separate acts.
Mr Pill: In the two separate acts. Which two?
Mr Murphy: The Human Rights Code and then in this bill. Under the Human Rights Code it's the undue hardship test, and then in this it's a reasonable efforts test. If you look through the latter part of this bill, it says if you go to the Human Rights Commission and it relates to an employment equity plan, you can be bounced to the Employment Equity Commission. Then if they determine that it's not really a plan issue, they can bounce you back to the Human Rights Commission, especially in the disabled context. I was wondering if you had looked at that and had concerns both about that bouncing back and forth and about the different definitions of what is the required accommodation.
Mr Pill: I think obviously it would be useful to have consistency, and also I think it's a matter of negotiation whether we're dealing with undue hardship or reasonable efforts. So I would say that certainly it's important to have consistency, and we don't want duplication. I think the issues you raise on that point are valid ones.
Mr Murphy: Just one quick follow-up if I may. Do you know if the two cases proceeding are essentially around the issue of accommodation?
Mr Pill: In one case, it's a case of alleged wrongful dismissal, where a person claims that in the process of being dismissed he was told that he's a person who stutters and "We don't want people who stutter around here." In the other case, it's the mother of a school child who had serious concerns about the fact that a particular school board in Ontario did not address in a helpful way the fact that her son stutters.
Mr Murphy: Thank you for the opportunity, and I want to echo my colleague's remarks that I do think you've raised some issues that I hadn't appreciated before. Thank you very much.
Mr Pill: I appreciate the chance to share some of these with you.
The Chair: We thank you, Mr Pill, for coming and sharing in fact your ideas and your own personal history.
Mr Pill: Thank you very much.
Mr Fletcher: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: What my colleague and friend across the floor said about being bounced back and forth between the Human Rights and the EE commission is not true. They do not get bounced back and forth; one of the departments does deal with it. If it's not Human Rights, then EE will deal with it. It does not get bounced back and forth.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Fletcher, for the point.
Mr Murphy: A point of order.
The Chair: It's not a point of order. If it's a point of order on that point of order, that would be ruled out in a similar way. This committee is adjourned until Monday morning at 10 o'clock.
The committee adjourned at 1701.