Legislative Assembly of Ontario

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

WINDSOR AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL

ONTARIO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

CATHERINE LEITCH

TRANS-ACTION COALITION

PERSONS UNITED FOR SELF HELP (PUSH) CENTRAL PETERBOROUGH

NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL

MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT EQUITY NETWORK

TORONTO FIRE FIGHTERS' ASSOCIATION

CONTENTS

Monday 30 August 1993

Employment Equity Act, 1993, Bill 79

Windsor and District Labour Council

Margaret Rousseau, recording secretary

Ontario Chamber of Commerce

Mary Porjes, chair, employment equity committee

Lynda Mungall, member, employment equity committee

Catherine Leitch

Trans-Action Coalition

John Feld, director

Persons United for Self Help (PUSH) Central Peterborough

Mary Ann Brewer, representative

Reno Demeo, representative

Marilyn O'Connor, representative

National Action Committee on the Status of Women

Judy Rebick, past president

Carolann Wright, southern Ontario regional representative

Kiké Roach, member at large

Chinese Canadian National Council

Amy Go, national president

Beryl Tsang, board member, Toronto chapter

Municipal Employment Equity Network

Effie Ginzberg, spokesperson

Toronto Fire Fighters' Association

Mark Fitzsimmons, president

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:

Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Ms Harrington

Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Duignan

Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND) for Mr Winninger

Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC) for Mr Tilson

Miclash, Frank (Kenora L) for Mr Chiarelli

Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre ND) for Mr Malkowksi

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

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 1006 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.

WINDSOR AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL

The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I welcome the Windsor and District Labour Council, represented by Margaret Rousseau today. You have a half an hour for your presentation. Please leave as much time as you can for the questions and answers at the end of it.

Ms Margaret Rousseau: I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to be here. I'm going to stick fairly closely to my notes. They run about 20 minutes.

The Windsor and District Labour Council represents 35,000 unionized workers in the Windsor and Essex county area. The membership represents workers in the public, broader public and the private sectors.

One of the purposes of the council is to encourage all workers without regard to race, creed, sex, age, disability or national origin to share in the full benefits of union organization. Another purpose of the labour council is to secure legislation which will safeguard and promote the rights of workers and the security and welfare of all people. It is in support of those specific purposes that I come here today. The Windsor and District Labour Council thanks the committee for its invitation to appear and we welcome the opportunity to make our views known on Bill 79, the Employment Equity Act.

The views of the labour council are presented from a perspective that recognizes the need for Bill 79. Our constant struggle for equality in the workplace helps us to fully realize that discrimination, both systemic and direct, keeps many workers from progressing. The same discrimination is keeping many members of the designated groups from entering the workplace altogether.

It is out of this struggle for workplace justice that we feel quite secure in commenting that Bill 79, though well intentioned, misses the mark. Its lack of strength is recognized in the legislation itself.

We are puzzled by the unconventional approach of leaving the majority of significant content to the regulations. We feel that for the Employment Equity Act to have the impact to change the face of Ontario's workplaces, it must make certain that the legislation cannot be tinkered with by future governments through the regulations.

There is additional concern about the degree of licence given to employers in determining what is reasonable. Employers are given too much leverage within the structures of the bill and regulations. Our example is the procedure set out to gather information and the setting of goals and timetables. Our concern would be much alleviated if the bill would specifically require the consultation and involvement of bargaining agents in all aspects of drawing up an employment equity plan.

Our experience has shown that involving the union through consultation or negotiation in the creation and implementation of any major workplace change will show greater acceptance and success. The health and safety and pay equity legislations are good examples of this. The direct stakeholders in this area are workers, so it should be expected to involve them.

Again, it must be made clear that in organized workplaces, the union must be involved. The Windsor and District Labour Council feels that it is imperative that the employment equity plans, when completed, must be posted in the workplace so as to ensure that the employer will continue working towards compliance.

I'm going to get a little more specific in certain areas.

The smaller employers designation: The bill, in part I, when first read, appears to cover all workplaces and workers in those workplaces. Further examination of the bill reveals that there are different rules for different employers. Workers in the largest workplaces have the most protection under the bill in its present form.

It is the position of the labour council that protection be extended to all workplaces employing more than 10 people.

Unfortunately, job growth in larger industrial workplaces will continue to decline as a result of the prior implementation of the free trade agreement. Future declines are expected upon the introduction of the North American free trade agreement. In addition, the public sector, which should be commended for its employment equity efforts, is also in a downsizing mode. Job growth, it appears, will happen in the service sector and in smaller industrial ventures employing under 100 workers.

It is incumbent upon the government to provide employment equity protection to groups of workers employed in these smaller workplaces, as referred to in the bill. The labour council does not support the different standards and time lines for what the bill refers to as smaller employers. The exemption of smaller workplaces is nonsensical when the majority of future job growth is forecast in this area. If the government is committed to this bill and the continued direction towards equality and fairness in employment, it will delete any reference to small employers.

I will go on to the role of employers and bargaining agents. The legislation and regulations must be made clear in reflecting the areas of joint responsibility. It is our position that the statement of obligations of the employer also include the obligation of consultation and negotiation with the bargaining agent in the formulation of the employment equity plan. This obligation should include access to information and the joint responsibilities in the implementation of the plan.

Paid time for workers: This is another issue for an employment equity plan to be a success. We feel it's an important facet in the development of an effective employment equity plan. It's our experience that local unions cannot sustain the costs of participating in joint responsibilities as described in the act and the regulations. The approach we suggest would be to use a plan similar to other legislated joint committees, such as health and safety.

Mandatory goals and timetables: The labour council's position in this area coincides with the position taken by the labour movement at large. We consider the responsibility for setting the formula for goals and timetables to be that of the Employment Equity Commission.

The formulae may be developed on a regional basis throughout the province. This may be arrived at through the use of demographic data and labour market studies. The formulae will aid employers and bargaining agents in creating a practical and realistic employment equity plan. I reiterate the need for mandatory goals and timetables.

The need for mandatory education and communication programs is also essential for the success of the plan and the implementation of that plan. Human rights training programs developed by the Employment Equity Commission would go a long way in preparing the existing workforce in understanding their responsibilities in the retention of designated group members entering that workplace. Anti-harassment and cultural sensitivity training, for example, will aid substantially in making it clear that changes are about to happen. The involvement of the bargaining agent in the development and delivery of these programs will greatly enhance the accomplishment of the government's goal of making the workplace reflect the face of Ontario.

I will now talk about the protection of seniority rights. Seniority has been highlighted as a barrier in the present Bill 79. The labour council has grave concerns in this area. It is our sense that a compromise of existing negotiated seniority agreements may in effect place in motion the means of swamping the efforts of the Employment Equity Act.

Bill 79 recognizes the power of the employer in the workplace. This power has often been extended beyond the rights of hiring and firing to favouritism and discrimination to workers. Historically, a negotiated seniority system was the worker's only tool in combating unfair treatment at the hands of the employer.

Negotiated seniority agreements allow workers to exercise their rights to higher-paying jobs, apprenticeships and more agreeable workplace opportunities. Seniority does not note gender or race, it simply removes the arbitrariness of employer discrimination. The most racist supervisor cannot deny a worker of colour, for example, a transfer to a new job if that worker has the seniority to obtain that job.

It has been our experience that workers disabled in the workplace are often further protected by their seniority, forcing the employer to accommodate them. Seniority has benefited our membership over the long run, providing notice of opportunities for advancement in the workplace.

The concern of the labour council, and it's a very big concern, is that the present workforce not be penalized by the government's wish to implement this legislation in an expeditious manner. Our fear is one of backlash against newly hired workers as well as backlash against members of the designated groups who are presently in that particular workplace.

In view of our comments on seniority, the labour council wishes to place our name in support of other labour organizations that have proposed the act be amended to include the following sections. You have the sections in front of you. We're putting our name in support of the Ontario Federation of Labour, that I'm aware of, and the CAW, which have presented these two amendments. For time constraints, I won't go through them.

Seniority for layoff and recall must not be judged barriers in the bill. The labour council urges the committee to recommend that seniority rights be protected in the bill and not deemed barriers in the hiring, promotion or treatment of the designated groups, providing such rights are not found to be contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Code. We further urge the committee to include the protection of seniority rights for layoff and recall in the creation of any employment equity plan within the parameters of this act and the regulations.

In conclusion, the labour council recognizes fully the immensity of the government's initiatives in Bill 79. The undertaking of employment equity legislation will make significant movement towards social justice in our workplaces. This legislation is an opportunity not to be wasted. We urge the government to make mandatory the following items:

-- Inclusion of the bargaining agent in the development and implementation of the plan, with paid time for worker representatives participating.

-- Make mandatory the setting of goals and timetables.

-- A mandatory education and communication program in support of the retention and integration of designated groups.

-- We would like to see mandatory public accountability of plans and timetables.

-- The mandatory inclusion of all employers of more than 10 workers.

-- Mandatory protection of all seniority provisions in accordance with the Human Rights Code.

I wish to thank you all. That ends my presentation.

Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Thank you for a very good presentation. As to the participation of the bargaining agent or the union, section 14 does allow for some participation. Are you looking for more specific legislation as far as the involvement?

Ms Rousseau: I think when it comes to drawing up the plan, the setting of the goals and timetables and using the formula, as we've suggested, being set by the commission, it's important that the bargaining agent be involved in every facet of this program.

I speak from a little bit of experience. I'm an employment equity practitioner with the CAW at General Motors Corp. Through the federal compliance, we have a great deal of involvement. Now, that involvement has been negotiated. However, we do our best in terms of making sure that the corporation is complying. As well, we're particularly helpful as members of the bargaining unit to put through the whole idea of education.

1020

Through human rights training, we have a human rights complaint system. All of those things were negotiated and those things were brought forward by the bargaining agent, because we've got to recognize something here: Given the power of the employer in the workplace and if the employer was going to do what was right, the employer would have already done it. However, they choose not to recognize the need for this because the ultimate power is with the employer.

Mr Fletcher: There are some people who are saying things like: "We don't need this legislation. We don't need employment equity legislation. We should just expand the rights of" --

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Who said that?

Mr Fletcher: Well, you've said it, Curling: Just expand the rights and the obligations of the Human Rights Code and just keeping throwing things at the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Ms Rousseau: The problem is that puts the onus on the worker. When we look at the balance of power, inevitably the power always falls on the side of the employer. Very often workers from the designated groups are disadvantaged to begin with and they feel disempowered. Having the onus on them to go to the Human Rights Commission and the onus on them constantly in face of the power of the employer, I think, just simply wouldn't work because presently we have a situation where workers will not come forward.

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): I listened and read your presentation carefully and you make quite a big issue of the smaller employers designation. You say that, "It's incumbent upon the government to provide employment equity protection," and that prompts me to ask you the question: How do you respond to the concerns that we have? We hear of the small employer that this is a burden financially, administratively, and then when you look at those two burdens, you balance them with the opportunities and the smaller number of employees that are affected. I'd just like to hear how you respond to the concerns we hear.

Ms Rousseau: Our focus there primarily was put there because of the future job growth and the fact that the large employers simply aren't hiring any longer and in fact are laying off. With the future job growth there, that very often is where people get their first job. Young kids get their first job in a smaller employer situation. That whole business of building up a résumé and all of those things, that's where it happens. We think it's really important that all workplaces, say, larger than 10 be covered because that is where the future employment is and that's where very often members of the designated groups, as well as most other workers, get their experience.

Mr Curling: We're also very puzzled how some significant portion of the legislation found itself in regulations. Positive in a certain way, but understand that of course the government doesn't want you to debate the legislation properly, so most of that needs to fit in the regulation.

We do really need employment equity legislation and we do need good legislation. I'm glad that you put some of your points forward here because there's a question that I would ask for you to clarify and help me with.

For instance, you talked about bargaining agents and employers getting together to make the employment equity plan. What is your feeling about the non-unions at the table?

Ms Rousseau: In that particular situation, I think worker representatives should be designated by other workers to sit down with the employer and to do that. Worker participation in any of these plans is absolutely important for them to be successful.

Mr Curling: You think it would be effective just to have consultation for those non-union people, because inside they did make some provision to say those that are non-union would be consulted, and it is not clearly defined what is meant by "consultation" in that. Do you think adequate information will be gathered from those non-union people by just this consultation?

Ms Rousseau: The situation in history will tell us that, by and large, those workers have been disadvantaged often in terms of that consultative process because they don't have the backing of a large collective in terms of making their point known, because historically they have been disadvantaged.

Mr Curling: We don't have adequate time to investigate the seniority position that you have taken here and it's something that I'm extremely concerned about. One of your groups, OPSEU, came in and said that even when there is the seniority provisions placed in there, the members of some of the designated groups do not get promoted either and are ignored.

I notice that you made your case here very strong to say seniority is so important. As a matter of fact, seniority does not know gender or race. It simply removes the arbitration of employer discrimination. But still they say otherwise; they say they don't get promoted at all even though there is a seniority protection, even though some of those designated groups are within those senior realms of things to be promoted. Is there any comment you'd like to make on that?

Ms Rousseau: Perhaps the situation there is the language of that particular collective agreement. That particular collective agreement may include merit and ability and seniority. That's all a matter of negotiation in that collective agreement, how seniority agreement is arrived at. In our particular situation, if you have the numbers, if you have the particular hiring-in date, and I will speak to my particular workplace, you get the job.

Mr Curling: This might be a very complex question, but I just want a quick comment on this and it's about the survey itself. If you look within yourself, your organization, and see that it is not representative of the community and seniority would have to be looked at very closely that the cluster there does not reflect those designated groups, would your union do anything about that?

Ms Rousseau: You're going to have to clarify that.

Mr Curling: The fact is that in your seniority and those to be promoted and hired and called back within that group, there are no women of significant numbers, there are no visible minorities of significant numbers, there are no disabled of significant numbers. Would you, within that, put a plan in place in order to make that movement of those designated groups move within those ranks of getting promoted etc?

Ms Rousseau: There is some recognition in some collective agreements of lateral entry. However, what our union, the CAW, has done is try to influence more in terms of hiring. As I said, I can only speak here in terms of a pure seniority situation because seniority is negotiated and the bargaining agent and the employer sit down and sort out what they want with the bargaining agent coming forward with what they want.

We have to have a very clear recognition that seniority is not a given, it is a negotiated thing and you can zero in on a specific. However, every collective agreement -- and I'm relatively safe in saying that -- is different in terms of its seniority provisions and it changes from site to site within a local union and it changes from local to local in a national union.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Thank you very much for your presentation. You've talked about the role of the employers and the bargaining agents and you've indicated here that you believe the statement of the obligations of the employer also includes the obligation of consultation and negotiation with the bargaining agent in formulation of the employment equity plan, the access to information and joint responsibilities in the implementation of the plan. My impression is that you're looking for more responsibility and more rights in the development of the employment equity plan.

1030

Ms Rousseau: Yes, because, again, I think the role of the trade union movement has always been one that has been in support of workers' rights, and having the union or bargaining agent in that position always keeps in the forefront those workers' rights versus what is most economical versus what's most expeditious -- those sorts of things on the part of the employer.

Mrs Witmer: Would you agree, then, with the recommendation that's been put forward by the human resources professionals? If the bill's going to impose joint responsibility on the employer and the bargaining agent, and you've confirmed that you want that additional responsibility, they're suggesting that the bargaining agent should also be liable to a penalty, just like the employer, should the bargaining agent fail to comply with its statutory obligations. Do you not feel that would be fair as well? If you want the responsibility, obviously, then you could be liable as well to a penalty.

Ms Rousseau: Providing we have a say in the hiring, in the actual hiring -- I don't know, I can't speak on behalf of the labour movement at large. However, that responsibility has fallen on the union as well under human rights legislation. If they don't fulfil their obligations they can be brought forward. Under the Labour Relations Act they can be brought forward. Under employment standards, if they do not fulfil their obligation they can be brought forward. So this wouldn't be a new and wonderful thing, putting the onus on the labour movement to make this happen. It also wouldn't be an unusual thing from the standpoint of the employer. "Well, we'll put it on the union and then we'll blame them." That wouldn't be a rather untoward suggestion, I don't think.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Welcome, Margaret. I read with interest on page 7 your referring to lack of seniority as a form of discrimination, and I wanted to indicate to you, since you represent CAW, that a year ago, when I was in Windsor on a committee dealing with Bill 40, I indicated in questioning to your national president, Buzz Hargrove -- I asked him about employment equity and the seniorities provisions. He at that time indicated that he had no difficulty with it. I sense from your brief that you're having difficulty with the override or legislatively contract stripping seniority clauses. Has there been a change in the last year?

Ms Rousseau: First of all, I'm here on behalf of the Windsor and District Labour Council and I'm not here on behalf of Buzz Hargrove. If one chooses to think back, when Buzz Hargrove made his presentation I think he was relatively clear on his position. So I think it would be difficult for me to speak on his behalf at this juncture.

Mr Jackson: I was just wondering if the Windsor and District Labour Council had taken a position different from the CAW. Hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to hear from Buzz Hargrove, or we'll get something in writing perhaps. But as it relates to auto workers, for example, you've got a catch-22 here. You raise the issue of lack of seniority recognition as discriminatory --

Ms Rousseau: Where did I raise that issue?

Mr Jackson: On page 7 you said, "Seniority does not note gender or race, it simply removes the arbitrariness of employer discrimination."

Ms Rousseau: Right.

Mr Jackson: So in your view seniority works.

Ms Rousseau: Yes, it does.

Mr Jackson: It's been collectively bargained and should be upheld. This bill overrides that and it overrides it in a fashion that an auto worker in Windsor, for example, who gets laid off and, under normal circumstances, would -- last-fired, first-hired or last-layoff, first-rehired --

The Chair: Mr Jackson, please place your question, because we ran way out of time.

Mr Jackson: I understand that, Mr Chairman, and I'm getting to the point.

The Chair: Well, if you don't place your question we'll move on. That's what I'm asking you to do.

Mr Jackson: Mr Chairman, I understand you gave the NDP five and a half minutes, you gave five and three-quarter minutes and I'm still under five minutes. I thought I was doing my part, Mr Chairman, to frame my question very carefully.

The Chair: Mr Jackson, I keep the time as the Chair. They did not get five and a half minutes. I'm asking you to place your question.

Mr Jackson: We're almost 10 minutes over now.

The Chair: Please do that so we can move on.

Mr Jackson: You have a situation with auto workers in Windsor who once laid off would go seeking, with their skills and their union involvement, work in other plants, which all would have the same message: "We'd like to hire you but we're covered under employment equity now." Does this not offer an adverse opportunity for laid-off workers in Windsor, in particular in the auto sector, because they do not get first recall and then they have to be hired at the end of a quota system?

Ms Rousseau: My difficulty here is that your question is sort of all over and it's not very specific.

Mr Jackson: It's specific to the auto sector. It's specific to layoff and seniority provisions.

The Chair: If you'd like to answer it, try, or if not, we need to move on.

Ms Rousseau: In our particular workplace, if workers are laid off, the collective agreement provides them to be recalled in their line of seniority. I can speak to that. That worker would compete on the open market with any other worker at another workplace, for example, at Chrysler.

The Chair: Ms Rousseau, I appreciate your coming from Windsor and participating in these hearings.

ONTARIO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Chair: The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Mary Porjes. Please introduce your colleague as well.

Ms Mary Porjes: Yes, I will. By way of introduction, Mr Chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to meet with the committee today and address Bill 79, the government's proposed employment equity legislation, on behalf of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce's 65,000 members. My name is Mary Porjes and I'm chair of the Ontario chamber's employment equity committee. With me today is Lynda Mungall, who also serves on our committee.

Let me start by saying that the Ontario chamber unequivocally supports the concept of employment equity. Ridding society of barriers which prevent anyone from advancing in terms of employment because of gender, ethnicity or any other factor besides merit or qualification is a goal we firmly believe in.

However, Bill 79 will not solve the problems it proposes to address. We believe that it is a dangerous piece of legislation which has enormous potential to be incredibly divisive and demoralizing in the workplace. It creates yet another significant administrative burden on employers and fails to address the real problems which affect members of the designated groups.

The premise of the legislation and its accompanying regulations is based primarily on social considerations. The government wishes to eliminate barriers in hiring, retention and promotion so all members of the workforce can compete on a level playing field. We support this unequivocally.

But when we examine Bill 79 and its accompanying regulations, it is evident that the government does not understand a simple fact: that all government initiatives have an impact on Ontario's economic growth and prosperity and they must be rejected if they in any way prevent employers from generating new jobs for the workers of this province, or if they inhibit new investment in the province.

Bill 79 will, in our opinion, create new burdens and costs for employers at a time when we are working hard to come out of a recession and when there is a desperate need for business to invest and create new jobs. Ontario businesses are restructuring and equipping themselves to meet global competition for markets. Bill 79 does nothing to assist them with this task.

The employment equity process will undoubtedly require the hiring of consultants and lawyers to assist employers in discharging their obligations under the act and the regulations. It will also divert from an employer resources which might otherwise go towards investment and job creation. There will be no equity in the workplace without jobs.

The most common complaint we have received from our members regarding Bill 79 is that the legislation ignores the merit principle which should drive hiring practices. No matter where employers conduct their business or whether they're in medium- or large-sized companies, their common complaint is that the bill's apparent intent is to take away an employer's ability to hire the best and most qualified candidate for the job.

1040

The workplace will become divided as qualified and talented employees fear they will be passed over for promotion in favour of members of the designated groups. Employees will be wondering if hiring, retention and promotion within an organization is based on merit or preferential treatment. If they perceive that preferential treatment exists, these employees will become resentful.

The government has repeatedly stated that there is nothing contained in Bill 79 which forces an employer to hire an unqualified person. However, there is also nothing in the proposed legislation which explicitly guarantees the right to hire the best-qualified candidate. We have a grave concern that Bill 79 may be interpreted in such a manner that an employer will not be able to justify the hiring of a candidate who is not a member of one of the designated groups and will be forced to hire a less qualified candidate.

We urge the government to amend the legislation to clearly protect the rights of employers to hire the best person for the job.

If our society is to effectively address the problems faced by members of the designated groups in the workplace, we must get to the root of the problem. We strongly believe that the key to changing deeply rooted attitudes and opinions lies in keeping our children in schools and giving them the tools and education to compete equally for jobs.

It is frustrating for us that the government seems to think that legislation is the answer to ending inequity in the workplace. The Ontario chamber would like to see an emphasis on the teaching of skills which can be used in the new global marketplace. We would like to see encouragement of education-industry partnerships which can provide expanded horizons to members of the designated groups. Education is the strongest empowering tool, not government intervention.

The problems encountered by women, aboriginal people, racial minorities and persons with disabilities in the hiring, retention and promotional process are real. As employers, members of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce realize that addressing these problems is a duty, not an option.

However, the Ontario chamber believes that the government is creating additional problems by inflicting even more regulatory and administrative burdens on a business community already at the breaking point. The legislation, despite its good intentions, will bring divisiveness, bitterness and resentment between people. Economic hard times have already inflamed animosity and distrust in our communities.

We question the wisdom of introducing legislation which does nothing to create jobs and opportunities for those whom it purports to help. Discrimination in the workplace is already addressed by the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Employment Standards Act and Ontario's pay equity legislation. Bill 79 will change nothing except to further diminish Ontario as an attractive place to do business. The government has made it clear that it will proceed with Bill 79 and its regulations despite opposition from the business community.

We leave with you a list of amendments needed by our members, the wealth generators of this province, which we urge the government to seriously consider if indeed the government intends to enact the proposed legislation. In this connection, we would refer you to the addendum to our written submissions.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts with you today.

Mr Curling: Thank you for your presentation. There's a part where you said you felt that the intent of this legislation is that somehow it will undermine any way of bringing qualified people in the workplace. I don't really see that this is the intent of the legislation. I know the legislation is weak and it's supposed to be reinforced better, but I don't see it as an intent to bring unqualified people into the workplace.

If merit is placed in the legislation as one of the main principles of employment equity, would that solve the problem that you are concerned about?

Ms Porjes: If the merit principle were ensconced in the legislation, it would address one of the major problems in the business community. The greatest fear in the business community is that in interpreting and applying this legislation, the government and the commission will find that an employer cannot reasonably justify its hiring practices or its promotion practices or its dismissal practices, and that is the fear. If merit in ensconced in the legislation, it will address that concern directly and that's what we have asked for in the past.

Mr Curling: And it would take away most of that fear that you have there?

Ms Porjes: Yes, it will take away the fear that we have on that point, indeed.

Mr Curling: The many designated groups or all the four designated groups, most of them really, have stated that they are prepared to compete with the best because they are qualified. They're not at all concerned about that. I'd hope that the Employment Equity Commissioner would be here because she's quite a capable individual. I'm not quite sure how much she had to do with the regulation. That's another story itself. I think if she had to do the regulation maybe more, we'd have a better regulation here. We find it rather weak itself that as a matter of fact the regulation is much better than the legislation, but still the regulation hasn't addressed all those concerns.

I know my colleague had a question; I don't want to take all the time.

Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): If I can follow up, you talked a bit about the burden of costs on employers, and I wanted to ask two questions. One of them is, did you have some sense of what the cost of compliance would be depending on the size? Secondly, one of the things in particular that I've heard is the degree to which the cost of conducting this survey, because of self-identification, could be quite high.

I know that in the federal act, one of the versions I heard was that one of the banks, in complying, was required to do the survey two or three times because of the very low response rate, and as a result the survey was costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm wondering if you could speak both to the cost in a general sense and the cost in this particular survey sense.

Ms Lynda Mungall: I'd like to respond to that. First of all, I make my living as a consultant helping employers with employment equity plans, so I think I have to -- when we talk about the risk costs in hiring consultants, I've seen those costs and they can be rather dramatic.

One of the things that we found, and let's go back to pay equity legislation -- for instance, even relatively large employers, those with 500 and more employees, do not have good databases that exist today on employees. "Who do we have in our workplace? What are their jobs? What are the skills that they have?" It is not uncommon, if an employer has to get a handle on who is in the workplace and find a way to capture these data and manipulate them, to spend up to $250,000 for a human resource information system. That is not an untypical sort of cost. I would suggest that when you put that to smaller employers, that is a tremendous burden which will have great impact on their ability to compete.

Mr Murphy: On the survey question itself, I know you've identified that as a problem in terms of self-identification alone, because I know one of the fears is that you need something like an 85% response rate to have a sense that you have a representative sample. I think that's the reason that one of the federal banks had to do it two or three times, because they kept in the 50% and 60% range. I'm wondering if you could comment about the cost and the self-identification issue.

Ms Mungall: I would go even further to say that we know of many clients where particular groups of employers have chosen to boycott the survey because they don't particularly believe in it. So it is not uncommon in a unionized situation, for instance, to have the largest union decide to boycott the survey process, and you might have 75% of the workforce refusing to complete the survey. There's a tremendous imposition on the employer to try to file information when it is absolutely incomplete.

Mr Murphy: If I can, I want to follow up on my colleague's question about the merit principle. When the federal Employment Equity Act was debated, the federal New Democrats moved or at least supported an amendment which said that the purpose of the bill was to remove barriers, not to reduce standards. It was wording similar to that and was supported by the federal New Democrats.

What we'd like to see is something in the preamble to the bill that would speak about something similar to that, in essence a form of wording that supports the merit principle. I'm wondering if you could see wording similar to what I've just given you as being sufficient to address the concerns about merit?

Ms Porjes: Our main aim in this is to have a specific statement in the legislation that indicates that there is nothing in the legislation that would prevent an employer from hiring the best-qualified candidate for a position. The preamble, in our view, would be second-best. That would address the concern somewhat, but our main aim is a specific statement in the legislation to that effect.

Mr Murphy: Would that wording, let's say if it were out of the preamble and in the legislation itself, be sufficient, do you think, to serve that purpose?

1050

Ms Porjes: I think we'd have to study it further. As soon as you get away at all from a statement dealing with the best-qualified candidate, it becomes open to different interpretations.

Mrs Witmer: I'd like to pursue the issue of the merit principle. I think it's been the one issue that probably has raised as much concern as any other issue, particularly from the employer community. But I guess I would hasten to add that from the designated groups we've certainly heard them express the opinion that they feel quite capable of competing as far as merit is concerned. They are well qualified. So I do have the impression that they would be quite comfortable with some expression as well that the merit principle would be preserved.

I guess the minister has indicated as well that certainly the best-qualified person would be hired, so I think we could alleviate much of the concern if there was some willingness on the part of the government to make this legislation more inclusionary and somehow put in there the fact that the merit principle would be preserved, however that might be worded. Am I right? Is this the major, overriding concern?

Ms Porjes: From the point of view of the legislation, assuming this government is going to proceed with this legislation, that is one of the two main concerns, the second being the burden and the cost to employers. But the chamber feels very strongly that the underlying issues, the larger societal issues, have to be addressed as well, that we cannot solve discrimination in our society by employment equity legislation alone.

Mrs Witmer: I guess that's part of the problem with this bill as well. Really, the entire responsibility for employment equity has been dumped on the employer community. I think you're right.

I liked your statement on the bottom of page 2: "Education is the strongest empowering tool." Obviously, we need to take a look at the educational system, the training system that we have in place because eventually that is what is going to make the difference and empower people and provide them with the opportunities. So I liked that statement. That was well made.

I would also say to you, we've heard from some of the employers the fact that there's going to be very little turnover in the employment picture. Have you surveyed your members at all? How much change in employment opportunities is there going to be?

Ms Porjes: I'm not aware of any formal survey that's been conducted on that issue. Perhaps, Lynda, you, in your consulting work, are.

Ms Mungall: I'm not aware of any survey that has been done. I would suggest, however, that we know that with the downsizing that has occurred in most businesses throughout this province, employers are reluctant to add new staff, and traditional employment relationships are really quickly becoming a thing of the past. We have a whole large workforce out there which is a temporary workforce. I don't see that going away and I don't see it going away quickly. As we continue to impose legislation on the business community, it is going to become more and more reluctant to hire new staff because we are imposing more burdens on it and more commitments for the future. I think that's a real issue. They will find all sorts of ways not to hire staff.

Mrs Witmer: Which is extremely unfortunate, because the designated groups will continue to be denied opportunities in employment because the employment is just not available to them.

Ms Porjes: The problem in our economy is that jobs are actually disappearing. They are not being created in measure at all with how quickly they're disappearing.

Mr Jackson: In your examination of the bill and the regulations, is there anything in there with respect to downsizing or the practice of, say, three branch plants merging into one branch plant. There are job losses, there are transfers, there are a variety of human resource questions that arise when a company undertakes this kind of activity. Is there anything in this bill that addresses the challenges with respect to the purpose of Bill 79 and the challenges facing employers and those doing those kinds of things?

Ms Porjes: One of the aspects of the employers' work in complying with the bill and the regulations is investigating the reasons and the underlying premises for dismissals and downsizings. I should probably tell the committee that I'm a lawyer and I do employment law. I see in my practice from time to time employers using downsizings to dismiss people who might otherwise not be caught by downsizing but whom they wish to dismiss, and I think to that extent the bill does address it because one of the aspects of the employer's investigation is the policies and procedures underlying the dismissals and downsizings.

Mr Jackson: Are they going to be tied directly to employment equity?

Ms Porjes: Under this legislation, they will not be able to discriminate in downsizings. That's certainly the intent. That's the way I read it.

Mr Jackson: You make reference to complaints that can be filed by third parties. Do you envisage a role for the advocacy commission or any other arm of government in terms of seeking out and assisting employees who feel that employment equity hasn't worked for them?

Ms Porjes: I'm not sure that the advocacy commission has a role here. What our comment was directed at was an uninvolved person, a third party, who remains anonymous, taking up the cudgel and making complaints to shield --

Mr Jackson: You just described the advocacy commission.

Ms Porjes: I think that part of the problem is the intent of the person making the complaint. We have seen complaints in the pay equity sphere where disgruntled employees go to a friend or an acquaintance who makes the complaint, and of course all the complaints are anonymous. The motivation of the complaint is not pay-equity-driven at all; it's an employee who has had two or three unfavourable performance appraisals and who wants to make trouble for the employer. That's the problem with third-party complaints.

Mr Jackson: Mr Chairman, is it possible to get some verification from the government on what it envisages as third-party complaints? If we maybe could get some feedback on that -- maybe not right now, but at some point -- I'd like to pursue that.

The Chair: Perhaps, but I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a question of clarification from the ministry people versus a statement from the ministry or the government in terms of what it's likely to do later on.

Mr Jackson: That's why you're the Chair, Mr Chairman. You'll still determine which. I'm in your hands and you'll get me an answer. Thank you.

The Chair: Very well. Thank you.

Ms Zanana L. Akande (St Andrew-St Patrick): Thank you for your presentation. It's been interesting. The burden of cost to employers is certainly not a new argument that employers have put forward in opposition to change. As I recall, early in history it was used in opposition to our stopping child labour and even slavery.

However, that being said, in view of the costs that employers might have, would it be somehow helpful to have a plan proposed by the government or a guide whereby the employers might be able to follow in designing their employment equity plans so that they wouldn't have to hire consultants, as you had suggested? Would that be helpful?

Ms Porjes: Certainly any help from the government and from the commission that will ease the workload of the employer in complying with employment equity legislation would be helpful. Of course, that help has to be tempered with the additional cost on the taxpayer, but certainly any help in terms of forms or guidelines that are otherwise binding on the commission would be helpful and would ease the financial burden on employers.

Ms Akande: As a taxpayer, I think that would be money well spent. How would you respond to statements that were made by the Grocery Products Manufacturers of Canada and National Grocers and other employers who have come before us and said that employment equity makes good business sense, in fact it prepares employers for movement into the global market? How would you respond to their position, which seems in direct opposition to your own?

Ms Porjes: I don't believe the position is in opposition to ours at all. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has always supported employment equity and will always support employment equity. It does make good business sense. Our question is whether it should be achieved by way of legislation or whether it should be done through education, changing our societal values, finding ways to keep our children in schools so they can compete on a level playing field.

1100

Ms Akande: Your request that merit be specifically stated in the legislation -- and we have been responding in that, to us, it is implicit in the legislation and it is precisely through the process of education that we have such well-qualified people in the designated groups.

However, I wanted to ask you about your statement in relation to the creation of jobs. Employment equity legislation -- not legislation but the plan, the process, began as early as the 1960s. If you look back through Hansards and through the statistics and information in the government, you find moves towards it. From that period to this, we have been through periods of high employment, and yet those many qualified people from the designated groups are not well reflected in the statistics of employees in this province.

How would you then see that the creation of jobs, being as you have defined it the government's work, would somehow improve the equity situation for those designated groups?

Ms Porjes: I think if you look at it from the reverse and say that because of the cost of employment equity and our employers now struggling to come out of this recession, there may be fewer jobs, and when you have fewer jobs, it flies in the face of trying to achieve employment equity. If you have more jobs, the chances of achieving employment equity are much greater.

Ms Akande: That's the point I have just demonstrated isn't so. But thank you.

Ms Mungall: If I could just address one comment related to that, I think you're right in terms of what happened in the 1960s, when we started this movement. I would suggest to you that it has been reflected in the movement of women through professional jobs and in the movement of women into management and supervisory jobs. We're perhaps not the CEOs yet in the great numbers, but we're sure at the next level down.

Ms Akande: I agree with you.

Ms Mungall: So initiatives started there and now we're expanding. The workplace is very different in 1990 from what it was in the 1960s.

Ms Akande: It has been demonstrated in the movement of white women.

Ms Mungall: Yes, and I think that now we're into the next tier.

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I'd like to continue this idea. The merit principle seems to be at the base of perceived differences over this. This saddens me because it seems to me that what we're doing in this legislation is giving everybody a fair chance. That is what will lead to the best person being hired.

We have had business representatives here, for example IBM, saying that as they have brought in employment equity, they have in fact had an improved workforce because they can draw from a wider pool. I know in my own area, 70% of people presenting for the workforce are in the designated groups, and I believe as time goes on, over the province it's going to be more like 80%. So if hiring is going to be restricted to the remaining 20% or whatever, the chances of getting the best person for the job are really quite slim.

I'm just looking at page 3 of your presentation and you say: "The legislation, despite its good intentions, will bring divisiveness, bitterness and resentment between people. Economic hard times have already inflamed animosity and distrust in our communities."

I would put it to you that the opposite is the case, that if we don't have fairness in hiring, particularly in bad times, that is what will lead to bitterness and divisiveness and all those things. Could you comment on that?

Ms Porjes: I think the chamber certainly agrees. If we don't have fairness in hiring, it will lead to bitterness and animosity. But the converse is also true, that if the employees perceive that certain employees are hired or promoted because they are receiving preferential treatment -- in this economy when jobs are scarce and are disappearing and you can look to your left and to your right and there is an unemployed person, preferential treatment will breed divisiveness and animosity in the workplace.

Ms Carter: But I think this is the real nub of the whole matter, you see. I, as a member of a designated group, and you also are members of the same group, feel deeply insulted at the assumption that the most qualified person applying for a job is likely, in a large number of cases, not to be a member of those groups. It seems to me that, as all these groups get fair treatment, they are just as likely to be the best candidate as somebody else might be. So why is there this problem with hiring somebody who's not qualified? Why would that happen?

Ms Porjes: Why would it happen? We're not saying it might necessarily happen. What we are concerned with is, if an employer elects not to hire a member of one of the designated groups and elects to hire somebody who is not a member of one of those groups and he later has to justify it before a board of inquiry, it will be extremely difficult for him to establish that his choice was reasonable, as is contemplated in the legislation. This is why we wanted a specific statement that the employer is not prevented from hiring the best-qualified candidate.

The Chair: Thank you for your submission and for coming today to participate in these hearings.

CATHERINE LEITCH

Ms Catherine Leitch: I hope that you all bear with me. I'm not used to doing this type of thing, so if I lose my place, hopefully I will try to get back to it fairly quickly.

My name is Catherine Leitch. I am here simply representing myself as a person with a vested interest in employment equity. However, at the top I would like to say that I also support the brief that was presented by the group Disabled People for Employment Equity two weeks ago.

I see employment equity is about fairness. It is also about forcing employers to do that which is right, and I say "force" because I mean it. Employment equity has been a concept in this province for a number of years and it simply has not worked. We asked nicely and no one followed along. Now it's time to get tough. However, unfortunately I perceive this legislation as something that is not getting tough.

For someone who has been in the workforce for the last 22 years, I have experienced extreme discrimination, and yet I have been lucky. I have worked 13 of the last 22 years. That, in my community, is considered good. I have been out of work for three and a half years at one stretch, a year and a half and two and a half years in another stretch, and two of those occasions were during very good boom times in this province.

I am a good employee. I do my job, I do it competently, I am not off work excessively, I do not take advantage of my employer and I am skilled. But for the most part -- and I say "most part" because my present position does not technically come under that criterion -- but for the most part I have been in jobs that are entry level, that are, shall we say, underpaid, that have no opportunity for promotion, and I have not been promoted, despite the fact that I have seen many opportunities for those promotions to occur and they didn't occur. I say my present position is an exception to the rule simply because, for the first time in my life, I do have a good job.

However, I may not have it for long because, like many people with disabilities, as many people from all the other designated groups, I was hired by my employer three and a half years ago as a temporary. Now, in good times perhaps it might not have made a difference, but these are not good times, these are bad times. As a temporary employee, as soon as my employer starts doing the downsizing, which is presently occurring, I am about as vulnerable as you can get. On top of that, I am also seconded to a temporary position, so I am a temporary person in a temporary position.

1110

I am looking at unemployment at this moment. Right now I do not see this legislation as being able to assist me in finding another job. I will be once again out of work for a long period of time, and as someone who has now reached middle age, this is not any more comforting and it doesn't get easier as the years go by. Trust me on this one.

The barriers that we experience, not only for all designated groups but for people with disabilities, are such things as -- and I will give you a couple of personal stories, if I may, to illustrate the kinds of barriers I have experienced and I'm sure many of the people that are in the designated groups experience.

My second job was with one of the leading hospitals in this country. I got this position actually quite quickly, I found out for all the wrong reasons, but I got it fairly quickly. After two months I was informed that I had to have a pre-employment medical. Now one would say: "I've been employed for two months. Why would I need a pre-employment medical?" Apparently, my employer had conveniently avoided the possibility of my getting a pre-employment medical, and I found out a year later the reason why.

I went for this so-called pre-employment medical. The doctor placed me on the examining table and placed my chair across the opposite side of the room and proceeded to say to me: "Why did they hire you? Why weren't you happy just to stay home? Don't people like you get supported by the government? If they were going to hire you, why didn't they put you in the secretarial pool where you would have been out of the way?"

A year went by. By the way, I was not fired, and again I will leave the reason why I was not fired despite the fact that the doctor did in fact turn me down. My employer -- actually my manager was told that I must be fired. I was not fired and the reason I wasn't fired was not a good reason. You see, my employer was somebody who might be referred to as the boss from hell. She'd been through six secretaries in as many weeks prior to my employment. I had managed to survive two months. At that point she was damned if she was going to get rid of me. I guess she figured I was just desperate enough that I would stay, and whether I was good or not she needed somebody.

I stayed. I stayed for two and a half years, and after the first year I found out that she resisted my being fired because of the fact that she really needed somebody and she knew I would stay. I was desperate and I never told her that story about that doctor. The humiliation and the anger that came from that are not even speakable. She was angry with me for not telling her, and I could not explain to her why I could not tell her.

When we talk about accommodation, the same employer, I worked two years for that person, for that organization, without a barrier-free washroom, and I did not get a barrier-free washroom until the day I fell in that washroom and remained stranded there for two hours before somebody rescued me. Employers say accommodation is undue hardship, is something that costs too much, it takes too much time, whatever the excuse is. Do you know, that washroom was put in overnight, literally overnight. The assistant administrator found out on a Friday. On Monday when I came back it was there. It can be done. There is no excuse. This was a hospital.

Bill 79 is essentially, from my understanding of it, not going to help this. Bill 79 will only look at systemic accommodation issues. But if employers are going to hire somebody with a disability, they already have to have an accessible work site.

I was interviewed one time, or at least I was called for an interview one time years ago, and they indicated the address where I should show up. I thought it was a bit odd, because this was not the address of the place where I knew it was. So I inquired about it. "Oh, we're across the street. You know, one of those old mansions? We're across the street now." I said, "I beg your pardon?" "Oh, yes, the hospital's undergoing" -- this is again a hospital. I think there's an unfortunate trend forming here, but this is another hospital. "Yes, we're doing some major renovations and they've moved all the administrative offices across the street," to this huge old mansion. I said, "But does that include the personnel office?" "Oh, yes."

At that point I had to explain to this individual that I was in a wheelchair and would this pose a problem. "Oh, definitely, there are about seven stairs to get inside." I'm trying very hard to be relatively conciliatory here. She says: "I can still interview you. Why don't I meet you in the coffee shop around the corner?" So I was interviewed in the coffee shop around the corner. Would anybody here ask me whether I got the job? No.

Private industry talks about what good employers they are. I've never been employed by private industry -- never; nor do I expect to be. Is there a reason why most people with disabilities are employed by the public sector? I think so. Is there a reason why people with disabilities are predominantly in the so-called disability industry? I think so. Right now, I'm in the so-called disability industry. I would love to work for private industry. I don't have a chance -- not a chance.

The previous speaker talked about the merit principle. I don't know what fantasyland these people live in, but wherever it is, I would love to join them, because employment has always been done on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity and disability, actually the lack of a disability. What is going to change? The only thing that's going to change is it's going to be my turn. It's our turn.

When you talk about bitterness, do you hear my voice? This is bitterness. Don't tell me. I don't care that there's some white, able-bodied male who's bitter. Maybe he might take my bitterness for a while. The attitudes and the stereotypes that exist of people with disabilities are horrendous. This bill will not help that. You've got to make it strong, you've got to make it mandatory and you've got to make it work, because it's my time.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much, Catherine, for your presentation. I think we all sat here and listened quite intently. It's quite obvious that you certainly have experienced discrimination. I think we all know that individuals such as yourself have experienced discrimination time and time again.

You've indicated, though, that this bill is not going to totally achieve the goal of equity and fairness in the workplace for individuals such as yourself. What else would you like to see, Catherine?

Ms Leitch: Yes, I had written down here some of those things, and I'm afraid I got a little too emotional to get to them. Again, Disabled People for Employment Equity did a very good deputation in which they indicated those things which they would like to see changed in the bill. I can go over them briefly for you.

The definition of "disability" must be moved to the bill. Other definitions are in the bill. I see no reason why the definition of "disability" is not in the bill, and it should be there.

1120

Mrs Witmer: And do you support their definition?

Ms Leitch: Absolutely. I would have liked the word "permanent," but we can't have everything, so I'm quite prepared to take the word "persistent." However, again, it must be based on the idea of disadvantaged in the work site.

Right now the bill does not, the regulations, I believe -- again, I hope you'll excuse me, I'm not totally versed in both the regulations and the bill, but my understanding is that the present bill does not define for employers what they should be looking for.

It's presumed that some employers are discriminating unintentionally. If they are discriminating unintentionally, how can they be expected to know what they're doing wrong if they honestly don't know that they're doing anything wrong? I think the bill has to really define exactly what it is they're supposed to be looking for, because systemic discrimination is very subtle.

I don't know when I lose a job. When you get screened out, you don't know the reason why you lose a job, you just lose it, or you just don't get a phone call or you don't get the interview or whatever. You don't know. So how can an employer know what they're doing wrong if they don't believe they're doing anything wrong? So it's important to the bill to find exactly what they're supposed to be looking for.

The issue of people with severe disabilities: This bill is not going to help them. I mean, the assumption is that people with severe disabilities don't care to be in the workforce. That is not true. According to the way HALS, the Health and Activity Limitation Survey, and a number of other studies look at it, I am a person with a severe disability. Severe disability is generally defined as somebody who has a visible disability, who would be perceived as being disadvantaged in the work site. I am a person with a severe disability in that case.

We want to work. We are qualified. My peers have very good educations, and they have no ability to work at all. They need, yes, in some cases, a fair bit of accommodation, but most of this accommodation can be spread over many years, because it will benefit everybody. After all, if you've got a work site that's got five or six stairs to get in the front entrance, if you change that to a ramp, that benefits everybody, because the reality is you're always going to have employees who break their leg skiing or who have arthritis, who get older, whatever it happens to be. It benefits everybody.

Also, in terms of accommodation, right now individual accommodation requests, if they don't get what they need and they complain to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, that complaint will be passed over to the commission. This is a really inappropriate way of dealing with that. That is an individual complaint of discrimination. The commission cannot handle that. It is meant to handle systemic discrimination, and I think that definitely has to be changed.

The plan is over too long a period of time, three years and then another three years and then how long after that for the investigation? I mean, people are looking at being employed potentially by the year 2000. I think it's going to be a lot longer than that. The workforce data have to be done more often than nine years, particularly when you're talking about disability.

There must be some goals and timetables and the commission has to set them. You're leaving far too much to the employer. You're doing exactly what was done before, which is basically just leave it up to the employer.

I'm sorry, I'm cynical and I'm angry and I'm all of these things, but I have every right to be. If you leave things up to employers, they're going to find a way of getting around it.

Mr Fletcher: Your points about living in a fairyland as far as the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and their presentation about people from designated groups not being qualified or seemingly not being qualified for hiring: I think you touched on it quite well when you said, "Hey, I'm qualified."

I'm still trying to grasp, and maybe you can expand on it, where employers are coming from, what their thinking is when they think that because of Bill 79 they are going to be having an inferior workforce.

Ms Leitch: That comes because of bad stereotypes and myths that people from the designated groups are somehow inferior, and I don't mean that just from the sort of KKK concept but simply that we are not capable of handling --

Ms Akande: It's a good analogy, though.

Ms Leitch: That is the root, yes, probably. But the reality is we are not perceived as being, over and beyond the things that you can quantify, which are education and skills and whatever, but that we simply are not competent. And because employers like to have a smooth work site where everybody gets along, if they've got a disproportionate number of people from the non-designated groups, they don't want any waves. So it's easy just to feed into those stereotypes that somehow we're not qualified and take the easy way out. I've had incredible myths presented to me that have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

And when you talk about people with disabilities, the issue of accommodation also comes into play. It's assumed that it's going to be far too expensive. So it's easier just to say I'm not qualified.

Mr Fletcher: One of the purposes of this committee is to hear briefs such as your own, and then perhaps as we go along the opposition parties and also the government will make some amendments. What you said will go a long way to some of the amendments that could possibly be made. Thank you.

Mr Mills: Thank you, Catherine. I listened riveted to what you had to say and I hope that all those employers out there in Ontario who happen to be watching this program listen too. This morning I'm not going to question you but make a statement about capabilities of people with spina bifida.

I draw reference, for the benefit of all members of the committee and all those people watching on the parliamentary channel, to Tom Hainey. Tom Hainey was born with spina bifida, and he's just completed an 80-kilometre swim across the lakes, rivers and creeks of Quetico Provincial Park. He did this in the hopes of focusing national attention on the abilities of those physically disabled by choosing to challenge the wilderness landscape of Quetico during the provincial park's centennial year. That is a tribute and lets people know there are no bounds to what disabled people can do.

The Chair: Okay, moving on.

Mr Curling: Thank you for coming here and making that kind of presentation. It's only hoped that the minister could have been here to hear this. Reading it is not even sufficient. That is why I think this is one of the most important bills to be put through, this legislation, in the time of this government. I think they understand that too, how important it is. I just hoped that the minister would have been here and continue to be here to hear some of those presentations herself.

There's one part I'd like to ask you about. I want you to help me on this. I've been concerned, and so are my colleagues, about the role of the Human Rights Commission and the Employment Equity Commission and where the powers are drawn and who will handle what. Sometimes one gets the feeling that the Human Rights Commission has failed in certain respects, which is why we have to put other things in place, like the Employment Equity Commission to put this plan in place.

But somehow do you feel -- and I feel it, so I don't know if you feel the same way -- that the powers of the commission could be played much more importantly in this scenario of getting right to the heart and penalizing those who discriminate? Do you see the Human Rights Commission playing more role in this or the commissioner as having too many powers or, thirdly, there's a confusion in where one would go in order to address an individual, to address their concern of discrimination?

Ms Leitch: Again, you're talking to a layperson here in that sense, but my understanding of what the Ontario Human Rights Commission was always meant to do, and I say that past tense because I'm not sure how this is going to affect it in the future, but I always understood the Ontario Human Rights Commission to handle individual issues of discrimination one by one.

That indeed did prove to be probably problematic, which is why the commission is running into some problems, because the reality is probably a lot of the complaints that went to the commission had a systemic discriminatory aspect to them. In other words, it was not just occurring to that one individual, it was occurring to many people, perhaps either in the same work site or in a much more global issue. The fact that they were not dealing with systemic discrimination meant then there was an extreme gap. It meant that individuals were coming to the commission with the same complaint over and over and over again.

1130

Hopefully what can happen in terms of Bill 79, in an alliance with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, is that Bill 79 will deal with issues of systemic discrimination and it will only be the individual ones that should be dealt with by the Human Rights Commission.

My concern, and the concern of Disabled People for Employment Equity and a number of other equity-seeking groups, is that simply all complaints will be handed over to the commission. That simply is not going to be an effective way of dealing with it, because individual complaints will get lost, once again, in a very long, very laborious system, and the fact of the matter is if the issue is accommodation, that person needs accommodation today, not the second year of their plan or a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. They need it today, because they got the job today. Most employers hire people on a Friday to start on a Monday. If they don't have an accessible work site, it isn't going to work. So that's where I see the commission being separate.

Mr Curling: Let me take your individual case. For instance, you had applied for this job, and on the phone you then negotiate where you'll be met in a coffee shop to be interviewed and you've lost the job. You felt rejected, discriminated against, and you're not quite sure if this is systemic and you may think so. Where would you take your case at that moment? You said, "Well, I feel that I've been rejected, I've been discriminated against." Would you take it to the Human Rights Commission -- maybe I'll follow through on that a little bit -- or would you take it to the Employment Equity Commissioner?

The fact is that, as far as I understand the law, you would have gone through the Employment Equity Commissioner and they would have taken it to the tribunal and they would have found that that company has made a reasonable effort to accommodate. Having done so, if reasonable effort has been made, they would find maybe the company deliberately discriminated against you individually. I would say maybe that's about three years down the road. Am I seeing it wrong or is it the way you would see it? First, where would you take your case in that situation, if you found yourself being discriminated against?

Ms Leitch: Actually I have to say I'm not sure where I would take it, because I am confused. I think this bill is confusing the issue and I'm not sure where in fact I would take it. Probably my first inclination would be to take it to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. However, my understanding of what's going to happen is that in fact that case will automatically be transferred over to the Employment Equity Commission, which may be where it properly fits, but whether or not my concern will be addressed in a speedy and appropriate manner is probably questionable. I'm sure you recognize that the Ontario Human Rights Commission right at the moment is still having the same problem, so I still may not get a solution either way for a couple of years.

But admittedly I think we do need to clear up the issue of where certain types of issues are individual and when they are systemic. In many cases, particularly when you're talking about accommodation, I think they are individual, with the exception of situations where you actually have an employee work site that is totally inaccessible, such as stairs. I would perceive that as a systemic discrimination as opposed to an individual. Although it affected me as an individual, it's about the entire work site. If the employer fails to provide me, if I were blind, with the appropriate technological equipment in order for me to do my job, that becomes an individual case of discrimination. It's not necessarily systemic in that case. But, again, the work site being totally inaccessible, I then see a systemic. Again, it's a fine line, but there is a distinction between the two.

Mr Curling: You made the point --

The Chair: I'm sorry; we've run way over time. Ms Leitch, thank you for the contribution you've made. I personally was very moved by your own history that you presented to us in these hearings.

TRANS-ACTION COALITION

The Chair: Welcome to the committee hearings, Mr Feld. We have half an hour for your presentation. Usually people leave about 15 minutes for questions and answers, so hopefully you can leave as much time as possible for the different caucuses to pose questions.

Mr John Feld: My brief is quite short. The Trans-Action Coalition welcomes the opportunity to present our views on Bill 79 to your committee before the bill goes back to Queen's Park for third reading.

Trans-Action is a coalition of organizations in Ontario representing people with disabilities and seniors. We advocate for accessible transportation services.

Why would an organization concerned with accessible transportation concern itself with employment equity legislation? The following phrase will sum up our answer: We can't hold a job if we can't get to work.

As you are undoubtedly aware, lack of employment is a major problem facing people with disabilities. You've seen the statistics. We consider the widespread poverty of people with disabilities, closely connected to their virtual exclusion from the labour force, to be an injustice that can be addressed through more effective legislation than is currently being put forward.

The disability rights movement, including the Trans-Action Coalition, has been calling for employment equity legislation in Ontario for many years. We have been anxiously following developments. We applauded the private member's employment equity bill that Bob Rae introduced at Queen's Park before the current government was elected in 1990. We were delighted that the newly elected government gave high priority to passing employment equity legislation. We welcome the establishment of the office of the Employment Equity Commissioner. We were encouraged by the provincial hearings into employment equity held in 1991-92. We observed as Bill 79 was introduced and went through second reading. But ever so slowly, the disability rights movement, including Trans-Action, has become disillusioned. As these hearings begin, we are gravely concerned.

In Bob Rae's private member's bill and in the early rhetoric of this government, the word "mandatory" was regularly used in describing the proposed employment equity legislation. It is still being used now and again. Our question to you is this: What is mandatory about Bill 79? Please tell us. According to our understanding of Bill 79, the only requirement for employers is to set their own goals for hiring and promoting members of designated groups. The legislation leaves it up to the employers to decide who, how many, and when to hire and promote members of equity-seeking groups.

Is Bill 79 modelled after the much-criticized federal version of the same law? The only mandatory element of the federal law is that federally regulated employers must keep records of their hiring practices, and we know the results. Employment of people with disabilities has fallen since the law was introduced. The pattern has been repeated in the Ontario public service, where each ministry has its own employment equity office but where nothing is mandatory.

The lesson is clear. Without mandatory goals and timetables imposed on employers by law, with stiff penalties for non-compliance, there will be no change. We know that this government has bowed to pressure from employers. We would like to use the occasion of these hearings to exert some pressure of our own. Please listen to us.

When Bill 79 is brought back for amendments, it cannot go forward in its current shape. There must be fundamental changes. We are not demanding changes for people with disabilities alone. An injustice to one is an injustice to all. Without mandatory goals and timetables, none of the designated groups, those identified as being discriminated against in employment, will see any real progress.

1140

Trans-Action supports the amendments proposed by the Alliance for Employment Equity. We call upon your committee to recommend to the government that the bill be strengthened, particularly in the areas of mandatory goals and timetables, effective enforcement measures, a mechanism for third-party intervention, wider coverage to include smaller workplaces and more protection for non-unionized settings, in order to be an effective tool in gaining true representation of marginalized groups in the workplace.

Thank you. I welcome your questions and comments.

Ms Carter: As someone who works with the Ministry of Citizenship and particularly with seniors, I do know how very important the transportation question is. I find, particularly for people in rural areas, this is a very real bar to being able to make use of facilities and generally live a satisfactory life.

I think Bill 79 is a little stronger than you're implying. In particular, of course, employers are being requested to make accommodations for people with disabilities. I'm just wondering what in practice you think could be included in the bill that would go further towards solving the kind of problem we know exists.

Mr Feld: I think if there are not targets, timetables and goals set in the legislation -- precise, measurable goals and timetables -- then there will be no change; nothing will happen. Good intentions are very wonderful, but we all know what the road to hell was paved with. I think that if we leave it up to good intentions, then nothing will happen.

Ms Carter: But there is the proviso that the workforce must come, over time, to reflect the community around it, and there are sanctions in the bill for employers who do not ultimately achieve that planning.

Mr Feld: Your view is that the legislation as it currently is put forward contains mandatory requirements and mandatory provisions that will require that employers hire members of designated groups, that they are required by law under the current terms of the legislation?

Ms Carter: I would say so, but you're right that we don't have rigid numerical goals and timetables. I wonder: What mechanisms could the commission use to make sure that such goals and timetables were realistic and achievable for employers in Ontario?

Mr Feld: Employers in Ontario will tell you, and have told you, that there are no goals and timetables that are realistic and realizable. That's what they say: There are no goals which are realizable and realistic. So we are proposing that the commission, the government, establish in law goals and timetables, because if you listen to employers, the time is never right. It's always, "The times are wrong for it." They always have excuses for doing anything. But we're telling the government, "Do it."

Ms Carter: But allowing for the excuses, can you see what kinds of mechanisms would come into play to make this whole thing effective?

Mr Feld: I don't have at my fingertips the mechanisms whereby the goals and timetables can be effective. Others, I'm sure, have told you already, and they exist. Whether I have them at my fingertips or not, they exist.

Mr Mills: Thank you, John, for coming here. I read your brief and I want to clarify one thing. You say that your organization is representing people with disabilities and seniors. Are you bringing a perspective of seniors to Bill 79 or not? My friend Mr Callahan kept on about it, and I just want to respond to that. No?

Mr Feld: The main concern of seniors is not employment.

Mr Mills: For some of us it is.

Mr Curling: Except you.

Mr Mills: Except me -- continued employment. I'm just trying to prompt something. When my friend Mr Callahan sat over there, he kept trying to introduce some discrimination against seniors and older workers into this bill, and I just wanted to get that out of the way, that you're not here for that.

Mr Feld: No.

Mr Mills: Thank you.

Mr Curling: Thank you, Mr Feld. I know what you're here for. You're here for -- let me see if Mr Mills hasn't gotten the message on this government yet --

Mr Mills: We've got the message.

Mr Curling: -- that the legislation should be strengthened and that if we leave it for sort of voluntary support of this bill by employers or whoever, we have chaos, and over the years we have not seen an improvement. As a matter of fact, I thought that the government of the day had it right at one stage when it had Bob Rae's private member's bill, and somehow it was lost in making Bill 79, and I supported you wholeheartedly. As a matter of fact, the case was made very strongly, and Ms Carter raised the question, that transportation is one of the most important factors in the disabled group.

Maybe you could comment on this to help us out, and I want to make this point too, that Bill 79 will go through. They have the majority there regardless of what we say, and the presentations here, it is with hope that they're listened to and especially that presentations like yours will change their minds somehow to strengthen that legislation.

I didn't want to use the word "subgroups," but within the disabled community they're concerned that the severe-disabled are not really reflected in the legislation, and in doing the survey that it should be ticked off to say who are disabled, what type of disability and that severe disability be a separate section. Would you agree with that, that it should be divided in those kinds of sectors?

Mr Feld: No comment. I'm not knowledgeable on that issue. I'm aware of it. I'm not knowledgeable to comment.

Mr Curling: Maybe you could help me out in this way. They feel that to treat all disabled as the same, as one area -- it's not really fair for us to understand who are the people who come under those designated groups. The visible minorities have asked about that too, that people are treated more severely; it depends on what the visible minority groups are designated to be. In the disability areas too that concern is there. Is there concern there that they may be treated the same as those who have had this number of the --

Mr Feld: Well, some of the chartered banks attempted to redefine disability to include wearing eyeglasses and things of that nature. So it is an issue: How do you define a person with a disability? We think there are definitions currently in use which are adequate. That's not the issue, the need to redefine or more clearly define who a person with a disability is. The current statistics indicate that a certain percentage of the population is disabled, something like 14%, and the level of employment by people with disabilities is significantly lower. Our contention is that the proposed legislation will not alter the makeup of the labour force by people with disabilities.

Mrs Witmer: I'd like to focus on the area that you mention as being a barrier to getting a job, obviously regardless of the content of the legislation, and that is the ability to get to work. I would certainly appreciate suggestions from yourself as to how we can facilitate the transportation of members of your community, because I know that's certainly been a barrier that's been highlighted time and time again. It's great to have the legislation, but if you can't get to work, there's a serious problem. What can the government do to assist?

Mr Feld: That's what we're in business for. We provide suggestions to the government all the time about that, and it's a very big question you're asking. It ranges from municipal transit -- for instance, one of the tough nuts to crack is if you live let's say in Markham or Ajax or a community in the greater Toronto area but not part of Metro. It's hard enough if you live in Metro and you use a wheelchair to get around, but if you live in another community outside of Metro, it's doubly, triply hard, and if you want to travel by intercity bus like Greyhound, Gray Coach, Voyageur, currently there are no buses on the road that will accommodate a wheelchair.

These are serious problems, and our main issue in Trans-Action is to fight for accessible transportation. Part of that is, as you said yourself, or I said it as well in my brief, that it's very nice if there -- I mean, if the employment equity legislation were tougher and it would guarantee that people with disabilities could find work, then what would they do? That's a job for us to fight on. I would be thrilled and delighted to speak to you after the hearing about what the government can do.

Mrs Witmer: I appreciate that, because I know in my own community this is one of the obstacles.

Mr Feld: What community is it?

Mrs Witmer: Kitchener-Waterloo. When you have to call three days ahead to obtain the transportation, and also if you've got a job that requires some flexibility in work hours, you don't have that type of flexibility, so it really is a very serious obstacle to employment. So I appreciate what you've been doing.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Feld, for your submission and your participation in these hearings.

Mrs Witmer: I would just like to publicly ask you, Mr Chairperson, as to the anticipated timetable for next week, whether indeed we are going to continue with the clause-by-clause or whether we're taking a look at removing and eliminating next week and waiting until the House resumes at the end of September.

The Chair: My understanding is that we will continue as had been planned, which is to hear clause-by-clause next week. If you want to propose a motion to the contrary, you can at any time that you wish.

Mrs Witmer: Okay. I'll just give notice then that I will be proposing a motion later today indicating that I would like a deferment of the clause-by-clause because of what I feel is a very limited time to thoughtfully consider the presentations that have been made.

The Chair: Very well. We're adjourned until 1:30.

The committee recessed from 1153 to 1401.

PERSONS UNITED FOR SELF HELP (PUSH) CENTRAL PETERBOROUGH

The Chair: Persons United for Self Help: Reno Demeo, Marilyn O'Connor and Mary Ann Brewer. Welcome. Some of you have seen the kinds of presentations we've had. Please leave time for questions and answers so that we can have a fairly good debate or at least dialogue between the members and yourselves.

Ms Mary Ann Brewer: I'm sure you're aware of Persons United for Self Help, a cross-disability group representing and supporting self-representation for persons with disabilities. We have followed several of the presentations and submissions to the standing committee regarding aspects of the proposed legislation and regulations. We wish to advise you today that our presentation, while not focusing on specific parts of the regulations or sections of Bill 79, will focus on real individuals affected by a long history of systemic discrimination and unfair hiring practices.

Our presenting group today is comprised of a diverse mix of needs within the disability community itself. We want to strongly urge you that the deaf community has not only the same issues of other cross-disability members but also language issues that need to be well understood by the commission, employers, labour and training and education sectors.

I'd like to introduce Reno Demeo to give a presentation at this time.

Mr Reno Demeo: Thank you, Mary Ann. Hello, my name is Reno and I'm deaf and I identify as a member of the deaf community. I live in Peterborough currently and I have been living there for about three and half years. I had been working as an auto painter until 1991 when I was laid off. This September I will be going to Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough to take an electromechanics course.

I have 17 years of work experience and I've had several different jobs. I haven't ever worked anywhere for a continued period of time. I've had 15 jobs over a 17-year span. Eighty per cent of the work that I have done has been in the auto industry, in auto body or auto painting, and my other work experience would be in many different jobs.

I've worked at many different jobs, and it has been a very difficult experience for me to send out my résumé. For example, I sent one to the post office in Peterborough and to the head office in Ottawa as well. My experience there was that I didn't hear anything in a three-year period, even though I had sent résumés to both of those offices.

As I've talked to some deaf people I know, friends of mine in the area, I've noticed that none of them are satisfied with the jobs that they have. They also don't feel that disabled people have been given a fair opportunity in their jobs.

In terms of the labour market, we've found that the labour market refuses to provide jobs for disabled people and the communication has not been satisfactory for us. Mainly what we've noticed is that most employers are worried about their higher insurance costs if they hire a disabled person, so they don't do that. That has been the experience of myself as a deaf person and also some of the experiences that I've heard from other disabled people.

Right now I live and spend my time in Peterborough, and I'm hoping that Bill 79 will be a strong bill that will affect the labour market to share equitably among members of all our society, including disabled people. Right now only 10% of disabled people have jobs. For example, at the post office in Peterborough, of all of the employees that they have there, they don't have any deaf employees. Everybody who works there is hearing, and they also have no disabled employees in that specific post office. That's an example of one of the inequities that disabled people face in our society.

As a member of the deaf community, there are so many barriers that are set up against us. We're not allowed to work at police stations, we can't work as pilots or all kinds of different things that we aren't allowed to do because hearing is considered to be a requirement of the job. The job requirements themselves and the criteria keep a barrier from us to be able to work. If the legislation was to pass, it would allow us more opportunities for other jobs. Thank you.

Mr Curling: It's always very helpful to hear at first hand of situations that will help us to draft better regulations. In the second paragraph in your presentation it states, "We endorse the principles of the Employment Equity Act as well as the fact that the regulations will be in place at the same time as the act is passed." Actually, we are not able in this committee to debate the regulations. That's the sort of presence in which they put the situation for us to debate.

Are you aware that only some regulations will be in place? Are you aware that the construction industry regulation is not yet drafted, and also regulations for the aboriginal people will be drafted later on? Are you also aware that, I think, the regulations that are in place now, as they say, that have been drafted have been tested in five work areas? I don't know if you're familiar with that. Do you have any comments about that kind of standing, that the regulations themselves are not -- not all regulations will be ready when this committee has ended, will be in place? I don't know if any member there would like to make a comment.

Ms Brewer: I've been curious as to why the construction industry regulations haven't been drafted at this point. I'm not certain I have an answer to that, but it's made me curious as to wonder why the regulations haven't been drafted for them, because it seems that it's an industry that's been well developed over time. I am aware of some of the other parts of the regulations in terms of protecting small business with employers under 50 and I understand the rationalization for that and support it. But I'm not fully aware of why the construction industry doesn't have draft regulations yet.

1410

Mr Curling: It is extremely helpful that organizations like yours come before us and are strong supporters of the employment equity legislation, like ourselves here, but we are very concerned about the ineffectiveness of the legislation, therefore the regulation is in place.

My concern too is that the regulation itself seems to be ineffective, and I think it brings about a lot of confrontation and adversarial situations when the law is in place. Do you have any comment about how comfortable you feel with the present regulation, although we can't debate it in here?

Ms Brewer: A comment I would make in terms of looking at the federal employment equity legislation that has not been successful to date is that the number of companies and businesses that are actually affected are small in comparison to what this bill will cover in the province of Ontario. The numbers of companies that will be affected by it are much higher.

As well, from my perceptions and from our perceptions in our own community and following the media, in looking at the bad press this bill has received to date, that is indicative of perpetuating myths that this will be bad for small business, but we are operating under the premise that we have to start somewhere.

Of course, we can't debate the regulations today, but we are supporting this piece of legislation. We do see that it will in fact be something that does help small business. There are all sorts of types of business to date that have not really excelled -- that look at areas in terms of consulting for disability issues in private small business or accommodations that a lot of people with disabilities have a great deal of problem accessing. We just feel that the media coverage to date has not been fairly representative of the concerns that the equity group members have in supporting this piece.

I won't get into it today. There are other disability groups that have made presentations and we've followed them. We've looked at them and we just really wanted to focus today on some real individual problems in employment and hiring practices.

Mr Murphy: If I can follow up, one of the issues we have heard about in the committee is the different kinds of accommodation that would have to go for obviously different disabilities in the workplace. There's some concern about the way the definition of "disabled" is put in the regulation and whether it needs to be put in the act to change the focus.

For example, one of the ideas is that it should focus on being disadvantaged, not just the disability, but being disadvantaged in employment so that the issue that goes to is the idea that you want the employer to really look at who's in the workforce and focus on those people disadvantaged by their disability in the workforce.

I think we heard earlier about an attempt by one employer to count wearing eyewear as a disability and therefore increase the number of people they could count as being disabled in their workforce and therefore paint themselves as better. I'm wondering if you've given any thought to the definition of "disabled" in the regulation and whether there should be some breakdown of that definition so you can focus, for example, on different disabilities and how that impacts on employment and what different kinds of accommodation can be done for different disabilities.

Ms Marilyn O'Connor: Yes, we have thought about that and it seems to me it is important that it's set up in such a way that companies can't take advantage of a loose definition; otherwise you won't get the effect that you're looking for. It definitely needs to be set out so that the definition is very clear and can't be misused.

Mrs Witmer: Actually, you're at least the second group that has come from Peterborough, so there's obviously a lot of interest there in the issue of Bill 79.

You've talked about employment equity and you've talked about some of the media messages. I guess, unfortunately, there is a fear out there about the legislation and obviously the communication thus far by the government has helped to contribute to some of the negative press that's out there.

I would focus on the preamble. The preamble actually, in comparison to other legislation, is quite different and it gives a very negative message. Have you had a chance to look at that? It's quite exclusionary, whereas I believe personally there should be a positive message there. It should be inclusive and it should really indicate to the people in this province what the benefits of the legislation would be, rather than indicating something other than that.

Ms Marilyn O'Connor: I think what we've tried to look at in our short presentation is not looking at it so much from a negative light but trying to point out the very positive aspects of the legislation and what it can do, not only in terms of persons with disabilities but the community as a whole, and how this could be a very positive thing. There is a tremendous pool of resources that's not being fully used and it can only benefit the community as a whole. That's, I think, sort of what our focus here today wanted to be, that this is very positive and it can be positive for everyone.

Mrs Witmer: Some of the barriers that you face -- I'd really appreciate hearing from you what can be done to help accommodate you as far as seeking employment and then within the workplace.

Ms Marilyn O'Connor: I can't respond terribly myself because I haven't actually experienced that, but then, I've never had to have any special accommodation. I can certainly empathize with others who do need specific accommodation like Reno, and that's, I think, where the problem comes in, if someone needs a specific accommodation. I think probably Reno could speak more clearly to that.

Mr Demeo: In the Peterborough area, I know that, for example, they have a large electrical company there. They don't hire any disabled people to work there. They don't hire any deaf people to work there. I think the company is afraid to hire deaf or disabled people there.

As well, Quaker Oats -- that company is there and it's the same sort of thing. They refuse to hire any disabled people. I'd say: "Okay, what's wrong with me? I'm not going to bite you. I'm not going to cause you problems. I can do work just like anybody else," but they refuse to hire people who are deaf or disabled. I have tried to contact them several times and, as well, I have been waiting for this bill to pass so that I can have some sort of stronger reinforcement behind me to be able to say, "Well, yes, I can get a job there."

Ms Brewer: I just wanted to add something further to that in terms of accommodation. With the deaf, also in our community as in all communities, there's a shortage of interpreters but also a shortage of communicators who could be used in many different settings in the workplace. It's very hard to believe that in 1993, here we all are and our country has never had one apprenticeship course for interpreters or communicators. I find that very hard to understand why, if not -- the reason being systemic.

Mrs Witmer: I can identify with what you're saying. On occasion, I've had members of the deaf community come and see me and we've had to book our time around the availability of the interpreter. That created some problems for them, so it is a shortcoming.

What do you see as far as the support of the educational community? I know that in the community where I live there have been co-op programs for persons who are disabled in order to give them entry into the workplace and to allow the other employees and the employer to recognize that they're just as capable. As a result, certainly many of them have in the long term become employees of that company. Do you see much more needing to be done in that field?

Ms Brewer: I think each community is different and unique and there may be communities that are more progressive and have well-established co-ops, but also stronger organizations like industry education councils. You might find our particular geographical area, for education and training purposes as well as health and social, is one that's very high in unorganized labour as well so there's not a lot of progressive movement yet towards this.

1420

I would think, especially in this decade with all the restructuring, that our communities are going to have to work towards more co-ops and mentoring. Also, apprenticeship programs have to be revisited and we look at clearly what it is that we need, not only in employment but for accommodations.

Ms Carter: For Mary Ann, Marilyn and Reno, I'd like to welcome you, first, very warmly to Queen's Park. I know very well the scope of the work that you do in the Peterborough community and that you are in fact making a difference. I congratulate you.

We've been told by some presenters that things are moving anyway and there isn't really a problem in employment equity, even that things are moving fast. Have things changed for the better as far as you're aware?

For example, I have the impression that the schools at least are accommodating disabled students in a way that used not to happen, but we have heard some examples of some ongoing problems. Are things improving or do we still have a long way to go?

Ms Brewer: I think we still have a long way to go. I think we're vulnerable at this point in restructuring and I believe the restructuring is necessary. I think there has been far too much duplication in areas and, while the institutions like educational institutions are attempting to meet accommodation needs, it's still moving slowly. We still need to continue to work towards it.

I think that in our community, we've taken the time to work with all equity groups towards equity issues. Not just this particular piece of legislation, but in a lot of cases, I would have to say that the community education initiatives are taking place by those groups who don't have any money behind them. I don't see it happening with the employer sector at this point, but I think all those sectors are going to have to do a little bit more in working in that area.

Ms Carter: Sometimes this is seen as being a minority problem, but you did point out in a presentation that you handed to me that 70% of the people in the Peterborough area are in those designated groups and I think in Toronto the figure would probably be higher. Do you have any comment on that?

Ms Brewer: That's why we don't see it as being a piece of legislation that's only going to benefit a few. We feel it has to be inclusive and we feel that we have to recognize the fact that it's benefiting the larger community, but also looking at those real statistics of how many people are actually comprised within those equity groups. It's fairly representative of the whole community.

Ms Carter: Getting down to the specifics of the legislation, the suggestion is that when employers survey their workforce they will ask people to self-identify as to whether they belong to one of the designated groups. Do you agree with that approach that people should self-identify? Could you tell us, if so, why you support that?

Ms Brewer: We believe in self-identification. We don't see that it's going to lead into a misuse of when identification has taken place. We believe there are many accommodations that can be made very reasonably and very cheaply and inexpensively and I think it's some of the educational initiative that should take place with the commission in terms of addressing those in partnership with the employers, business and labour as well. But we do believe in self-identification.

Ms Carter: There seems some doubt as to whether the bill should refer to persons or people with disabilities. I believe both words are used. Do you have any feeling as to which is the better word to use?

Ms Brewer: We've adopted "persons" as the word.

Ms Carter: Is that a little more individualized?

Ms Brewer: Yes.

The Chair: There is time for another question if another member would like to ask it.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you. I'm just wondering, as far as the definitions are concerned, a person with disability, a minority person -- can we strengthen that? Is there any way that we can make it stronger, is it just moving it from the regs and putting it right into the legislation, or is there better wording? I'm sort of piggybacking on what Jenny was saying. Is there a stronger wording? Is that what we need as far as definitions are concerned so that we can cover loopholes such as glasses or something like that being used?

Ms Brewer: We believe that definition should remain, but I think that in terms of keeping statistics and that type of thing and accountability -- if that's the type of loophole you might be referring to, there's where the definition should be very clear in terms of accounting mechanisms. But we feel that the definition as it is is good.

Mr Fletcher: Adequate.

The Chair: I want to thank all of you for coming from Peterborough to participate in these hearings.

NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

The Chair: I call the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Welcome. You've seen how the committee works. You've been here before.

Ms Judy Rebick: And I've been watching you on television.

The Chair: Please leave as much time as you can for that dialogue between yourselves and the members.

Ms Rebick: Okay. My name is Judy Rebick. I'm the past president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. With me is Carolann Wright, who's the southern Ontario regional representative, and Kiké Roach, who's a member at large on our executive.

First of all, I want to say that NAC is very happy that we're finally having a debate about employment equity in this province. From the time when David Peterson's government first started talking about the act, we've been very frustrated that it's been difficult to get a public discussion on employment equity. It seems that around the presentation of Bill 79, we're finally getting such a discussion.

However, we've been disturbed by the character of much of the discussion, particularly in the media. We have to say from the outset that we're bitterly disappointed in Bill 79. NAC, and in particular myself and other representatives, have been involved with the NDP in developing employment equity legislation from the time that Bob Rae developed his Bill 172 as a private member's bill.

I was on the minister's advisory committee and a representative of NAC was on the committee to develop the regulations. We have to tell you that we see very little of our input in this bill. We see very little input from the other designated groups or indeed even from the labour movement. What we do see is that a lot of the arguments made by members of the business community on these committees were accepted by the minister.

What we have to say is that while we agree with the goals of the bill, we think in fact the preamble -- which some members of the opposition seem to have the hardest time with -- is probably the best part of the bill. We agree with the goals of the bill. We find that the implementation measures in the bill will be completely ineffective. In a minute I'll go through why we think that is.

The first thing I want to do is talk about the discussion. One of the issues that has been raised, particularly by business groups, is the issue of merit. I can tell you that we are very offended by the arguments that have been made on merit. The suggestion that somehow a business, employers, hire people on the basis of merit would, to us, argue therefore that, in their opinion, white men are more qualified than women or racial minorities or people with disabilities or aboriginal people because, while many employers certainly have indicated their agreement that there has to be an end to discrimination in the workplace, the fact is that discrimination in the workplace continues.

It's very frustrating to us that we have to keep arguing this. We have in our brief documented evidence of discrimination against women in the workplace. We don't know why we have to keep presenting such documentation. We should think by now it's obvious, but it's there. The reality is: If merit were really used in hiring, then we wouldn't have a problem. We wouldn't need employment equity because if employers hired strictly on the basis of merit, and didn't discriminate either systemically or intentionally, we would have 50% women, we believe today, in almost every position of authority and we would have a much larger percentage of visible minorities, aboriginal people and people with disabilities.

In the Bank of Montreal study, which we cite in our brief, it was clear that if merit were used at the Bank of Montreal as the main way that people were hired, women would be hired twice as much as men, because women scored two times higher on evaluations than men. Women have higher degrees than men at the bank and yet the bank studies indicate that by the year 2000, there'll only be 22% women in senior management, and this despite the fact that 75% of the employees at the Bank of Montreal are women. So it's clear that merit is not being used in places of employment to hire, that there's discrimination, invisible discrimination but nevertheless discrimination, and the Bank of Montreal study, which we cite, again shows that there are still discriminatory attitudes.

1430

The people before you have argued that this is a thing of the past, that people don't have discriminatory attitudes any more, that really it's just a matter of time and the people who face discrimination are people who were in the workforce 20 years ago and people coming to the workforce today don't face discrimination. I can tell you this is nonsense, absolute nonsense. Even in relation to white, middle-class women who probably have broken through the barriers of discrimination more than the other designated groups, there's still discrimination, and if we had any doubt of that, just read the Bertha Wilson Report on Gender Equity in the Legal Profession, one of the most élite professions where both intentional discrimination continues to exist and systemic discrimination continues to exist.

Another example that we cite in our brief is the federal court system. It's interesting to us that merit only gets raised when we talk about equity. When we talk about appointments to the federal bench, even to the Supreme Court of Canada, merit is not the central issue. Regional representation is the central issue or party affiliation. I went to a conference recently of federal court judges, and the majority, the vast majority are people with Tory party connections. Now, I'm sure there are people who don't have Tory party connections who would be very excellent federal court judges, but they don't get selected because of the system of patronage. In the Supreme Court of Canada, it's accepted that regional representation is important. I agree with that; I don't have a problem with that. But no one says that because someone is appointed to the Supreme Court from Alberta when there are maybe 5,000 people better qualified in Ontario, this is discrimination against Ontario. We recognize that the Supreme Court has to be regionally representative, and similarly, I would argue, our workplaces need to be representative of all people of Ontario.

If they did hire by merit, we would see a different result. For example, federal court judges are appointed by the old boys' system. The Justice minister makes the appointment after consulting with bar associations. The Ontario government recently changed that system. They now have advertisements and open competitions to hire. They use merit much more than the federal government does, and we have twice as many women being appointed as judges in Ontario than we do at the federal level. So if merit were really being used, I would argue with you, we wouldn't have a problem of discrimination. The reality is that merit is very subjective and that employers hire the people they can relate to the best, which is often people of the same gender, people of the same culture, and that's one of the reasons why we have discrimination in the workforce. What employment equity does is to counter those biases by ensuring that people are hired without discrimination.

The second point I want to make is the discussion, particularly in the media, on this issue. We know that politicians are very influenced by the media. NAC knows that better than anyone else, I'm sure. We've been very disturbed by much of the media coverage on this issue, that it's feeding into a backlash, it's creating irrational fears such as that suddenly white men aren't going to have any opportunities any more in society, and as the young man who presented to you last week suggested, that now the police aren't going to hire white men any more. This is nonsense and it's not what employment equity's about. It's not about exclusively hiring women and minorities. It's about levelling the playing field.

If we look at some of these media outlets, they need employment equity as much as other employers. We would suggest to you that the Globe and Mail, which has been campaigning against Bill 79 even before it was presented to the House, has an all-white male editorial board, and this is not unrelated to the position they're taking on employment equity, in our view. It also has only one female columnist in its front section now. They just got rid of two female columnists. So we have a newspaper which has an all-male editorial board and almost all-male columnists telling us that we don't need employment equity in Ontario. It's pretty hard for us to swallow.

What we think is happening here is that the issue is not whether white men are going to be discriminated against; it's that white men have to give up some of the privileges they've had in society. They have to share that privilege. In the media, for example, not all the media but much of the media, there's a real reaction to that. We would hope that you wouldn't be influenced by this in this case, but that you would stand up to those arguments and answer them with the facts of the situation.

The last thing I want to say, and this is an area of major disappointment for us, is that we have had various programs of voluntary employment equity for over 15 years in Canada. We've had it in the federal civil service, we've had it in the Ontario civil service, we've had it in a number of public sectors. We've had the federal Employment Equity Act, which is a voluntary act, for the last six years. Every study that's been done, every study has shown that voluntary employment equity doesn't work. As much as employers come before you and tell you that they're committed to ending discrimination, and I believe them -- I don't think they're lying -- the reality is that with the business climate the way it is, unless there's a law that ensures that employers make employment equity a priority, it falls to the bottom of the list.

We've included for your information a report we did to the Employment Equity Commission. We studied three employers, under the federal act, where progress was so slow for women that it would take up to 60 years for women to achieve equality, and this is under an Employment Equity Act. It's even worse in other sectors. I think other people before you have told you that under the contract compliance program, where there are penalties for not making progress in employment equity, the government's had very different results, because that's mandatory.

We're very disappointed that after all of this study and the benefit of all the experience we've had, the government has brought in what amounts to a voluntary Employment Equity Act. As much as some groups argue that there are quotas in this bill, the reality is, and Carolann will explain this a bit more, that the only test in the bill is reasonable effort. The employer is not even required to make progress in changing his or her workplace under this bill. Carolann will explain that more.

I want to pass quickly to reviewing the amendments we see to the bill. Carolann will talk about numerical targets and timetables.

The second point we want to make, which we don't think anyone else has made before you, is that when we studied the federal act, we found that while women were making glacial progress, racial-minority, aboriginal and disabled women weren't making any progress at all and in some cases were moving backwards. So we ask that you amend the bill for large employers to set targets separately for males and females in each of the designated groups, because what happens is that racial-minority women get lost in the "women" category and they get lost in the "racial-minority" category; secondly, to give the commission power to set standards. Carolann will talk about the numerical standards, but I want to talk about the qualitative measures.

One of the good things that we like about the bill is that it talks about qualitative measures, but there's no power for the commission to set standards. We share the concern of some employers that what will happen is a mess because no one knows what he's supposed to be doing. They know they're supposed to be achieving some form of employment equity, but there are no standards in the bill as to what that means. There is no power for the commission to set standards, let's say, on what is a sexual harassment policy or what does reasonable accommodation mean. The commission does not have that power. The power the Human Rights Commission has to set guidelines has been a very important one. This commission is not given the same power. In pre-answering a question, yes, we want an independent Employment Equity Commission.

The second thing is that the bill, as we see with the regulations, really only covers employers over 100. The bill says that it covers employers over 50, but in fact the requirements for employers between 50 and 100 are so reduced that we don't think it'll have any impact at all. So we'd like to see all employers over 10 completely covered, and under 10 with reduced requirements.

We might point out to you the experience under pay equity. A large number of women and racial minorities work for small employers, often in the lowest-paid jobs, and if small employers are not covered by this act in any way, we're going to exclude a majority of workers in Ontario. We give you those details in the brief.

The second-to-last point we want to make is that we support the demand of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario to be included in the qualitative part of the bill, but we point out to you that it's not only that they're not included; in fact they are excluded by the language of the bill. Every time the bill talks about removing barriers, it talks about removing barriers to the hiring, retention and promotion of the designated groups. That means that other groups that are not designated, whether they're gays and lesbians or francophones, if they're facing discrimination in the workplace, they cannot access help from the Employment Equity Commission because the bill specifically says the only thing it's concerned about is the designated groups.

We have a further concern, that this language will create a much higher burden of proof on whoever goes to the commission. Not only do they have to prove that a certain regulation is discriminatory, but they have to prove that it prevents the promotion or retention of the designated groups.

1440

The last point we want to make is that the bill is in fact weaker than the federal employment equity bill on this one point, that it doesn't require employers to file with the commission either data or plans. What that means is groups like ours or Disabled People for Employment Equity or Persons United for Self Help are completely unable to find out what's going on in the workplace. This is particularly a problem in unorganized workplaces where the burden is entirely on the individual employee to say if there's a problem with the plan in the workplace.

Advocacy groups have no access whatsoever to information on the bill. I heard a member of the committee on television say that he worries about frivolous complaints from advocacy groups, which we find quite offensive. In fact, under the federal act, where there is a provision for advocacy groups to complain, there have been very few complaints. The reason is because it's very onerous to make a complaint. It takes a lot of time and energy, a lot of resources that we don't have. Nevertheless, if people in unorganized workplaces don't have the assistance of advocacy groups to help them, they're not going to have the assistance of this act at all.

The last point I want to make is on seniority. There's been a lot of debate on seniority. I find it very objectionable that employers are coming here and saying they're opposed to mandatory targets and timetables but they want you to weaken seniority. To me, what that says is that they want to use employment equity to undermine the role of unions in the workplace, and I find that really objectionable.

We agree with the exception of seniority in layoffs to be excluded from the bill. The reason we do that is precisely because employment equity is not about people losing their jobs, it's not about people having less opportunity in the workplace; it's about fairness for everyone. Even though we think seniority in layoff can be a barrier especially to women in non-traditional jobs, we agreed with that exclusion in order that people in the workplace would not feel threatened and there would not be the kind of backlash that some people are talking about.

However, we're concerned that the bill singles out seniority in terms of other barriers. We think seniority can be a barrier in terms of promotion, for example, but so can many other things. We don't understand why Bill 79 singles out -- in the section on the powers of the commission, it says the commissioner will have the power to negotiate with the employer and labour about seniority. Why doesn't she have the power to negotiate about harassment plans or accommodation for disabled people? We don't understand why seniority has been singled out there.

I want to just turn it over to Carolann now and then to Kiké. They'll be very brief.

Ms Carolann Wright: I'm going to speak specifically about mandatory goals and timetables.

NAC, along with almost every other advocacy group representing the designated groups and most labour organizations, has argued from the beginning of the discussions on employment equity, following the release of the Abella commission, that the key to successful employment equity was mandatory numerical targets and timetables. This is not another word for quotas. In fact, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, NAC supported quotas. Based on the US experience, we felt that the best way to ensure rapid change in the workforce was to impose quotas for hiring on all employers, for example, at least 50% of all new hirees to be women, 9% to be racial minorities etc.

However, experience with employment equity over the last 15 years has made it clear that to be successful, numerical goals must be flexible to reflect the workforce in the geographic area, the rate of hiring of the particular workplace etc. We have also been persuaded that qualitative measures, barrier removal, were an essential part of employment equity and needed more attention. There are too many examples of situations where women or aboriginal people were hired into positions and were forced out because the workplace was unwelcoming.

Nevertheless, employment equity cannot and will not work if the setting of numerical goals and timetables is left up to individual employers, even if the plan is negotiated with the bargaining agent in unionized workplaces.

The only standard provided in Bill 79 or its regulations to guide employers in developing their plans is the test of reasonable efforts. Nowhere are reasonable efforts defined. In essence, the employer will decide what is reasonable. Our analysis of the CBC, for example, shows that it will take it 60 years to achieve equality of women in its workforce. Is this reasonable? Is the Bank of Montreal's projection of 22% female senior managers by the year 2000 reasonable? On what basis will the employer, the commission or even the tribunal decide the meaning of "reasonable efforts"?

In fact, when the bill and the regulations are taken together, the employer is not required to make any progress in achieving his or her goals. The only requirement is that reasonable efforts be made. In this sense, Bill 79 is no stronger than the federal Employment Equity Act, which leaves achievement of equity entirely up to the employer, with no requirement of progress whatsoever.

When we objected to the vague wording on numerical targets and timetables in section 2 of Bill 79, we were told that the regulations would clarify this issue. The regulations do indeed clarify: The establishment of numerical goals and timetables is entirely voluntary. The Business Consortium on Employment Equity, which opposes the legislation, is clear in its submission that it supports the regulation that leaves the establishment of the goals and timetables to the employer, with no standard, even guidelines, from the commission.

We support an amendment to Bill 79 to give the Employment Equity Commission the power to establish a mandatory standard for setting numerical goals and timetables that will take into account hiring rates, rates of promotion, layoffs and local geographic composition.

Ms Kiké Roach: I was informed that there was a young white male who was here presenting something in front of this commission talking about being left out, and I want to address that issue.

Not so long ago, young black women and black men in fact did have a monopoly on the labour force, but the problem was that we weren't paid for it because we were slaves. Now we find a situation where work is paid and we too often find ourselves with no work and a difficulty in accessing employment. But since slavery, we have really progressed to understand that as a society, one of the noblest goals we can really work towards is in fighting for the equality of all peoples.

When we talk about being left out, I would like to note that one of our reports has found that for the first time in 25 years, women's participation in the paid workforce is on the decline and that the most dramatic decrease was among young women between the ages of 15 and 24.

When we talk about being left out, I would like us to remember the young black students who are dropping out of high schools at dramatic rates because they don't see a future, because they don't believe there will be meaningful employment for them when they finish high school.

When we talk about being left out, I would like to mention that when I look at all of the major centres of power -- government, private sector -- nowhere do I see white men being disadvantaged in any way.

So these comments made by this young man were totally unsubstantiated.

Another question has arisen that, you know, "Oh, well, if we employ this kind of attitude in legislation, maybe you'll feel like a token once you get that job, and wouldn't that worry you?" It strikes me as very odd that people will be more concerned about my feelings of being a token than my being totally unemployed. I would like to urge this government to not be sidetracked by people who would resist change to protect unfair and undue privileges. Remember that our focus here today is on inclusion of people.

I think one of the most important things we can remember is that we have a tremendous amount of power to change society for the better and to make it more harmonious and more productive and more healthy, but the major obstacle to doing that is racism, sexism and discrimination of all kinds.

We must address the basic idea that power, wealth and resources must be shared, and this bill must speak to that and speak to inclusion in a meaningful way. It is not a bill about pitting people against each other. We must remember that we are now in a time of backlash and say no to gradualism, no to a laissez-faire attitude, and remember that bold action is required here because the goal that we are looking towards is a very important one and is possibly the greatest one.

1450

So I would urge this government to remember all of the young people, especially, out there who are looking to this government for answers, who are looking to this government for meaningful action on these issues, and to remember that we don't need to look at smokescreens coming from people who are afraid of change.

Mrs Witmer: Thank you for your presentation, Judy. I look forward to re-reading it this evening; there's a lot there that needs to be digested.

You spoke specifically to the federal legislation, and I was interested in your comments here. You indicated that a federal committee had indicated that the law was not working. What were some of the suggestions that they were making for change to the federal legislation? I'm not familiar with the report.

Ms Rebick: First, they made a recommendation in terms of coverage. Right now the federal government's not covered, so they wanted it covered.

They wanted a stronger test. At the moment, the only thing employers are required to do is file reports, and they wanted a stronger test than that, that the employers would be required to make some kind of progress in the work they were doing.

They had a whole series of others: making the complaints mechanism easier, bringing contract compliance into the bill. They stopped short at mandatory targets and timetables, unfortunately, but many of the other recommendations that designated groups had made, they supported. The point I'm trying to make is that they said the federal bill was not working.

Mrs Witmer: Right. I think it's important in our deliberations that we take those comments into consideration. I've sensed from your presentation today that you feel very strongly about the mandatory targets.

Ms Rebick: Yes. We've been arguing since 1985, since we presented to the Abella commission -- it's very frustrating -- that the key to employment equity working is mandatory goals and timetables, and without mandatory goals and timetables against which progress can be measured both for the employer and for the commission, it's not going to work. It's very frustrating. The Premier, when he wasn't Premier, agreed with us on that, and now that he's Premier he seems to have changed his mind. It's very frustrating.

Mrs Witmer: Why are you requesting penalties be higher for large employers? I can see repeat offenders, but I'm not sure why --

Ms Rebick: Because for a large employer -- for IBM, $50,000 is a drop in the bucket. It would be cheaper to pay the fine than to implement employment equity. Now, we know IBM is going to do it because they support the bill, so maybe they're not the best example. But with a big multinational corporation like a bank, for example, it's cheaper for them to pay the fine than it is for them to implement employment equity, whereas $50,000 for an employer of 100 is a lot of money. So we don't think it's fair to raise the fine for everybody, and a suggestion we made was to make it a percentage of payroll. That way the smaller employer pays less.

Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation, Carolann. I was just wondering about some of the things that you were talking about as the employment equity goes along. Do you think that perhaps the reporting to the commission and maybe the tracking of employees to show some actual progress rather than the vagueness of the act right now is something that could be implemented in the employment equity legislation so that you can track where your people are going?

Ms Wright: I guess overall we're trying to get to the specifics. How do you know whether people are making reasonable efforts? Judy and I were talking earlier, and I said it would be really interesting if I said to my children -- and by no means am I comparing employers to children -- "I'd like these tasks to be completed, and as long as you make reasonable efforts, that'll be great." How do I actually measure that in terms -- all I know is the chore is done or it's not. That's just a simplistic example of a much larger question. How do we actually know? What is really important here is, at the end of the day, have they done the job?

Mr Fletcher: Right. So perhaps a tracking of where people are going and reporting to the commission, what? Every year? Every two years?

Ms Wright: I don't know. We haven't been into specifics like that.

Ms Rebick: In the federal act, they report every year, but even reporting every two years would be better than nothing. The fact is that the only good thing about the federal act is those reports, because it enables groups like us to see what the progress is. For example, we published two reports on the banking industry on the basis of those reports, and we feel we had some effect on the Bank of Montreal actually making some steps to change what it was doing because it was embarrassing to the banking industry that we were coming out with these reports showing what poor progress it was making. So at least that kind of reporting, which allows both the commission and the community to know what the employers are doing, but more important, we want the plans to be filed with the commission. That's much more important than the data.

Mr Fletcher: I was also listening to the news, with the Martin Luther King anniversary of the march on Ottawa -- on Washington.

Ms Rebick: We wish, eh?

Mr Fletcher: Yes, really. On Washington. They were coming out with the stats. When the march first started, for black people the unemployment rate was sometimes three times -- 14%, as compared to a white unemployment rate of 3% and things. The dropout rate for black students in the United States is still the same; it's still a high rate. Employment equity in the United States, even though people say, "We have gained so much," hasn't really gone as far as it should. I'm just wondering, because I heard you mentioning the United States, about the quotas and everything. They're not reaching them.

Ms Wright: I guess it's all relative in terms of population: the black community there and what goes on here. I think that there's no real test here to show whether it will work or not. What we need is firm legislation. I don't know the specifics of the legislation and the implementation and what was their criteria measurement, so it's really hard to compare and say, "It didn't work there so maybe we shouldn't implement it here."

Mr Fletcher: I'm not saying that.

Ms Wright: My point is, the key to this is a strong legislation and one that has teeth and provides the kind of criteria that you can measure against.

Mr Curling: Thanks for an excellent submission. I was trying to go through this while you were talking. There's a lot of meat to this, and things have to be consulted, delved into, later on. But at this moment, for these three minutes, I just want to make a quick comment and a question itself.

The comment I want to make is that, as you mention, employment equity's about inclusion, and this seemed to be excluding quite a few areas here, excluding things like the construction industry, which has no regulation to it. They were excluded out of that. The gays and lesbians were excluded. Francophones were excluded. I can't understand that. You say that one moment they got it right, the first time -- almost seemed to get it right, Bob Rae, so to speak. Then, when he got another chance to go at it, he got it all wrong. Is the effectiveness of the legislation that is going to be so important here about this --

Mr Fletcher: What did you do for five years?

Mr Curling: Then at times we hear, "What did you do?" but now is the moment to do it. How do you feel? What would be your comment about this exclusion of these, and what should they be doing?

Ms Rebick: Our main problem with the bill is we don't think it's going to work. We agree with the goals in the bill and we agree with bringing in mandatory, legislated employment equity. The exclusion of the construction industry and union hiring halls, we have a concern with. It's not our major concern.

The way in which the language excludes groups, it doesn't just, in our view -- our human rights expert, Shelagh Day, who's our vice-president and is one of the foremost human rights experts in Canada, had a look at the bill and the regulations. Her view is that the language -- and this may not have been intentional -- of hiring, retention and promotion in fact not only doesn't explicitly include gays and lesbians and francophones -- and we're not sure about francophones; in fact, francophone women's groups aren't sure that they want francophones as a group specifically included -- but it actually excludes them, because in order to deal with the barrier, it has to be related to discrimination against one of the designated groups. So if, for example, there's terrible generalized harassment of gays and lesbians in a particular workplace, it wouldn't really be appropriate under this law for the employer to make that part of -- or for a union, let's say, to demand that that be part of -- an employment equity plan. So we're concerned about that.

In terms of why the NDP government got it right before they were in government and not after, that's the topic of a long discussion, and not just about the NDP, Mr Curling, but other parties as well. But anyway, for us voters it's kind of disillusioning.

1500

What I want to say is that I was on the committee, and I believe, from what I saw in the committee, that it was the influence of business groups that weakened this legislation and that in fact now that the business groups are coming and complaining it's not going to work, well, it's their fault that it's not going to work because they wanted it gutted.

If there were clear standards, both for numerical targets and timetables and for qualitative measures, it would be better for business because it wouldn't put a good equity employer at a disadvantage. The way it is now, the good equity employer will be at a disadvantage to the poor equity employer because there are no standards and the poor equity employer will try to get away with murder. If there were standards in the bill, all employers in a given sector would have to meet the same standard, and so a good equity employer wouldn't suffer competitively as a result. So it's really annoying to us that the same people, like the chamber of commerce, who convinced the minister to weaken the bill now come in and say they don't agree with it.

The Chair: Thank you for your submission, which was very instructive, and thank you for participating.

CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL

The Chair: The Chinese Canadian National Council? Welcome. You witnessed the previous submission, so you know how it works. Leave as much time as you can for questions.

Ms Amy Go: Thank you. My name is Amy Go, and I'm the national president of the Chinese Canadian National Council. Beside me is Beryl Tsang, who is a board member of the Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto chapter.

The Chinese Canadian National Council is a national organization with 29 chapters across the country, 11 of them in Ontario. Since 1980, we have been advocating for full and equal participation of Chinese Canadians in Canada.

The Chinese Canadian National Council pledges full and unequivocal support for strong and enforceable employment equity legislation that will address the historical disadvantages of employment of designated group members.

The introduction of the first reading of Bill 79 in June 1992 was a first step in redressing the long-standing pattern of the lack of equitable and representative participation of designated group members in Ontario's workforce.

Bill 79 provides a legal framework for employment equity. We are, however, deeply frustrated that most of the essential details of the act are left to regulations. We advocate, therefore, that the bill should be strengthened in the form of clear and enforceable standards and accountability mechanisms, and that most of the key regulations on numerical goals and timetables, positive and qualitative measures, enforcement and monitoring be moved from the regulations to the act.

Our comments are focused in three key areas: first, the process; second, content of the bill and regulations; and lastly, we'd like to address the myths around employment equity.

I would like to start with comments around the process. This government has promised an open and accessible way of governing. Public trust cannot be undermined. We want to bring attention to the issue of public input and accountability during the process of developing legislative amendments and draft regulations.

We feel it is only fair that the public has an opportunity to be able to respond to this important piece of legislation with informed knowledge and understanding, particularly the key impacts on employers, labour and designated group members.

What avenues of public consultation are available? We understand that this committee is having three weeks of public hearings and then it will go immediately into clause-by-clause analysis after the Labour Day weekend. What kind of process is this for such an important piece of legislation that will have a lasting impact on the face of Ontario's workforce?

How can members of this committee be able to think through and process all the valuable testimonials put forward by designated groups, labour and employers within such an unreasonable time frame? How can this committee explain the fact that the public consultation on the draft regulations is not due until the end of October and so much of the bill is left to regulations, and that this committee is proceeding on legislative amendments?

Therefore, we recommend that you extend the consultation process so that this standing committee can hear from all concerned stakeholders. The processing of information from this committee should be integrated with the results of the consultation on the draft regulations.

The present act is essentially voluntary compliance and is inadequate. We'd like to start by commenting on some of the key issues around the content of the act and draft regulations. The standard by which numerical goals are set is very important because it provides a benchmark to measure use by employers in planning, evaluating and implementing employment equity programs. At the same time, it enables government to monitor and enforce employer's progress.

Subsection 50(2) of Bill 79 states that it may provide that the goals be determined with reference to percentages approved by the commission. There is no mention of "percentages approved by the commission" or timetables in the regulations. The regulation states that the employer will set numerical goals which constitute reasonable progress towards achieving representation of designated group members. What defines reasonable progress? Without clear standards, the interpretation of reasonable progress can be very subjective.

The regulation provides four indicators on external availability -- by working-age population, occupational group in the geographic area, required skills and skills from training and education programs -- that the employer may refer to. No process and no priority are given as to how to set numerical goals. This will create massive confusion and inconsistency among employers, which will make it very difficult to monitor, enforce or litigate.

We recommend that employers shall set numerical goals and timetables with respect to its opportunity for change with reference to commission-approved percentages which reflect the working-age population within a geographic boundary. For highly skilled and professional occupations, we recommend a hybrid method of using enhanced availability data.

We also recommend "opportunity for change" to include entry, promotion and exit from the workforce. As the regulation stands now, it only refers to entry to the workforce.

All the above recommendations should be included in the act, not in the regulations.

Developing qualitative goals is another key area that we would like to address. The measures to assist employers to eliminate barriers and to achieve equitable representation are watered down in the draft regulations. In Bill 79, section 11 states that "every employer shall prepare an employment equity plan in accordance with regulations and must provide for the elimination of barriers." "Positive measures" is explicitly mentioned as one of the measures. The regulation, however, states that employers shall "provide for any of the following measures" and "positive measures" is not explicitly mentioned.

In the regulations, there is no definition of measures, no mention as to specific type or list of measures to be included. The regulations basically restate the general kinds of measures in the bill. Furthermore, the regulation has added "reasonable progress" to the development and implementation of qualitative measures, as if "all reasonable efforts" is not sufficiently vague.

We recommend that the definitions of "positive measures" and other "qualitative measures" be included in the act and that minimum criteria for achievement of such measures be described in the regulations.

1510

Ms Beryl Tsang: Employee participation and access to information: This section is extremely vague in its regulations. For the 30% of Ontario workers who are unionized, it is left to the employers and the bargaining units to decide on the process of consultation. There is no definition of what constitutes joint responsibilities. The situation is much worse for the rest of the 70% of the Ontario workforce which is non-unionized, including many small employers with the capacity for recent hires.

Recognizing, of course, that designated groups face systemic barriers within unions, it is important for this bill to ensure that they play an integral role in the development of any employment equity plan.

It is therefore our recommendation that clear standards on the process of consultation and access to information be included in the regulations in order to ensure the participation of non-unionized workers and designated groups within the unionized workplace.

Enforcement and monitoring: To have strong employment equity legislation, the act must provide for strong enforcement measures and for clearly spelled-out powers, as well as adequate resources for the Employment Equity Commission to monitor and enforce employers' progress and the results.

Reporting of results and filing of employment equity plans: As the draft legislation now stands, there's no requirement on the filing of employment equity plans or the filing of employment report results. There's only the requirement to file a certificate that the plan and the report have been prepared. This is sorely lacking in terms of what constitutes equity measures.

It is our recommendation that employers have to report employment equity results on a yearly basis and that this should be included in the act.

Costs, resources and powers of the Employment Equity Commission: The act stipulates the establishment of an Employment Equity Commission and Tribunal with specific functions and powers. Over the last weeks it has been extremely disconcerting for us to hear questions from members of this standing committee on justice that there is no need to waste money in creating another bureaucracy and that the Ontario Human Rights Commission can adequately deal with employment equity issues.

Such remarks on the unnecessary costs fail to address the impact of not implementing employment equity; that is, the unmeasurable socioeconomic costs to society in terms of lost and wasted human potential of designated group members, lowered productivity, the lack of diversity and sensitivity in providing consumer services. Let's face it, we're all consumers out there. This issue of cost must be balanced in terms of the investment and the returns in utilizing a broader pool of qualified designated group workers.

It is therefore our recommendation that a separate Employment Equity Commission be established and given the adequate resources and powers it needs to carry out its work.

Myths around employment equity and systemic discrimination: Comments questioning the reality of systemic discrimination during the public hearings are an excuse for not acting to remedy the persistent and significant underrepresentation of designated group members in our workforce.

Numerous studies, and I don't have to name them, have documented the effects of direct and systemic discrimination on members of the designated groups. Some state that employment equity cannot fix the whole problem of systemic discrimination. It is really the problem of the lack of educational and training equity that fails to provide qualified workers. Systemic discrimination requires systemic intervention and remedies. Education and training equity measures may complement the development of employment equity and may provide a larger pool of qualified workers, but they will not be able to force the employer to hire, promote and retain designated group members.

Furthermore, some have said that the Ontario Human Rights Code already deals with workplace discrimination, that we do not need another piece of legislation. Let's face it, the OHRC only deals with individual complaints. It's up to the individual to take corrective measures. The employment equity legislation is focused on systemic remedies and there's no duplication of roles or mandates in the two acts.

It's often been said that employment equity is seen by some as undermining the merit principle and as hiring unqualified people from designated groups. On the contrary, employment equity totally underlies the merit principle. The notion that it undermines the merit principle is based on stereotyping and negative attitudes towards members of designated groups that they are unqualified and are hired on the sole basis of race, gender or disability. Designated group members are qualified. They only need the equal opportunity to be able to compete on an equal footing with others in the process of hiring, promotion and retention.

Seniority: There have been some comments that the seniority principle is not a barrier to designated group members. There's also the push to amend the legislation provision on the protection of seniority rights regarding layoffs and recall.

We recommend that any changes to the seniority provision should be carefully balanced with the need for positive measures and the need to hire and promote readily qualifiable designated group members in the workplace.

In conclusion, it is important to develop a strong and enforceable employment equity legislation. We recommend the following changes:

(1) extending the process of consultation regarding amendments and draft regulations;

(2) setting standards to the development of numerical goals and timetables; positive measures and qualitative measures; employee participation; access to information; filing of employment equity results;

(3) establishing a separate Employment Equity Commission with adequate resources and powers;

(4) providing public education to counteract the myths on employment equity and to educate the general public about the benefits of employment equity.

I would also like to mention that in 1991 CCNC conducted a survey among the business communities. We interviewed the key decision-makers within umbrella business groups, such as the chamber of commerce and other associations.

Basically, the whole focus is to ask them about their attitudes towards Chinese Canadians in employment, and it was quite surprising. Well, we shouldn't say that it's surprising. There are a lot of blatant comments about Chinese Canadians not being able to communicate better and the fact that because of that, we cannot move up higher in the workforce because we're not good in communications.

We have a lot of individual cases that have come to our local chapters with complaints around discrimination in the workforce because they've been barred from promotion because they are not being seen as good in communication, even though a lot of them are Canadian-born Chinese who have been here for generations or they are immigrants educated here in English.

I think the key issue is that there is discrimination and we have to recognize that. The issue is not whether we are qualified, but the whole basis is how qualification has been defined. It has been defined against us, against the minority groups.

Ms Carter: Thank you for your very clear and precise presentation. I don't agree with you that there haven't been consultations. I think the minister has done a great deal of work on this and also the Employment Equity Commissioner, Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré.

Also, of course, we do want to get this done, and it's sometimes people who don't want to get something done who bring up reasons for delay. I think those of us who are really concerned that this get into operation feel that there is some need to accept now that we do have a consensus that this has to happen and get on with it.

I thank you for your clear explanation that the cost is worthwhile. We have had questions about that, and of course you've pointed out the cost of not doing it; also your statement that there should be a separate Employment Equity Commission to carry the load of bringing this to realization.

What I would like to ask you, you're saying that there should be employee participation and access to information, and it is stated in the bill that the bargaining agents have joint responsibilities. We have heard from some groups that there could be problems in that when employees are self-designated, this information and other information would then become available to both the employer and the bargaining agents and there could be problems with this. I wonder if you have anything to say about that.

Ms Go: I think what we're trying to say is that consultation has to be an inclusive process. First, I'd like to comment on your comment around the consultation. I personally was a member of the advisory group to the minister on this bill, and I was very frustrated. In fact I resigned from the group because I don't feel that the minister listened to the comments and the advice from the group and I think the process was not respected.

The last meeting that we had before the second meeting was October last year. All through the whole spring and winter there was no meeting, and then, the bill went through second reading. I think it was very disrespectful on the part of the government to call together a group of people who really believed in the process and really wanted to come together and develop a strong bill, and I think that was very frustrating.

1520

We would like to ensure that we don't repeat that kind of superficial consultation, that we open this up and make sure all the community groups have access to it -- whether people who have language barriers, how much do they know about this legislation? Do you advertise? Do you go out and educate them about employment equity? Is there any literature in different languages? I think we need to look at that whole thing.

I think it's the same thing, to bring that concept, that principle to the consultation around the development of a plan in the workforce. First of all, I think we have to recognize that in a unionized workforce it doesn't necessarily mean that the designated group members all play an integral role in the decision-making process, so how do we make sure that they play a role in there?

Then in a non-unionized workforce, we have to recognize that those people are in an even more powerless situation and to make sure that they have access to information around different languages, or the barriers that we have to address, in making sure that they understand what's being developed and to recognize that they all have a voice, because employers can really intimidate the employees into accepting anything and not really, truly consult them.

Ms Tsang: There's always a red herring, I've noticed, around the issue of data collection. Everyone says, you know, this whole notion of self-identification just creates additional barriers in the workforce. I've been a consultant, I've worked with private sector and with public sector unionized and non-unionized. If the data are collected systematically with confidentiality, with an adequate amount of education done along the data collection process, and the data collection process is used as an opportunity, we don't find in any workplace that this runs into any sort of problem.

Ms Go: That's right, and the education of the employees is very important in the process of data collection.

Ms Carter: And that is envisaged in the act, that there will be an educational --

Ms Go: But I think that whole section needs to be more clearly defined.

Mr Curling: I hope the government re-reads what you have just said over and over, because I think you made the point so clear and you communicated so effectively, especially in regard to consultation, how important it is to the democratic process for it to be seen to be fair.

The fact is you made an excellent point here, and I was extremely concerned about that, when we separate the legislation from the regulations and we debate the legislation now, I'm not quite sure if they're listening effectively to some of the changes that came before us. I'm not optimistic, really, that much change will be done to the legislation. I do hope it happens.

But whereas those regulations will be debated in October after we have done all this debate here, completely separate and apart, I'm just wondering if you feel that it will be effective enough that when October comes around for the public to have input into the regulations, it will have an impact on the legislation changes we made today.

Ms Go: That's why I think it is up to this committee to make the change right now, to bring the key elements that we have recommended and many other groups previous to our submission have made, to bring the key elements back to the act, and it is within your power and your jurisdiction to not wait for that, to make sure that those issues can be addressed right now in the act.

That's why I think we have to look at the whole process of what is your power, what you can do, and to look at the whole picture of the consultation and around the regulations. To me it is a sham to have consultations around regulations while we are going through legislative amendment, while we all know that a lot of that is left up to the regulations. I think you have the right and you have the power to bring the key elements back to the bill and you can do it right now without going through a sham process of consultation.

Mr Curling: Just clarifying the process here too, the government has six people on its side, and some of the recommendations you've made, I've fully endorsed them. Therefore, even with the numbers, there's hope that the things that we ask for, that many things in the regulations that we have identified that would strengthen the legislation will be brought forward.

The power really lies over there, and I'm confident with the kind of presentation you have made today and many others, that those changes will come about, because they have listened. Though a little bit stubborn, they have listened and I know they'll carry that message back to the great white leader there so he will make those changes.

Ms Akande: That's a retrospective conscience. There's nothing like a retrospective conscience.

Mr Jackson: In fairness, I must say that the practice of having the regulations and the legislation operating in two different cultures is becoming a more common practice. Although Ms Akande's shot at Mr Curling had minor truth to it, this is a trend which is growing and, unfortunately, your point is spot on.

If I may pursue with you, in your preamble -- and I didn't see it when I finally got your text -- you referenced the concept of employment equity not just being seeking work and finding employment, but the departure from work, leaving work. That may have been a variation from your text, but now when you identify yourself as someone who participated in the consultation process and one who just listened to someone who had participated in the process indicating she has very strong views against protection for people leaving the workforce around seniority and other considerations, perhaps you could share with this committee what some of your discussions with the ministry were around this issue, because we understand that originally this was part of Bob Rae's vision for protection and now it has been dropped.

Because you've had that insight and, if not, then just abandon that and speak to this committee about why NAC, for example, is dead against it. You know why the unions are dead against disrupting seniority rights, but you referenced it. Maybe you wish an opportunity to clarify the kinds of protection, because I see it as a pail that's having a hole punched in one end and another separate pail being topped up. I think that's the sense that you have of the process we're going through here.

Ms Go: No. I think that Judy, even in her submission, made it clear that she recognized that that could be a barrier too, particularly for women and minority groups. I think it wasn't that she was saying that she doesn't recognize the shortcoming of that recommendation, so I think we have to recognize that.

For us, though, we want to make sure that in your deliberation you consider those aspects. You have to measure those pros and cons and look at seniority in the whole total context of not just the hiring process but also the exits, the layoffs and promotions, because in all those areas there are barriers included. All we're asking is that you would consider those aspects in your submission, in your recommendations in the final draft.

I think, if you want to ask me about the process that we've gone through, we had very little discussion in terms of the actual substance of the act during the process. We only had really two meaningful discussions prior to the first reading. One of those meetings I remembered discussion around seniority, but unfortunately I could not really divulge the details of that because it was so long ago. But I guess what I was trying to say was that the process did not allow us to have full discussion on every aspect of the legislation.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your submission and for participating in this committee process.

MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT EQUITY NETWORK

The Chair: Municipal Employment Equity Network. Welcome, Effie Ginzberg. Do we have Valerie Jones here as well?

Ms Effie Ginzberg: Yes, but she prefers to sit back.

As mentioned, I'm Effie Ginzberg, manager of employment equity for the city of Toronto. My colleagues and I are here today on behalf of the Municipal Employment Equity Network, an association of more than 50 municipal public sector and broader public sector human resource and employment practitioners from across the province.

First of all, I want to congratulate the government for bringing forth this legislation and I want to assure the government that this legislation, with modifications, is implementable and will be effective in addressing employment equity issues of the designated groups.

We say this with some authority, because we have among our members practitioners with over 100 years' combined experience in implementing employment equity. We know what the essential components of successful employment equity programs must be in an organization, and these components are present in Bill 79.

1530

For your review, we have attached a technical appendix which details comments and concerns on the legislation and recommends changes that will assist in meeting its objectives. Today we will not review them in detail, with some exceptions. What I want to do today is address some of the reasons why this legislation must proceed.

During the course of these hearings, you will hear many reasons why employment equity legislation should not proceed in the province of Ontario. You will be told that merit and merit alone has to be the determining factor in hiring and promotion. You will be told that it's too costly in this economic environment. You will be told that employment equity is reverse discrimination and you will be threatened with white male backlash. You will be told that there are no problems in the workplace and that time and time alone will reshape the workplace to reflect the population of Ontario.

I would like to refute each of these and impress upon you the fundamental reasons why legislation is just and necessary for change.

It will be argued that merit should be the principle on which all hiring and promotional opportunities are decided and that mandatory employment equity will result in the hiring and promotion of unqualified persons. In fact, I know you've already heard it. We argue that it is because the principle of merit is not being applied to the hiring and promotion of members of designated groups that this legislation is essential. If merit and merit alone were in fact the first principle that determines one's status in the workplace, we would not see the constant layering of the workplace that is gender-, race- and disability-based. Lack of ability and merit is not the reason why women have been denied access to the boardroom and decision-making power in the workplace. It is not the reason why they have been concentrated in part-time employment without job security and benefits, nor is it the reason that women of colour find themselves the most disadvantaged, in the lowest-paid positions.

Why are police forces and fire departments so largely composed of white men? Are we to believe that racial minority males and women do not meet all the physical and educational requirements of these positions? Why is it that employers fail to hire people with disabilities and, when they do, they do so only in part-time and temporary employment?

Women as a group have equal or superior educational levels when compared to men, yet they continue to earn less for each year of education and are not found in positions of authority that these skills and education qualify them for. A survey done by the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario still finds that women are not being promoted into positions of principal or superintendent though they possess the education and years of teaching experience necessary for these jobs.

A very prominent Canadian, Pierre Berton, in his column in the Toronto Star on July 31, 1993, talked about the experiences of Dr Melissa Franklin. Dr Franklin, a native Torontonian, applied for assistant professorship at the University of Toronto, department of physics, and was told that she placed first on the list of candidates. But some members of the all-male faculty did not want a woman in their ranks and some threatened to resign. Others made comments about her sleeping her way to the top and being second-rate. The university relented to the threats and offered her a junior position to the one she currently held. Dr Franklin declined, even though she would have preferred to stay in Toronto and in Canada. She now teaches at Harvard University, where she was subsequently promoted to a full professorship within two years. There are still no women in the faculty of physics at the University of Toronto. Canada's and Ontario's loss, the university's loss, most certainly, but this woman's story is not unique. In fact, it is quite common.

This government knows that this legislation addresses profound injustice and it knows why this injustice must be addressed. It is essential for the economic and social viability of this province.

It is the responsibility of government to address the needs of all its citizens, not some of its citizens, and to look at the long-term implications of the social and economic systems and not short-term profits. Government also has the responsibility as an employer, an employer spending public dollars to pay its workforce, to ensure that all taxpayers are treated equitably in seeking employment or promotion. This responsibility is shared by all public sector employers. At the very least, the citizens of this province expect the government and other public sector employers to act to ensure that they have equitable hiring and promotional practices. But this is not the case. There are many public sector employers who have not addressed the occupational segregation in their workforce and have no plans to do so unless forced by legislation, the University of Toronto as an example. All public sector employers, as recipients of public tax dollars paid by all taxpayers, women and men, whites and non-whites, people with disabilities and native people, must undertake mandatory employment equity. No amount of threat can be allowed to deny the human rights of over half the population of this province. If the provincial government does not follow through with this legislation, it will send a clear message to all public sector employers, as well as private sector employers, that it is acceptable to discriminate against designated groups.

Another argument against this bill is that it is too costly for employers to implement employment equity in this time of both public and private sector economic restraint. The bill as it stands requires that employers target opportunities for change for designated group increases. It does not require that the employer hire or promote only for the purpose of meeting goals. Such an act would be a quota, and that would lead to tokenism.

This bill clearly does not ask for quotas. The bill asks the employer to examine its employment practices and its workforce and to set goals for increasing the representation of designated groups when opportunities exist. In other words, the employer will be taking advantage of opportunities that would have occurred in any event. This cannot be interpreted as costing the employer excessive amounts of money.

Others will argue that the administration and compilation of workforce information and other requirements under the act will be too costly. We do not argue that there is no cost, but in these days of computerized payroll and record-keeping systems used by many employers, big and small, the additional cost of collecting workforce data is not prohibitive. Steps can be taken to reduce the cost to the employer by the commission providing comprehensive guidelines, educational materials and other resources to assist employers in meeting the bill's requirements. We urge the commissioner's office to provide a high level of technical support and assistance to employers. Educational materials on employment equity are also essential in reducing the fears of white males who believe that they will be victims under this legislation.

The issue of white male backlash is a serious one, and anger and frustration of persons who feel that they are being disadvantaged can cause difficulties in the workplace. Education is essential to clarify the objectives and methods of employment equity. It must be made clear that women, racial minorities, people with disabilities and native people are not seeking special privileges. Designated groups are not seeking to advance because of physical or other characteristics; they are seeking to advance in spite of them.

Discrimination in the workplace is real, it is present and it is operating. I think that's the first fundamental principle that education has to address. This is a real problem that we're trying to address. It is not the absence of merit that segregates the workforce; it is discrimination. Employment equity turns up the thermostat on merit. That principle was recently recognized in the submission of the working group on the police regulations to the Ontario Solicitor General's office. It increases the competition to qualified person who might not otherwise be seriously considered. The employer will have more people to select from. Designated groups have nothing to fear from fair and open competitions.

No doubt there will always be those who see any advance being made by members of designated groups as being the result of unfair advantage. They will not want to see that the person got to where they are because of effort and ability. In their eyes, they will always be the only ones who have merit. But the government cannot be blackmailed by threats of white male backlash. Society must enfranchise all people, not some people. Employment equity does not disfranchise white males. It enfranchises everybody else.

I know from personal experience as an employment equity practitioner monitoring competitions for fairness with employers who have voluntary goals and timetables that only qualified persons are hired under this process, and often the person who does get the job is in fact an able-bodied white male. This process does not exclude them when they are the best-qualified applicant.

In closing, I want to make a few specific comments on the bill itself. As practitioners, we know that without mandatory goals, and timetables to achieve them, no meaningful change takes place. This fact is recognized in the Ontario Police Services Act and was recognized in the United States over 20 years ago. Time alone will not correct a workforce profile. It requires goals and timetables. We have a good illustration of this in the case of the teaching profession. Women have been the vast majority of educators in this province for decades, but they are still underrepresented among vice-principals, principals, superintendents and other positions of authority. Women have been the majority of employees in banking and finance as well, but this has not helped them move into positions of decision-making. Equality for women and other designated groups in the workplace could have been achieved years ago. If time alone cannot achieve equality for women, it cannot achieve equality for other designated groups. Goals and timetables can and do. They must be mandatory.

1540

I agree with the previous submissions that in fact employers should be required to account for their goals and timetables, report on them, and especially report on their failure to meet them. It is goals and timetables that hold the employer accountable for change, and not just good intentions. Goals and timetables are crucial to employment equity, and so we support the government in making mandatory employment equity part of the bill.

Bargaining agent involvement is welcomed by most employers. We recognize the need for partnerships with labour in undertaking workplace change. But employment equity is not about bargaining agent units; it is about designated groups. There are no provisions in the bill that require the presence of designated group members when the employment equity plan is being developed. We can foresee situations where white male managers and white male union officials are developing the employment equity plan for designated groups. There should be provisions in the bill or its regulation that require both the employer and the bargaining agent to have active representation of designated groups from within the workforce involved in the development of the employment equity plan.

Bargaining agent involvement can substantially increase the cost if the employer has to develop a different plan for each bargaining agent, which the legislation and I believe the current regulations permit. This aspect of the bill makes little sense and may reduce the effectiveness of each plan. For example, each bargaining agent will be reviewing the same employment systems and could ask for different solutions to the same problems, or one bargaining agent may identify an aspect of employment practice that it perceives of as discriminatory while another wishes the policy or practice to remain. Separate communication plans may have to be developed for each bargaining agent and possibly delivered separately. It is less likely that cross-bargaining agent issues such as seniority will be addressed under separate plans.

It is not unusual for an employer to have up to 10 or more bargaining agents, and since the time line for development of the first plan is the same as the last plan, the employer will have to proceed almost simultaneously and try to coordinate the plans. The employer may not have enough staff knowledgeable on the legislation and able to work with the bargaining agents to develop plans simultaneously to meet their requirements.

It should be required that only one plan be developed, as the issues being dealt with are not bounded by union local memberships. Exceptions for multiple plans could be granted by the commissioner's office or by agreement of all affected parties after carefully reviewing the circumstances.

The legislation does not recognize the role of professional associations or management associations which have a memorandum of understanding with an employer but are not recognized as bargaining agents under legislation. These employees are now treated as non-unionized employees when in fact they have a recognized agent which could act on their behalf. The bill should allow for recognition of such associations.

Finally, the role of non-unionized employees in the development of the employment equity plan needs to be strengthened. They have little say and no representation on the joint responsibilities team. Non-unionized employees are predominately female and many others are members of designated groups. Someone must speak for them in this process. They also have the right to participate fully in the development of an organization's employment equity plan. A process for selection and representation of non-unionized employee representatives should be part of the bill or regulation.

Thank you for hearing our representation today.

Mr Murphy: Thank you for your presentation. One of the things I want to do is follow up on some of the additional materials that you've very helpfully included. I think there's a basis for many amendments here.

One of them I wanted to follow up on was the confusion that's highlighted in these additions between the Employment Equity Commission and the Human Rights Commission, and where you'd go if you have some difficulty. My colleague Mr Curling has been following up on this point quite a bit.

One of the concerns that I have is that it's very possible, it seems to me -- especially on the issue of a disabled employee, but not exclusively, for example -- to go to the Human Rights Commission on the basis of a complaint, be it individual or broader, under an employment equity plan, and say, "You haven't accommodated me to the extent of undue hardship."

The Human Rights Commission would then refer that to the Employment Equity Commission, which says, "It's dealt with under an employment equity plan and it's a `reasonable effort' to accommodate," but that that language, for example, the reasonable effort, isn't an undue hardship. It's possible for that person to then say, "I'm going to go back to the Human Rights Commission and say, `It may be a reasonable effort, but it wasn't an undue hardship, and therefore they should accommodate me as an individual.'"

It's quite confusing. I think if it's confusing for us here, it'll be confusing for the people who have to deal with this act on a day-to-day basis. I wonder if you could comment on that and your recommendations related to that.

Ms Ginzberg: One of the concerns I have with the bill is that the individual's complaint could get lost in the process of addressing a collective issue, and your issue about the individual disabled person is an example of that. The employer may be making efforts to address a systemic problem, but the individual loses his avenue of redress.

If it's dealt with under the employment equity plan, it could remove, and I'm not a lawyer, but it could remove the individual's right to seek redress for their particular problem at their particular time in that particular workplace under the Human Rights Code. That needs to be addressed so that the individual does not lose their right for their issue, for their concern under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

I'm not sure how it should be dealt with legally. We have supported the idea of one tribunal in our presentation, that there should be only one place where an employee or an organization can deal with these issues, not necessarily being bounced back and forth between the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Employment Equity Tribunal, because my understanding is that the commission itself will not be dealing with these issues.

Mr Murphy: If I can follow up, that recommendation, to me, makes a lot of sense. Instead of creating a whole lot of new bureaucracy, increasing both the public expense and the amount of confusion there is out there, it seems to me logical to create one place where you can go related to employment discrimination, be it either in pay equity employment or a direct individual discrimination concern, and then go from there within the system.

I guess the one distinction would be that to a certain extent pay equity and parts of employment equity are related more to systemwide and proactive measures to focus on designated groups to bring them up to an equitable standard, and in other cases you have complaints that are focusing on an individual's particular difficulty with a supervisor, an employer or a fellow employee, whatever. So there may have to be some distinction between those two kinds of things within an equity tribunal. Have you thought about that?

Ms Ginzberg: I would reinforce my previous point that simply because an employer has addressed it as an issue that may be dealt with two or three years from now in his employment equity plan, I don't think that should remove the right of the individual for redress, because by the time the employer implements it, the individual not only will secure further damage, if they are in fact being damaged, but they may have left the employer and never have their rights addressed. So this legislation should not remove the right of an individual to a complaint under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Mr Murphy: I agree with you 100%. In fact, I think the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, for example, supports that as well.

One final question, if I can, related to the tribunals. I know you have a recommendation about getting rid of a vexatious complaint and I think that's very sensible. We've also heard from a number of groups about the issue of the appointment of the tribunals and how, for example, in the labour relations context you have a union representative, a management representative and then an agreed-upon co-chair, and I'm wondering if you've given some thought to that mechanism to ensure a representativeness in the tribunals themselves.

Ms Ginzberg: I think the representative of a tribunal should address the fundamental principle of the legislation, as that's the advancement of designated groups. I reiterate this is not about bargaining agent representation or bargaining agent lines. The issues being dealt with here are wider than an individual local or an individual union, and the representation at the tribunal should reflect the population of the province.

Mr Jackson: Just a brief question. Your presentation is very complete, including the appendix, which offers amendments, and that's always helpful in the work that'll be upon us in a week. Your organization represents I think in number about 50 private -- or are they all public sector?

1550

Ms Ginzberg: They're all public sector.

Mr Jackson: Can you indicate, from within your own organization perhaps, one of your members who's doing an exceptional job in this area, and what are the elements that seem to be succeeding at this point?

Ms Ginzberg: The city of Toronto -- I'm speaking for my own organization -- has been doing this for a long time. In fact, I think it was the first employer in Canada to implement voluntary goals and timetables.

There are essential components. First of all, senior managers must be held accountable, either through performance review or through some other process, for implementing these processes within their departments. So management, in and of itself, because it does the hiring and promoting and makes other policy decisions, must be accountable for this process. Goals and timetables must be present. They must be measurable and they must proceed reasonably.

In one department, that has been particularly difficult. I've determined that it's going to take 300 years for women to achieve equality in that department. That is simply not acceptable, and pressure must be placed upon organizations and departments like that to achieve a faster level of change. They must be held accountable for their results.

Bargaining agent involvement hasn't been present at the city of Toronto. I think it's an important factor. Some of these issues are bargaining agent issues in terms of cross-bargaining units, seniority and other components that involve collective agreements, so I think that's also important.

But I think what's most important is designated group representation with the development of the plan. The city achieves this by having a number of committees that are composed of designated group representatives within our workforce. We also do consultation with designated groups in the community to make sure that our plan addresses the issues of the groups themselves. We should not be doing employment equity plans for designated groups; we should be doing employment equity plans with designated groups. I think that's profoundly important.

Mr Jackson: I'm a bit surprised that you used the city of Toronto, because I have several employees from my constituency who work for the city of Toronto who have had pay equity appeals in for several years and --

Ms Ginzberg: I'm not talking about pay equity. I've got my own arguments with our pay equity people.

Mr Jackson: Fair ball. But these involve women, and employment equity and pay equity are kindred cousins. Aside from committees and so on and so forth, there isn't a municipality that seems to be moving ahead in this area.

Ms Ginzberg: I think most of them are relatively new in it. I do believe the city of Toronto is the only one with voluntary goals and timetables at this point in the whole province.

Mr Jackson: I've just had a jaded experience with a couple of my constituents who've worked for the city of Toronto.

Ms Ginzberg: Metro has just approved its goals and timetables; it hasn't implemented them yet. All the other municipalities are still in the process of doing other kinds of things and haven't done goals and timetables. So it really hasn't proceeded all that far.

Mr Mills: Thank you, Effie, for your presentation. I see that you are connected with municipal employment. Last week we had present before us the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, and that was in my opinion a really bad presentation. They're saying that they strongly object to Bill 79. They find it unacceptable etc. My first question is, did these folks have any input or discussion with your organization, or do you know anything about it? How can you help me?

Ms Ginzberg: I haven't seen their presentation. The Municipal Employment Equity Network is in human resource areas. We're human resource professionals, employment equity professionals. We're not clerks and treasurers. The functions of clerks and treasurers are very different from the function of the people who are concerned with the human resources of an organization. I will not defend them. I certainly don't agree with them.

Mr Mills: My second question: I've seen in your brief that you have great empathy with the merit principle, as I do. I just want to take you back a little bit. During the discussion, the debate in the Legislature on second reading of this bill, the member for Leeds-Grenville, a Conservative member, Mr Runciman, said that this Bill 79 would discriminate against a whole generation of young white males. He went on to say the reason for this is because the merit principle in this bill is taken away. I'd just like to have your comments on the record, what you think about that statement.

Ms Ginzberg: I think it's completely erroneous and inflammatory, and I think it's meant to be inflammatory.

Mr Jackson: It was tied to goals, just for clarification. If you've got wishy-washy goals, then it will take a whole generation.

The Chair: Please answer his question.

Mr Mills: I'm asking you, Ms Ginzberg.

Ms Ginzberg: I don't believe that women or designated groups have anything to fear about proper application of the merit principle. I go back to the example at the University of Toronto. If merit had applied, Dr Melissa Franklin would not be teaching at Harvard and would not be giving her expertise to the United States. She would be here in Ontario, in Toronto, making the physics department a revitalized department at the University of Toronto. I know I'm going to get hassled for picking on the university.

But the lack of the application of merit seems to apply only in the case when white men are in the competition. For some reason or other, when there are designated groups in the competition, merit doesn't seem to apply to them equally. I've seen it too often to know that merit applied fairly results in the hiring of white males every time; it doesn't. It's the lack of merit being applied that results in white males being hired every time. There is no way that I will believe that designated groups don't have the ability to compete on merit. I know they do.

Mr Mills: I appreciate those comments.

The Chair: Thank you for the contribution you've made to the deliberation of this bill.

TORONTO FIRE FIGHTERS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: The Toronto Fire Fighters' Association, welcome. You have a half an hour for your presentation. Please leave as much time as you can for the questions.

Mr Mark Fitzsimmons: I am Mark Fitzsimmons, president of the Toronto Fire Fighters' Association, and this is Chris Walkington, our equal opportunity officer within the union.

I heard a comment about "94% white male" as I walked up. Let me say that statistics are a wonderful thing. They can be manipulated any way you want and cut up and made to say what you want them to say. That's probably one of the concerns I'm going to address about the bill and statistics and numbers as I go through my presentation.

First of all, let me say that it makes good sense that the various workplaces in Ontario should reflect the population of Ontario. It only makes sense. If that doesn't happen over a period of time, there's something wrong. It's going to roughly reflect the race and gender mix of the labour pool.

I guess the question we have before us here today is, how do we achieve that? How do we achieve that without causing disruption in society and how do we achieve that without lowering standards or lowering the overall service that the different organizations supply to the citizens of Ontario?

I don't believe that the system can run on numbers alone. I think you're into a lot of trouble if all you do is look at statistics and base all your decisions on statistics. There's a lot of other factors that come into the process.

I can speak on behalf of the Toronto firefighters and on our occupation, and as you no doubt know, we had some press over this issue over the last year or so. It wasn't comfortable. It's not something that we wanted. Some of the media portrayed us as trying to keep out women and target group members, and nothing can be further from the truth. We welcome qualified racial minorities, women, persons with disabilities. We want them in the workforce, but we will not compromise the standard to do that.

What happens if you're running on numbers and you're running on statistics only is that the numbers and statistics become all-consuming and they become more important than any other factor. Everything else is washed away. You have to look at the available, qualified work pool. You can't look at raw census data and say that because there's 52% women in the population, the workforce of Ontario, that 52% of the firefighters in Ontario should be women.

Over time, that may well be a valid consideration, but is that work pool there now? Are the applications there now? If they're not, the question you have to ask yourself is, how do we go about doing that? How do we get those people there?

I think we have to review existing criteria for hiring. Are they valid? Are there artificial barriers in place that keep the designated groups out of the workplace? If there are, let's remove them. Let's make the system right, let's make the system fair. But let's not identify anything that has an adverse impact on a certain group as an artificial barrier, because it may well not be. There may be reasons for it. There may be reasons for strength requirements for firefighters. There may be a reason that the same portion of women in the workforce doesn't possess that strength. There may be reasons for it. Women don't have that upper-body strength.

1600

So how do we do that? How do we fix that problem? Do we go out and lower that standard, water that standard down to bring those people in? I say no. Women are capable of doing it. There are 3,500 women firefighters in the United States. Suppression. They're capable, strong, young and middle-aged women. Some of them have been in there for their whole career and they perform very well. But the premise is: You don't lower the standard to meet the lowest common denominator; you bring the people up to the high standard. It's entirely possible. Standards should not be a barrier to women, racial minorities or people with disabilities because, by God, they can achieve and perform as well as the rest of us.

If there are economic or social reasons that they're not up to that level, then let's supply them with that help, let's supply them with that training, let's bring them up to where they want to be. If you take the approach that the minimum is good enough, then you're going to water standards. No two ways about it; they're going to be watered down. You can rationalize it and argue it however you want, but you should strive for excellence and there's no shame in excellence.

Positive measures: What do we do? How do we do it? It's our belief, and I'm talking for the fire department, that in order to become diverse, programs are going to have to start at the high school and possibly the primary school level. People are going to have to know that firefighting is a viable occupation for racial minorities, persons with disabilities and women. People have to know that if they want to do it, they have to stay to their math, stay to their science and stay involved in team sports and phys-ed activities to get that strength.

People have to know. We went through deputations for the fire department on our hiring process the other night and one of the comments was that some racial minorities don't see firefighting as a viable occupation. In the country of their origin, it's not seen as a positive occupation, it's not seen as a good way to go for a career choice. We have to go in there and we have to change that attitude. But, in the meantime, the goals that are set have to be reasonable and they have to recognize those facts.

You hear the figure batted around that it's going to take 300 years to diversify the Toronto Fire Department. It's not true. It's begun, it's been going on for about 10 years and we're starting to make strides. People are starting to come in. We're starting to get the applications. The target group people are starting to see it as a viable occupation. That will become exponential. As you get more and more people seeing it as a viable occupation, you'll have more and more applications and over time you will have a workforce that is diverse. But it's not going to happen overnight.

The bill has to have some regulation in there that gives the employer the right to set reasonable standards and to maintain reasonable standards. There also has to be provision in there for people to appeal if they feel that their rights have been overrun. Right now, I don't see that. If you're a non-designated group right now, it appears that your rights can be overrun and you have no right of appeal other than to the regulatory body which is part of the Employment Equity Act. I think it's important that it's there.

So, again, positive measures, supply the education, supply the training, give the skills. It's not going to happen overnight, but it'll happen and it'll happen in a positive way. We'll have a diverse workforce that's highly skilled, doing the job that it's supposed to be doing.

We also have a concern that the bill appears to run on the regulations. This legislation could have a far-reaching effect on employment and promotional opportunities of many of Ontario's citizens and should not be left to the regulations. There has to be a mechanism for any citizen in Ontario to appeal employment or promotional practices.

From a union point of view, I'm more concerned with the promotional end of it. If a dominant-group person or a non-designated group person feels that they have been passed over unfairly, there must be a mechanism that the union can pursue to have it looked at by an independent third party.

Also, it talks in there about the union sitting down and negotiating with the employer on how the employment equity plan shall work. Again, it's always been my experience as a union leader that when you sit down with your employer -- and the city of Toronto's a good employer; we make no bones about that -- you'll have differences. If there's differences, again, there has to be a mechanism to take those differences to an independent third party so they can be reviewed through the legal system. It can't be strictly in-house. There has to be an independent review of those kinds of concerns, otherwise I don't believe people will get justice.

Seniority: Unions have fought very hard over the years to obtain seniority-based promotional systems. We believe it would be a grave error to override collective agreements for short-term statistical gains. That's all you'd be doing. In the short term, you'd get your numbers up, but in the meantime you will have caused division within the different workplaces. Seniority protects everyone. People get into the stream, people work through the stream. They prove themselves competent and seniority will get them promoted. It's fair to everyone. It has no preference for race or gender.

In summary, I'd like to say that if this government truly believes in a functioning, diverse society, then this bill must contain mechanisms to stop overzealous implementation of the bill from excluding non-targets from employment and promotional opportunities. Not to paint a black picture, to say that anybody's trying to do that, but the way the bill is written, it's possible for cities, for corporations, to hire and promote no one but target-group people. That policy to date has been upheld by the Ontario Human Rights Commission and that certainly causes concerns to our members when it comes to promotion. They've been there, they've been doing the job and they think that they too should have an equal chance at promotion.

So I think we can make it work. What's in the bill is not the concern; it's what's not in the bill. There need to be some checks and balances to ensure that all citizens of Ontario have a fair shot at both employment and promotional opportunity through the system. Thank you.

Mr Jackson: It's an interesting brief. I have a limited understanding of the kinds of tests which occur for a firefighter seeking employment. Can you briefly enlighten the committee as to just what these measures are? It's certainly not something as simple as height. There's a series of tests, as I understand it, carrying certain weights, and there's a measurement. When people talk about lowering standards, just what are we talking about here?

Mr Fitzsimmons: Okay, I'll tell you how the system works, to start out with. There's three parts in the system. The first part is an application form and a written aptitude test. That aptitude test is out of California. It's been shown to be race- and gender-neutral. It's been tested and the results have come out okay.

Mr Jackson: Is this for all fire service organizations in Ontario, do you know?

Mr Fitzsimmons: The city of Toronto uses that one. I can't speak for anyone else.

Mr Jackson: Okay.

Mr Fitzsimmons: They write that aptitude test and then the city selects from those marks the number of people to go on to the next stage. The next stage is an interview process. On the interview panel for the city of Toronto there's generally two target-group people and one non-target group person: a woman who's a senior officer in the fire department, an individual from management services, which is generally a target-group person and a senior fire department official. They go through the interview process.

Just for your clarification, the target group, designated groups, do well through the interview. Percentage-wise, they actually do better than the non-designated groups do.

From that they go on to a physical abilities test and a physical fitness test. The physical fitness test involves just general level of fitness. They do a VO₂ max and they run them on the treadmill. They do trunk flexibility just to see whether or not they have the basic physical ability to do the job: Do they have enough oxygen uptake that they can wear the breathing apparatus, and so on and so forth.

The final stage is a physical abilities test which is a set of eight job-related tasks. I want you to understand that those job-related tasks have been configured in such a way that training effect has been minimized. There's still some training effect that will make a difference. However, you don't actually wear turnout gear, which is the bunker suit and the rubbers. You just wear a weighted vest to simulate that weight because it was felt it would be unfair to put this clothing on someone who's never worn it before.

1610

One of the tests simulates the ability to use the Halmatro, which is the jaws of life. But rather than use the piece of equipment, which is a little awkward -- it's long and off-centred -- it's just a box with weights in it that you pick up and you can either carry it the distance or you can't carry it the distance.

As far as possible, they've made those tests non-job-related. It just shows, do you have the strength in order to perform the task or do you not have the strength to perform the task? They go through those and those events are timed. The times are based on incumbent firefighters, plus they've added on a wider window to make up for what they call a training effect.

Mr Jackson: There's a numeric value attached to that.

Mr Fitzsimmons: There's a numeric value to each one of those items, and at the end --

Mr Jackson: You have a score.

Mr Fitzsimmons: -- you have a score. Those scores are then ranked and then people are hired by rank. That's the way the process works now.

Mr Jackson: What has the city of Toronto's experience been with those ratings? What has your experience been in terms of your ability to hire?

Mr Fitzsimmons: In general?

Mr Jackson: Yes. Did you come today with some numbers on progress being made by the city of Toronto in this area?

Mr Fitzsimmons: Yes. One, the racial minorities seem to be weeded out at the aptitude test, and the reason for that is just the way the city applies the test. They count backwards from the top to the number they feel they need to go through the rest of the segments and so there's kind of a floating pass mark. That's something we're addressing now. We see that as a concern and something that needs to be addressed and it's being looked at.

The women have difficulty in the physical end of it. They, by and large, don't possess the upper-body strength in order to do some of the tasks. We are looking again at how do you address that problem. You offer them courses at the Y or you tell them how you do this and how you do that and how you get the strength that's required for the job and, again, bring them up to the level where they should be rather than bring the level down.

The biggest problem is lack of applications. Out of 4,500 applications, you'll only have maybe 40 women apply and somewhere in or around 300 racial minorities and then, when it actually comes to the testing, that drops by about half. They don't show up. For whatever reason, the applications aren't there, so our task as a union and as a city is to go out and encourage those people to come in, encourage the applications, make sure they know it's a welcoming workplace. But until you have the applications in, you're not going to have the numbers.

Ms Akande: Mr Fitzsimmons, I'm more concerned about the legislation. You seem to have inferred that merit is not a basis for hiring, at least as far as Bill 79 is concerned. On what basis did you infer that?

Mr Fitzsimmons: I can't speak for Bill 79, because I don't know what thought process went into it. I know our personal experience in Toronto with goals and timetables and with numbers taking over the process -- and we had goals and timetables in the fire department. We had met our goals and timetables. There's argument that the goals may not have been as high as they should be and that's an argument that can be made and has to be discussed.

Our concern is that, even though we had been in the process, had met the goals and timetables, politicians, as well-meaning as they may have been, decided that the numbers weren't high enough. There weren't enough numbers there and, without consultation, they were about to change the process on the union.

Ms Akande: Excuse me, Mr. Fitzsimmons. My question seems unclear. I was asking about merit. Merit is implicit in this bill. Are you suggesting that in order to clarify it even further, for those who perhaps elect not to understand or for some reason do not understand, that we specify that we are always talking about hiring the best candidate?

Mr Fitzsimmons: I'm sorry. It takes me a long time to get to where I'm going sometimes, but I was getting there. My concern is that the city of Toronto passed a policy that they will not hire a non-target group person if a target group person is available.

Ms Akande: Then you're arguing your position at the wrong station.

Mr Fitzsimmons: Exactly. However, I'm saying that without that proviso in the legislation, it could happen. That's a concern.

Ms Akande: It is not in this legislation.

Mr Fitzsimmons: So you see the concern.

Ms Akande: The second point that I wanted to ask you, Mr Fitzsimmons, very quickly because I think my colleague may have a question, is that you do stress the importance of education, as do we, and a great deal of attention has been paid to education, especially since this government has been moving towards the implementation of legislation, or at least to this point, since 1960 around equity lines. Given that this is a reality and it is true that education is helpful, are you -- or perhaps you might disagree with me that the reality of legislation, the fact that legislation would make it necessary to effect change now would have a more immediate effect than long-term education has had to this point.

Mr Fitzsimmons: When I'm talking about education -- I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing -- I'm talking about supplying education to the groups that need that education to bring them where they have to be.

Ms Akande: It would be my contention then that there are groups out there who in fact are capable of achieving the standards that are the basis for your hiring, and if we are talking about merit, which is implicit in this legislation, and we're hiring the best person, would you not feel that legislation that is to be enacted now would have a more direct effect on the equity goals than long-term education?

Mr Fitzsimmons: I would say anything that's legislated is going to work a lot faster than anything that's voluntary.

Mr Fletcher: I know firefighters as being the guinea pigs in society for a lot of things. I remember the fight, when I was in the labour movement, for more safety protection for firefighters, and the incidence of cancers because of going into buildings where there were chemical fires and everything else, and not knowing about such things that were going on, and you've led the fight that way.

I honestly do believe that in the fire departments across the province, as far as equity is concerned, the union has no problem with the equity issue, that you don't actually do the hiring; it's the people who are doing the hiring and putting in the rules and regulations such as, you say, with the city of Toronto. I think that's part of the problem, that there is such a hodgepodge, not a uniform system for hiring practices, that goes on throughout different communities in the province that has led to a few problems with firefighters -- not firefighters; fire departments, let me get that right, and municipalities.

When it comes to some of the other issues, when we talk about merit and the promotion of people within the fire department, we look at seniority as being one of the factors for promotion. Do you see seniority as one of the things that can be a barrier to promotion or do you have a problem with seniority the way it stands now in the legislation?

Mr Fitzsimmons: No. I guess we feel strongly, especially in the fire service, that because of the type of job it is, you need the seniority to have seen the reality. You can read about it and study it all you want, but until you've been there you really don't understand it.

Mr Fletcher: Oh, I agree. I think you're doing just a fine job. Thank you.

Mr Curling: Mr Fitzsimmons, it must have been concerning to you, after those tests went through and the aptitude tests came out, that all the designated groups didn't pass those tests because they floundered at the first stage of aptitude tests. It must have rung within you to say, "There must be something not wrong with them but wrong with the aptitude tests." Did that come out to you that they are the ones --

Mr Fitzsimmons: I believe that it's more the application of the aptitude test, because it has a floating pass mark. What happens, for economic reasons, is that the city decides it needs 200 people from the aptitude test to go to all the other segments. These tests are expensive to perform because there's physical and so forth going on, so they take all the scores and they count backwards from 100% till they get 200 people. So this time the cutoff might be 86%, as it was; next time the cutoff might be 70%.

1620

When we went through all the debate on the hiring in Toronto we identified that as a concern. We said, "What level shows the ability of that individual to progress further through the system?" because it's only one of several aspects, as I explained to the other gentlemen here. So we're saying that because it's an initial test, it shouldn't be a total screener. In other words, there should be a reasonable pass mark that shows the ability to learn from the fire department training manuals, to learn from our hazardous material manuals, and you have to be able to read and digest and understand all that material but that's what it should show. The other tests in the process will weed out people after that and that was our position. In other words, it's not the test per se, because it's race- and gender-neutral and it's been certified.

Mr Curling: I don't think so.

Mr Fitzsimmons: But it's the application of that test.

Mr Curling: That's the point I'm trying to make. Admittedly, you do the tests and whatever you roll in from 100% backwards and find them. But when you look, all the designated groups you wanted are screened out, so therefore something is wrong with the tests, maybe not wrong with the individual. I'll just ask another quick question, anyhow.

Mr Fitzsimmons: Yes, I believe it's the application of the test, not the individuals. That's for sure.

Mr Curling: So therefore, there are qualified people with those designated groups who could make firefighters, but the systemic discrimination that goes on, which is what the bill is going to address, could be dealt with.

You made a rather interesting comment. You didn't use the word we call simply culture. You said certain people coming from other countries don't see firefighters as a meaningful profession, or something like that. The same argument was used, you see, with the police, that maybe they don't want to. When they looked within the police, they found there was systemic discrimination happening within the police force, keeping out a certain group, not because they don't want to see it as a profession. Didn't that occur to you? I don't want to put you on the spot, but name me one of those cultures that says, "Firefighting is not a profession I want to get into."

Mr Fitzsimmons: We had a deputant from Hong Kong who came up and made that exact statement on the Tuesday night, and I guess I'm using his words or borrowing from him. He said that the majority of his family would not consider firefighting as a viable occupation. They see it as dangerous and they'd rather the children be involved in the family business. This is actually a firefighter originally from Hong Kong.

Mr Curling: I presume his family wouldn't, anyhow --

Mr Fitzsimmons: He would have a better insight into the Chinese community than I would.

Mr Curling: Of course.

Mr Fitzsimmons: He felt that this was the case.

Mr Murphy: I wanted to follow up on the I guess three- or four-part test that you outlined for Mr Jackson. It sounds like, to a certain degree, you've gone through or are in the process of going through, in essence, a screening of that process to eliminate barriers to designated groups to advance through the process to become hired as firefighters. One of the things that we've heard from a number of groups, both employers and equity-seeking groups, is that there should be something in the legislation itself specifically outlining what are the kinds of things that are barriers, that it would be helpful to both employees and employers to see them specifically in the legislation.

With that in mind, I'm wondering whether you know from the reviews that have been conducted of the aptitude tests, the written tests and the interviews, what were the kinds of criteria you used to determine what was an appropriate barrier for the job, and alternatively, what was an inappropriate barrier.

Mr Fitzsimmons: I guess to answer your question in a roundabout way, the fire department went the opposite way, where it built the job from the ground up. They said, "What does a firefighter need to do?" Rather than take the system as it existed and say, "What barriers are here?" they started from ground zero and said, "If we were to build a good firefighter, how would we build that individual?" They went through and did a needs assessment. They went to the different firehalls and they said, "What do you do on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis; what equipment do you use; how much does it weigh; how do you use it; how important is it if you can or can't use it on your own; is it a one-person task, a two-person task?" and so on and so forth.

They collated all that information and then they built the tests on that information. So each of tests is directly related to an evolution that you would have to do on the fire ground or at an automobile accident or at a rescue scene. That's how it was built. So what do we really need? What's essential? Is it a one-person task, a two-person task? Is it legitimate? If it is, then that becomes part of the testing procedure.

Mr Murphy: Have you had any representations from any third-party advocacy groups about the job definition and about whether there are any inappropriate barriers in there? In other words, have you gone through with other groups and there's been an agreement that this is, by and large, an appropriate process, that at the end you've got a best-qualified firefighter?

Mr Fitzsimmons: We're actually in the process now of doing that. We've met with the people who do the aptitude tests, the people who write them up. We've gone through all that process and we will be meeting tomorrow, as a matter of fact, with the person who set up the physical abilities tests, and they're written. We've read the reports and it's all written and rationalized as to why it's there and why you have to be able to do it, but we'll sit down and talk to that individual as well. We invite deputation from the public and from the different community groups. I guess from a firefighter's point of view, we can't know all the problems and we can't know all the answers and we welcome input.

The Chair: Thank you for your submission and for taking part in these discussions on this bill.

Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, before we adjourn, before you put that hammer down, could I move a motion to -- we have three independent groups, organizations that could make a terrific contribution, a pertinent contribution to this bill: the Human Rights, the Ombudsman and the Employment Equity Commissioner. I'd move that we request them to make some submission in regard to their feelings towards this Bill 79.

The Chair: You would like the commissioners to come and speak to this matter?

Mr Curling: Yes, the Human Rights Commissioner, Employment Equity Commissioner and the Ombudsman.

The Chair: Okay. There is a motion on the floor. The rest of you have heard it. Speaking to that motion?

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): Could we have a second?

The Chair: You don't need a second. All in favour of that motion? All opposed? The motion is defeated.

We're adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10.

The committee adjourned at 1627.