Committee Transcript 1995-Nov-24 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Job Quotas Repeal Act, 1995, Bill 8, Ms Mushinski / Loi de 1995 abrogeant le contingentement en matière d'emploi, project de loi 8, M^me Mushinski

Toronto Injured Workers' Advocacy Group

Carol McGregor, representative

John McKinnon, representative

Municipal Employment Equity Network

Bonnie McPhee, president

Ingrid Wellmeier, representative

Waterloo Region Education and Employment Equity Network

Mark Hertzberger, secretary-treasurer

Tamil Resources Centre

Nellian Sivahurunathan, project coordinator

Bhausaheb Ubale

Ontario Chamber of Commerce

Carla Zabek, member, employer-employee relations committee

Ian Cunningham, director of policy

London Employment Equity Network

Vicki Mayer, representative

Avril Rinn, member, steering committee

Mayor's Committee Against Racism and Discrimination in Hamilton

Marlene Thomas-Osbourne, co-chair

Denise Brooks, executive director, Settlement and Integration Services Organization

Police Association of Ontario

David Griffin, administrator

Urban Alliance on Race Relations

Antoni Shelton, executive director

Patrick Clement, volunteer

Martin Loney

Canadian Federation of Independent Business

Judith Andrew, director, provincial policy

Catherine Swift, president

Toronto Employment Equity Practitioners' Association

Lynn Bevan, president

Elizabeth Mackenzie, representative

Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario

Sharon Bell-Wilson, executive director

Lawyers in Favour of Equity

Laurel Broten

Catherine Vasilaros

Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants

Kay Blair, president

Sharmini Peries, executive director

Maisie Lo, chair, public education and policy committee

African Canadian Legal Clinic

Philip Pike, staff lawyer

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

*Chair / Président: Carroll, Jack (Chatham-Kent PC)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)

*Carroll, Jack (Chatham-Kent PC)

Danford, Harry (Hastings-Peterborough PC)

*Flaherty, Jim (Durham Centre PC)

Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East / -Est L)

*Hardeman, Ernie (Oxford PC)

Kells, Morley (Etobicoke-Lakeshore PC)

Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

*Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)

*Pupatello, Sandra (Windsor-Sandwich L)

*Sergio, Mario (Yorkview L)

*Stewart, R. Gary (Peterborough PC)

*Tascona, Joseph N. (Simcoe Centre PC)

Wood, Len (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)

*Young, Terence H. (Halton Centre PC)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants prèsents:

Bassett, Isabel St (Andrew-St Patrick PC) for Mr Kells

Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South / -Sud ND) for Mr Marchese

Churley, Marilyn (Riverdale ND) for Mr Wood

Clement, Tony (Brampton South / -Sud PC) for Mr Danford

Lankin, Frances (Beaches-Woodbine ND) for Mr Marchese

McLeod, Lyn (Fort William L) for Mr Grandmaître

Parker, John L. (York East / -Est PC) for Mr Stewart

Also taking part / Autre participants et participantes:

Clement, Tony, parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Cizenship, Culture and Recreation

Clerk / Greffière: Grannum, Tonia

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Mellor, Lynn

Staff / Personnel:

Campbell, Elaine, research officer, Legislative Research Service

Kaye, Philip, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1002 in committee room 1.

JOB QUOTAS REPEAL ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 ABROGEANT LE CONTINGENTEMENT EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI

Consideration of Bill 8, An Act to repeal job quotas and to restore merit-based employment practices in Ontario / Projet de loi 8, Loi abrogeant le contingentement en matière d'emploi et rétablissant en Ontario les pratiques d'emploi fondées sur le mérite.

The Chair (Mr Jack Carroll): Good morning everyone. It appears I've lost the clerk and the gavel this morning, but we are going to get started out of respect for those who showed up on time.

TORONTO INJURED WORKERS' ADVOCACY GROUP

The Chair: Our first group is the Toronto Injured Workers' Advocacy Group, represented by Carol McGregor and John McKinnon. Welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time that you wish to allow for questions will be in that 20 minutes and the questions will start with the official opposition, the Liberal Party. So the floor is yours.

Ms Carol McGregor: Thank you, Mr Chairman. My name is Carol McGregor. I wonder if you might accommodate me by having the members of your committee go around and identify themselves by their names.

The Chair: That's no problem. We'll start with Mr Stewart.

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Gary Stewart.

Ms Isabel Bassett (St Andrew-St Patrick): Isabel Bassett.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): Joe Tascona.

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): Bart Maves.

The Chair: I'm Jack Carroll in the chair.

Mr Tony Clement (Brampton South): I'm Tony Clement, the parliamentary assistant.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): Lyn McLeod.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Gilles Bisson, MPP, Cochrane South, New Democrat.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I'm Marilyn Churley, MPP, Riverdale, NDP.

Ms McGregor: Thank you. Joining me today is John McKinnon as well, and John will be doing probably the most part of this presentation. The lighting in here is not too great for someone with my vision.

As we've stated, we're here today representing the Toronto Injured Workers' Advocacy Group. The Union of Injured Workers is an organization of injured workers. Since 1974, the union has advised and represented injured workers and advocated for legislative reforms. The Toronto Injured Workers' Advocacy Group, commonly known as TIWAG, is an organization of legal workers from the Toronto area legal communities. Our mandate includes individual representation for injured workers and representation of the injured worker community on issues where systemic reform is needed.

As people with disabilities, injured workers face the same barriers and problems in returning to work that confront all people with disabilities. As part of the disabled community, we are very shocked and hurt by the negativity of this bill. As one who has worked very long to implement employment equity and to bring it into Ontario, I don't know why you just didn't call this the repeal of the fairness in employment bill.

There are no quotas in this bill, and I'm particularly, I guess, very hard hit by it on a personal level. At the same time, I find it very difficult to accept, having just come from Ottawa, testifying before the Senate on Tuesday on the third reading of the employment equity bill that's just been amended by the Liberal government.

As you know, I believe, the Conservative government introduced the employment equity bill on the federal level in 1986, and for persons with disabilities across this country, and injured workers have been a part of it, we are the ones who have brought it to the forefront. We're the ones who have recognized that the voluntary approach has not worked and we have shown on the statistical data that across Canada since 1985, when this bill was introduced, we're showing 1.58% to 2.56% of representation of persons with disabilities in the labour force. Truly, that is unacceptable.

At both the parliamentary hearings last February and in the hearings in Ottawa on Tuesday, there was an indication from parties -- I was quite surprised -- for quotas for people with disabilities. There was that acknowledgement that they had to go that extra step, that something had to be done to ensure that the barriers were reduced so that people with disabilities could have access to the labour force.

I'm going to ask, John, to turn this over to you. Again, I'm not able to sort of follow some of the print, and I know some of this is very important that we would like you to hear.

Mr John McKinnon: Thank you, Carol. What I'd like to do is to highlight for the committee some aspects of our brief dealing with the experience of injured workers in matters that are relevant both to the repeal of the employment equity legislation and to the programs that are being proposed to replace this bill. I'll also be raising with the committee a proposal for a trial program in the context of the workers' compensation system dealing with employment equity.

To begin with, if I could start with 1980, when the Ontario government appointed law professor Paul Weiler to review the workers' compensation system, one of the striking results of the Weiler studies was the Report on the 1981 Survey of Current Earnings in Permanent Disability Claims. They surveyed over 9,000 permanently disabled injured workers, which was just over 15% of the claims on file, and they had an excellent response rate.

The survey found that 40.1% of the injured workers with permanent disabilities were unemployed. Although we knew that the unemployment levels among injured workers were unacceptably high, it was shocking to find that such a huge percentage of injured workers were unemployed in spite of the best efforts of an entire department of professional vocational rehabilitation counsellors using an array of non-legislated programs. The unemployment rate was also particularly significant in the injured worker context because, by definition, 100% of those respondents were employed prior to their workplace injury and the onset of their disability.

The other striking finding that I think is relevant to your work was that of the unemployed, 70% of them had an earning capacity rating of less than 20%, according to the WCB criteria. That suggests that in spite of a history of gainful employment which evidences the worker's merit, and in spite of a relatively small degree of disability, and in spite of considerable non-legislated programs to aid these injured workers in obtaining employment, a person with a disability still faces very substantial obstacles in getting a job.

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The experience of injured workers led to the establishment by the Ontario government of a task force on vocational rehabilitation services, the Minna-Majesky task force. Their report made many recommendations for improvements at the WCB. One of the recommendations they made which was not followed was a recommendation for a quota system including grants to employers, wage subsidies and tax credits.

However, many of the programs that the Minna-Majesky task force recommended were like those proposed by the current government to replace the employment equity legislation. For example, they recommended more training-on-the-job programs, increased use of formal training, expanded job and workplace modification programs, mandatory reinstatement of injured workers and educational programs to address the attitudinal barriers of management to employing people with disabilities. The WCB's response was to assure us that they were already working on these programs.

Then there was further action in 1989, with the legislative amendments in Bill 162. This included the accident employer's obligation to re-employ injured workers. Accommodation of the workplace in accordance with the guidelines of the Human Rights Commission was also a part of the re-employment obligations. The amendments also required the Workers' Compensation Board to consider the need of vocational rehabilitation services very soon after the injury and to offer an assessment to all those who had not returned to work within six months.

Again, the legislated changes were followed by another province-wide round of study in 1992, by the WCB Chairman's Task Force on Service Delivery and Vocational Rehabilitation. That report, in turn, recognized the need for improvement in the vocational rehabilitation of injured workers. It recommended the development of programs which promote re-employment and modified work on a province-wide basis.

In the result, injured workers have been the guinea pigs for the testing of more extensive training, accommodation and workplace modification programs than the current government has begun to contemplate developing in lieu of the repealed employment equity legislation. The effectiveness of this combination of many years of experience with non-legislated programs and legislated programs has to be measured by the results of those programs for injured workers.

The WCB published a study of employment rates among injured workers with long-term or permanent disabilities in March 1994. The Ontario WCB reports 78.4% of those injured workers were still unemployed three years after the injury. This was a barely noticeable improvement from the 83.7% unemployment at 12 to 18 months after the injury. Any sense of improvement during that two-year interval from one to three years after the injury was dashed by their finding that about 37% of those who were fortunate enough to have been employed a year after their injury had become unemployed by three years after the injury.

The impact of the re-employment obligations on these results also has to take into account the fact that 30% of the injured workers studied were not protected by the re-employment provisions in the act. But the fact that unemployment among permanently disabled injured workers has doubled after a decade of direct intervention by legislated and non-legislated programs more extensive than the government is now proposing is a terrible indictment of the effectiveness of these non-legislated measures. The injured workers' response therefore to Bill 8 and to the proposals that we've seen to replace it is, in effect, "We've been there and done that, and it didn't work."

Although the injured workers are not monolithic, there has been a growing interest in developing a form of quota legislation to address the unacceptable levels of unemployment among injured workers. I'm not referring to the previous Employment Equity Act as employment legislation, but to the debate as to whether or not real, concrete quotas are effective. Although there have been some concerns expressed about negative ramifications, the erosion of merit in the workplace is certainly not one of them. Every injured worker has experienced the anguish of having once been welcomed as a productive employee and now being viewed with suspicion or outright rejection by the same employer. Injured worker unemployment rates are direct evidence of discrimination because of handicap in spite of their evidence of individual merit as workers.

The concern that injured workers have expressed in the discussion about the issue of quotas is that quotas may have a potential to create a ghettoization of simple, menial, dead-end, low-paying, uninteresting jobs into placements for people with disabilities. The concern remains valid, but we don't believe that the entire concept should be rejected without a trial and without some effort to resolve any shortcomings that arise. For example, the Federal Republic of Germany addressed this concern by requiring the employment created for disabled people to be suitable and sustainable, and the legislation there is directed at securing for people with disabilities a place in working life that suits their inclinations and their capacities.

But disabled people need concrete solutions now. Injured workers would have benefited directly and substantially from quota legislation. Judged from the standpoint of getting injured workers back into the workforce, the former government's employment equity legislation did not go far enough. Without specific quotas and short time deadlines set for employers, it would not have moved quickly enough to make a difference for many injured workers.

The level of desperation among injured workers is very high. On occasion, we used to encounter injured workers who had been driven to the brink of suicide. Now not a week, sometimes not even a day, goes by without encountering an injured worker who's contemplating taking his or her own life. As the members of this Legislature know, even for able-bodied people, the inability to obtain employment and provide for one's family can lead to insurmountable despair. Today, injured workers are facing impossible odds. It's a pressing and substantial problem. Injured workers need concrete solutions now. The repeal of employment equity legislation is not going to help, so we urge you to study what has happened under the workers' compensation system. Don't waste the next five years reinventing the wheel. It's been tried. The kinds of programs that we have heard described don't offer any hope for injured workers. Employment equity has to be improved, not eliminated.

We realize that unfortunately the government is committed to the repeal of the existing act. However, it doesn't follow necessarily that the government should move to ban others from choosing to move towards the goal of employment equity. For example, section 14.1 of the Human Rights Code provides an authorization for an employer to establish an equity or affirmative action program. Such a program is declared not to violate the right to be free from discrimination under part I of the Human Rights Code.

Does the repeal of section 14.1 without substituting any similar protection signal a legislative intention that an employer who tries to create employment equity will now face charges of discrimination at the new and improved Human Rights Commission? We believe the provision will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on employers who might have been inclined to voluntarily make the effort. If an employer decides that the next person hired is going to be a disabled person, why should they not be allowed to do so?

Our proposal is for a trial program. In establishing the non-legislative program to replace employment equity, the government should not be afraid to try an experiment with employment equity. How else can you assess whether it is really as burdensome to employers and as detrimental to the merit principle as is claimed? The business community might have engendered the government's sympathy with the general complaints about complying with employment equity, but what about the employers who are adding to the ranks of people with disabilities? Statistics indicate that the employers who are responsible for significant numbers of permanent disabilities are discarding these workers. This should not be happening. When you're talking about the very group of employers whose operations caused the disability in the first place, we hope there is less sympathy for their resentment of a program to employ a reasonable percentage of people with disabilities.

The workers' compensation system gives you a context in which it's possible to test the competing theories of employment equity programs. Not only is there a moral justification, there's an economic one as well when you consider the cost to our society of not having an employment equity program.

We have right now a wage loss system of workers' compensation, and there are huge costs associated with keeping nearly 80% of injured workers with permanent disabilities at home. As well, there is the cost for social assistance for those who are not on workers' compensation. Right now, this cost is spread across all employers, the good guys as well as the bad guys, and the taxpaying public are bearing the burden of the widespread refusal to re-employ injured workers.

We are suggesting that the government should establish a trial program of employment equity within the WCB system. We recommend a grant levy system rather than simply a quota system. A grant levy program should require that a certain percentage of the workforce be composed of people with disabilities, including injured workers.

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A quota system sets numerical targets that must be reached. If they're not, the offender faces prosecution. A grant levy system also sets numerical targets for employing people with disabilities. However, the consequence for not meeting the quota is a levy or a tax based on the extent of non-compliance. It's enforced through self-reporting of employment rates rather than prosecutions. Grants for exceeding the targets amount to a permanent subsidy for the wages of people with disabilities. The system has a known outcome. It can be used by some employers who choose to pay and not comply; however, it can be used by other employers to creatively achieve an important public goal.

In workers' compensation, the pool of employers assumes collective responsibility for the cost of work-related injury. With a grant levy program, the pool will also assume collective responsibility for hiring people with disabilities, including injured workers. This has the benefit of developing a wider range of opportunities for disabled people that are not limited to the current approach which tries to put an injured worker back in the place where he or she was injured. The pre-injury employer may be able to employ people with disabilities even if they have no options for the particular person who is injured in their workplace.

We know the government has expressed strong reservations about employment equity. We hope you won't shy from using the opportunity that your non-legislative programs give to assess the validity of the concerns we have heard. We wish it were possible to raise this type of concern with the minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board. However, we have requested such a meeting and we were told that he will not meet with us until he has already released his report on financial changes to the workers' compensation system. That is too late.

We urge the committee to recommend a trial of employment equity in the workers' compensation context and to raise it with the minister responsible for the WCB. A study of the injured worker example will help resolve the debate over quotas for the benefit of all people with disabilities.

Thank you very much for listening to us today.

The Chair: Thank you very much. There's not any appreciable time left for any questions that we can divide up evenly, so did you have any final comments you wanted to make? You've got about a minute.

Ms McGregor: I guess from the perspective of people with disabilities, you have to look into this, certainly the economic cost of keeping us at home. There have been reports of the increase to the cost of Canada pension; welfare costs are rising for people with disabilities; family benefits for people with disabilities are on the increase, as well as welfare. When you factor all of this in to the taxpayer -- the taxpayer's intent is not to punish people with disabilities by getting rid of this bill. I don't think that was their intent. I think they thought this bill, the employment equity bill introduced by the NDP, was a quota bill in itself. In fact, it was a numerical goal, a bill that justified employers to set numerical goals for themselves.

We are concerned about the fact that employers are going to be required to just shred that information. That's very disturbing to us because it really does reflect how that workplace is structured. How are we going to be able to monitor how employers are going? I would hate to see us having to go back to the time where we are going to be in courts with employers, either in the court systems or into the Human Rights Commission. We've already been since 1988 with nine complaints against federal employers in the human rights commission federally. That would be a disaster if this is what we're going to be doing in Ontario. But as legislators you have a responsibility to make sure that barriers are removed and that injured workers and people with disabilities have the equal opportunity as able-bodied people to work in this province. We are being denied that right at this present time.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate your attendance here this morning.

MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT EQUITY NETWORK

The Chair: The next group is the Municipal Employment Equity Network, Bonnie McPhee and Ingrid Wellmeier. I'd just like to remind the members of the committee that I think it's fair that we allow the presenters to speak without side conversations going on and that we not interrupt them. So I'd appreciate that.

You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit.

Ms Bonnie McPhee: Thank you. My name is Bonnie McPhee and I'm here because I'm the president of MEEN, which is the Municipal Employment Equity Network. We're a network consisting of better than 60 municipalities across the province, including some boards and agencies of the broader public sector, and we've been running our network for about 10 years now.

I have the easiest job this morning because all I have to do is to tell you that we do appreciate this chance to talk to you about the concerns we have, and also to introduce Ingrid Wellmeier, who works for the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and is going to make our presentation this morning.

Ms Ingrid Wellmeier: Good morning. I guess I'd just like to ask committee members if you prefer that we leave some time for questions. Yes? All right; I'll try to be brief. You have a written copy of our presentation in front of you and so you will have the benefit of reading that, but I'll try to summarize it for you.

First of all, we'd like to say that we are encouraged that the new government is planning to look at some support for equal opportunity measures. Many municipalities in Ontario are of course very interested in continuing with their work of removing barriers affecting women, racial minorities, people with a disability and aboriginal people.

We know that these groups comprise about 70% of the population in our communities today, and we also know, as employers, that by the year 2000 we'll be looking at about 80% of our new job entrants from those groups. Where we're not doing a good job of employing those people, we really know that we have to improve our work in that area. So the kinds of initiatives that many of our member organizations want to continue include reviewing our human resource policies and practices for hidden barriers, advertising and recruiting more widely, continuing to conduct special outreach for those jobs where groups are seriously underrepresented, and establishing strong policies to eradicate harassment and discrimination. Also, we have a strong commitment to improving accessibility and accommodation to all jobs for persons with a disability. And we want to create a climate in our employment that welcomes and benefits from diversity.

We do believe, and we wanted to pass on to you, that certain mechanisms which exist today, such as the race relations directorate, the Ontario women's directorate and the branches of government that deal with people with disability and aboriginal people, may be in a position to help with some of these efforts, as they have done in the past. We want you to look carefully at putting too much of a new burden on the Human Rights Commission. They are already overburdened, and if they were to take on a role such as you have been proposing, we think the part of the commission that deals with systemic investigations and also public education will need more recognition in the form of funding and staffing. I expect they're not equipped to deal with that.

There are three areas I'd like to touch on briefly in Bill 8 that really affect us. The first is the destruction of data that is required. This is quite a serious issue for us. We would like to ask you to clarify that particular aspect of Bill 8, because we understand that a narrow reading of that aspect would require the obligatory destruction of data. We hope that you are intending it to mean only for those organizations that really have no interest whatsoever in doing equal opportunity in the future, because for those of us who do have that interest, that destruction of data would set us back by many years and would really cripple our efforts to take action. So we really want to see some clarification in that area. We believe the desire to proceed with voluntary equal opportunity programs is certainly enough of a reason to allow us to keep the work that we've done in the past intact. We have outlined that argument in our document.

I'll go on to the discussion of the voluntary measures that you may be proposing. Since equal opportunity programs as the government is proposing are to be left to the discretion of employers on a voluntary basis, we believe that related decisions, including decisions about how and what equal opportunity programs may proceed, should also be voluntary. So we believe that this requirement to destroy the data will undo work which we will have to redo at great expense if we want to continue in our voluntary programs.

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We think that the most economic use of existing resources, which Bill 8 should also be addressing, should address means of using the guidelines as a bridge to most efficiently move programs back to a voluntary mode.

The question of fair representation in the workplace, like so many other things that employers have to do from a business point of view, often is based on data. We have no sense of how we're doing with any initiative if we don't look at data. We need data. They provide a positive benefit, whether we're doing equality because it's a law or whether we're doing equality because we wish to. Without data we have no way of knowing what needs to be fixed, where we're doing a good job, where we're doing a poor job and whether or not we're making progress.

The other issue that we are running into and that we're concerned about is the kind of catch-22 situation that these requirements of Bill 8 will leave us in. I'm going to read you a brief excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It says:

"Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability."

This section then goes on to talk about the fact that this "does not preclude any law, program, or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged groups, including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin" and so on. In other words, this is the very legal underpinning of an equal opportunity program, an employment equity program, whatever you want to call it.

Similarly, the Ontario Human Rights Code contains the same provisions, "...a special program designed to relieve hardship or economic disadvantage or to assist disadvantaged persons or groups to achieve or attempt to achieve" equality is allowed in the Human Rights Code. The Human Rights Commission has prepared guidelines on special programs such as equal opportunity programs. These are the very guidelines that employers like ourselves have been basing our efforts on to improve equality in our workplaces for many years.

When we look at these guidelines of the Human Rights Commission, one of the things they direct us to do as employers is to provide a rationale of why we're doing a special program, and it tells us, "Evidence of hardship or disadvantage should be objective and where possible, quantifiable, as opposed to impressionistic...." In other words, we're being directed to take an objective look at what we're doing as employers, not just an impressionistic look at it. They go on, "For example, in order to show disadvantage in the form of underrepresentation of a designated group, statistics may be necessary."

They note: "Data collection documenting the type and extent of disadvantage experienced by designated group members will often form the foundation for establishing the need for a special program. Ongoing data collection will also provide a means of assessing the results of program initiatives and a tool with which to assess the need for further special measures."

And they tell us, "In employment equity programs" -- similarly, equal opportunity programs -- "internal workforce data and applicant data may be collected and compared with external data on designated group availability in order to demonstrate underutilization of particular groups."

These guidelines obviously don't have the force of law, but we as employers have concluded that they were written and formulated with consideration to the provisions of the Human Rights Code and relevant case law, and also the expectations of boards of inquiry, so we have taken those guidelines and used them for many years now.

We believe that special measures to ameliorate social and economic disadvantage in the workplace which arise from unfair discrimination and so on are permitted by both the federal and provincial law. We have used these measures in the past, and we will continue to need to use these measures if we are to try our best to continue to follow the kinds of principles that you have outlined in your equal opportunity plan.

However, if the provisions of Bill 8 are narrowly defined and applied and we have to destroy all of our data, we will be at a distinct disadvantage in being able to do that. We will find ourselves in a catch-22; we will not be able legally to do the very voluntary programs that you are, in a sense, directing us to do. That to us is a very serious concern.

In a nutshell, as employers and as organizations committed to reflecting the face of the population in Ontario today, we are asking that you take a look at this and do not hamper our efforts to do what we think is an important part of our job as employers in serving our population and our communities today.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about two and a half minutes per party, starting with the official opposition.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate your brief and the emphasis on the concern with destruction of data. It does seem to me that any employer that is determined not to proceed with employment equity will voluntarily destroy their data without being ordered to do so. It's a bit of a moot point.

Ms Wellmeier: Probably.

Mrs McLeod: The question I have for you could be the subject of another brief, or several of them, so I'll just give you an opportunity to comment on one of the concerns that I have: the whole issue of dealing with systemic barriers to equal opportunity, whether there is legislation or not. I would like you to comment, in the two and a half minutes we have, on your sense, as municipal employers, of some of the barriers and the challenges to dealing with those barriers, particularly in times of restraint. I guess if you can as well -- will it be more difficult to deal with barriers in the absence of legislation?

Ms Wellmeier: Certainly we can still do the work that we need to do. In the absence of legislation, obviously there's less impetus out there to do it, and it really depends, in the case of organizations like ours, also on the politicians and the particular context that we work in.

The commitment to employment equity in our organizations has probably waned somewhat with this change, so we were looking at really perhaps more work being done when we did have legislation in this area. However, many of our organizations are fairly committed to these issues.

The work itself, the work of removing systemic barriers, of removing unintentional discrimination, can go ahead without legislation. In times of economic difficulty, of course, it is harder to do any of these kinds of initiatives, but theoretically, where the will is there, it is the kind of work that we hope to be able to continue doing.

Many of the barriers, of course, are sort of institutional, and whether or not we are in a mode of hiring people, which most of are probably not right now, we can still get some of that work done and we hope to be able to do that.

Mrs McLeod: Are you concerned it will be on a back burner as organizations like yours struggle to survive?

Ms Wellmeier: Yes. Many of our organizations are very concerned about that, and that is the kind of climate that many of them are operating in.

Ms Churley: As a New Democrat, I of course am deeply disturbed by the repeal of our employment equity bill, because we felt it was a balance; it wasn't quota. Leaving that aside, this government is moving ahead. I want to come back to the issue of destruction of the data.

I've heard members of the governing party express views that they want them destroyed because it was done under duress, that people were forced to do this, and there could be real problems around privacy. I want to ask you two questions, because I think if there's one thing we want to achieve in this committee it's an amendment to that.

Would you collect, if you had to do it all over again, the same data or very similar data? And what do you do about protecting people's privacy with these data?

Ms McPhee: If I might answer that, our organization and many municipalities have collected data. We collected them under Bill 79, but we have also collected them twice before that. It's sort of the first step of any equity program, as a general rule. So certainly we would have done it, we have done it, we would do it and we will probably do it again because we will have no other way of measuring. You only do what you measure.

Ms Churley: So essentially, if you had to destroy these data at great cost, you'd just do it all over again but collect essentially the same data?

Ms McPhee: We'll have to, yes. As I say --

Ms Churley: The same kinds of data, or would you make changes?

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Ms McPhee: No, I don't think so. Essentially, I think that the data we collected were pretty well consensual. Most places do it that way regardless of the law and it fits with the federal program.

Ms Wellmeier: The other thing I might just say about the privacy and confidentiality, that is a very strong concern. It's a strong concern of our employees. It was something we had to look after before we collected those data; it's something that any employer would look after. It is protected by a number of other pieces of legislation, including the municipal freedom of information bill. It's the kind of data that are kept confidential and that are used only for very specific purposes. That is what our employees understand, that is the basis on which we collect them and that would be the case at any time that we would collect that kinds of data.

Mr Maves: I just wanted to say from the outset that any data compiled prior to Bill 79 you can keep. I'll let the PA talk to that a little later.

I had two quick questions. Under Bill 79 the data were voluntary, and in one large institution here in the broader public sector more women than men chose to self-identify. Consequently, the proportion of females to males was artificially inflated, thus reducing the equity argument for hiring and promoting women. How have municipalities accounted for that in their collection of data, that non-compliance might skew the statistics?

Ms McPhee: First of all I would say that many, many of our members have not collected data. They didn't get that far and didn't get that done, so they haven't got it, period. Speaking for ourselves, I think about 97% of our employees self-identified and it didn't come up as an issue. We tried to do it in a cooperative manner with our employees, as opposed to to our employees. I think that's the key to data that makes any sense.

Ms Wellmeier: In general, human resources professionals who encounter that kind of a problem would probably go back to the drawing board and say we didn't do a good job with our employees; and unfortunately we did not communicate the intention and the protection that we were going to put in place in collecting these data. Therefore, it would probably not be valuable for their purposes and they would probably want to go back as an organization and do a better job.

Mr Maves: At the start you had mentioned that your member organizations had undertaken initiatives of advertising or recruiting more widely and conducting special outreach for jobs for people and groups. Could you give me some examples of those?

Ms Wellmeier: I can give you some examples. One of the things that we used to do in the Ottawa region was, we would only advertise jobs in two newspapers, one French- and one English-language newspaper. We now send all external job postings out to somewhere around 30 or 40 community organizations that represent a whole range of people from various cultural and ethnic and racial communities, including the groups that represent people with disabilities. That's a very small step but it's a useful step to do. We just try to reach out a little more broadly than we did in the past, acknowledging that perhaps not everyone reads these two daily papers.

Mr Maves: I agree.

The Chair: We appreciate your attendance here this morning and being part of our process. Thank you very much.

WATERLOO REGION EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT EQUITY NETWORK

The Chair: We have to skip one on your schedule. Mark Hertzberger, secretary-treasurer of the Waterloo Region Education and Employment Equity Network, welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time for questions at the end will start with the third party, the NDP.

Mr Mark Hertzberger: Thank you very much. I am here on behalf of WREN -- I'm sure you've had your share of acronyms during these hearings -- which is the Waterloo Region Education and Employment Equity Network. My actual position is the human rights and disability adviser with the regional municipality of Waterloo.

On behalf of the Waterloo Region Education and Employment Equity Network, or WREN, I would like to thank members of this committee for the opportunity to comment on Bill 8.

WREN was founded in April 1987 by employment equity practitioners and HR professionals from the Waterloo-Wellington areas. Its membership reflects diverse sectors, including municipalities, hospitals, public and separate school boards, post-secondary institutions, community agencies and private enterprise. WREN's mandate is to provide public education on equity-related issues, as well as support and resources for employment equity practitioners.

To begin with, our membership expresses regret concerning the proposed repeal of the Employment Equity Act. This legislation has provided the initial impetus for many organizations to become informed about employment equity issues and to seriously examine their employment practices to ensure fairness. For those organizations who had already implemented employment equity programs, Bill 79 provided a framework and a basis of comparison to ensure a reasonable and comprehensive approach. It also provided for all employees to be informed and involved in the development of employment equity programs for their own organizations.

We are encouraged, however, that the government intends to implement a plan to remove systemic barriers and to ensure fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace. These are the same elements that were implicit in Bill 79 and we are very pleased to see that there are plans for their continued promotion. We see these as important measures that will ultimately reduce the need for future human rights hearings by being proactive.

At the same time, we're puzzled by Bill 8's reference to the restoration of the merit principle. It has been the experience of our members, both prior to and under Bill 79, that establishing merit as the determining factor in employment has always been the prime objective in employment equity planning. Making hiring practices consistent and fair for all groups is what allows merit to be the deciding factor. Organizations that have introduced their employment equity programs in this way have seen progress towards a more positive and productive work environment, one that taps the talents of a diverse employee population.

With this in mind, WREN would like to make the following recommendations with regard to Bill 8 and the Ontario government's proposed six-point equal opportunity plan.

(1) Establish bridging promptly so that the considerable work already completed by employers towards systems review and barrier removal under Bill 79 will not lose momentum and result in costly duplicated effort. We think there's a lot of good work that's been done already by employers and if we can build on that work and use the systems already established, that would be very beneficial.

(2) Educate the public regarding the universal benefits of barrier removal and fair hiring practices. Our members have had no difficulty in establishing employment equity programs which benefit all employees. For these to succeed, however, the popular but erroneous impression that these programs only benefit select groups needs to be countered through effective education and publicity. The advantages of a broader and more diverse hiring pool also need to be conveyed.

(3) Educate at the public and secondary school levels to encourage entry into non-traditional careers for both males and females and to inform all students of their rights to equal treatment and opportunity under the human rights legislation. It has been our experience that schools need to go substantially further to foster awareness and confidence in our young people so they may form a workforce that utilizes their full talents and truly reflects the diversity of our society. This is something that members of our network who are on school boards have noticed. There's a long way to go in terms of encouraging girls to go into engineering and those kinds of occupations.

(4) Continue to allow for the retention and future collection of quantitative information. This is something a number of speakers, I know, have alluded to. As with any effective operational plan, clearly defined, quantifiable objectives are essential to ensure progress. I'm sure you've all heard the phrase, "An organization gets what it measures," basically.

Operating equal opportunity programs without demographics or numerical goals raises three potential scenarios, and I think you'll agree that none of these is particularly desirable:

Systems review and barrier removal may be based on evidence that's anecdotal or "gut feel" evidence, or subjective. As a result, any corrective measures taken may be inadequate or, conversely, they could be excessive.

The absence of demographic profiles and quantitative goals mean that the program initiatives may be continued beyond the time that they are needed, in effect, navigating without instruments or flying blind. There's no sense of how far progress needs to be made.

The lack of objective numerical data will mean that any human rights challenges to an organization's hiring practices will be difficult to adjudicate, making the process more time-consuming and costly for the employer and for the Human Rights Commission.

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Many employers have already invested substantial time and resources to collect and analyse data that is essential for establishing realistic programs. Requiring the destruction of information gathered under the Employment Equity Act will mean that these employers will need to duplicate their efforts, at considerable expense, by re-collecting the same information under section 14 of the Ontario Human Rights Code.

WREN asks that this information be left intact, with the express intent that it be used only as a tool to establish focus and direction for barrier removal and equal opportunity measures, not to implement rigid quotas.

In summary, if the intent is to replace Bill 79 with a more realistic plan, we ask that employers be provided the support and the tools that will enable them to develop programs that are meaningful to all employees and will optimize the productivity of their workforces.

The Chair: We have about four minutes per party left for questions, starting with the NDP.

Mr Bisson: I first of all would like to thank you for taking the time in order to come to present to this committee and thank you for the work in putting together your brief.

You've been going through the process -- I guess I have a couple of questions. The first one, on the question of throwing away the data, if I can hear your comments on that, because unfortunately I stepped out of the room I think at one point and I don't know if you mentioned anything on that, but the destruction of the data -- how do you feel about that?

Mr Hertzberger: One of our chief concerns is that there has been a considerable amount of time and effort invested to collect this data and we feel that without the data essentially we're flying blind, that there's no really quantitative way of measuring the progress of our programs or of indicating where it is that the barriers need to be removed. We look at the data as being almost like an indicator light in terms of showing where the areas are that need to be examined and also then to indicate our progress as we go along. So we feel it's very important that we have the ability to use this data that we've worked so hard to collect.

Mr Bisson: I also take it from your presentation that in general you're supportive of the idea of employment equity.

Mr Hertzberger: Certainly.

Mr Bisson: If not by legislation, how? How do you advance the goals of employment equity if you're not going to have legislation that puts the feet to the fire of employers to make sure that they go through the process? How do you do that?

Mr Hertzberger: I think ideally there should be legislation because I think the members of our group, many of them, have been involved with employment equity long before the legislation came in, but there are other employers who we feel probably would not take the necessary steps unless there were some form of legislation to require them to do that.

Mr Bisson: Would you say the majority of employers wouldn't take steps to end discrimination in the workplace if there wasn't legislation?

Mr Hertzberger: I don't know whether I can really comment on whether it would be the majority of employers. I think there are some who would not.

Mr Bisson: Significant?

Mr Hertzberger: A significant number, I would say, based on what I've heard at various seminars and so on.

The Chair: The government, Mr Maves.

Mr Maves: Just quickly I want to congratulate you on some of your suggestions and recommendations revolving around education. We've had several groups come through and talk about outreach programs in education and I believe in that a great deal, so I congratulate you on that initiative.

One of your comments at the start was about the restoration of the merit principle and that the ultimate goal of hiring is always to be based on merit. I agree and I think we agree. But I want to just kind of give you an example, more in the way of a statement than a question, I guess.

I was at an employment equity seminar with a large company in town the other day and there was a black gentleman who is a personnel employment equity consultant. He was doing a presentation and in his presentation he said that he was a banker in a major Canadian bank and he was the worst banker in the world -- it's a fairly humorous way of making his point -- and each year he would get a raise and a promotion. After a while obviously he began to say, "Something's wrong here because I know I'm not working very hard, I don't like my job and I'm getting a raise and a promotion every year." So one year after getting a raise and a promotion --

Mr Bisson: I just want to point out that it happens with white people as well.

The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Bisson.

Mr Maves: -- he intentionally did as little as he could, and at the end of the year he got a raise and a promotion.

Mr Bisson: Oh, Jesus.

Mr Young: Watch your language. On a point of order, Mr Chair --

Mr Maves: So the gentleman then said that he was --

The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Maves. Mr Bisson, we've established some decorum in this committee, and I expect you to respect it.

Mr Bisson: I am respecting it, Mr Chair, as heavily as the past Tory caucus did for the last five years here.

Mr Maves: Mr Bisson is missing the point.

Mr Young: On a point of order, Mr Chair: The member opposite is offending Christians in the room by saying the name Jesus in vain. I find it offensive.

Mr Bisson: I apologize.

Mr Maves: I think Mr Bisson is missing the point a little bit.

Mr Bisson: I'm not missing it, not at all.

Mr Maves: The gentleman realized what was happening, that he was being promoted to reach numbers so the company could reach its numerical goals. So he resented this, and he quit. He's now very successful in his own business. He said to us that this is the result of numbers-based programs, that quite often the numbers become more important than the principle and merit and the ultimate goal of breaking down the attitudes and the barriers. That's why he believed numbers-based programs didn't work. I think we have a similar philosophy.

By way of a statement, I just wanted to tell that story because of that paragraph you had down there. But again, thank you for your presentation and your programs and your initiatives around education.

Mr Hertzberger: I wonder if I could just comment on that for a moment. I think with any system, any government act or regulation, there's always the potential for misinterpretation and misuse. I really believe that half the battle with employment equity in any aspect is educating people as to how it's to be used and that in fact the numbers are not there as ends unto themselves but as indicator lights, as I said, or something to give you some idea of where you're progressing with it.

I've heard that story. That was Trevor Wilson, I believe.

Mr Maves: I would never name names.

Mr Hertzberger: But he tells this story publicly, and I've read articles by him. I guess I'd have to respond that many organizations, in my experience, do not have a very effective performance management system. I think that a poor performance management system can miss a lot of people, regardless of what group they are from, and people can progress in that system regardless of merit. So I don't think it necessarily ties into the person's race or, if it does, I really feel it's, again, a misinterpretation or a misuse or simply a lack of information around what employment equity is about.

Mr Sergio: Mr Hertzberger, it's the second time -- once in answer to the last question and once during your presentation here -- I have a little bit of a concern because you seem to be putting a lot of attention on the fact that the objectives and concepts of equity within the workplace can be best served through education and publicity. You seem to be stressing this particular point. Do you really believe that with the elimination of the objectives, the guidelines and the legislation of Bill 8 that the public, with whatever education, the employers, will continue to protect the rights of minority groups, handicapped people and women?

Mr Hertzberger: No, I don't believe that everyone will. I think there's a core of employers that will, that are already well involved in this kind of action. I think in an ideal world our members would like to see the legislation retained. But I'm saying that in the absence of that it would be much better to educate and make sure that employers understand. Perhaps employers would adopt this program more readily if they were to understand the true intent and the true focus of what employment equity should be.

Mr Sergio: Without Bill 8, sir, there would be no guidelines. Do you understand that?

Mr Hertzberger: Without -- sorry?

Mr Sergio: Without the objectives of some government regulations, there would be no guidelines which employers could go by. Do you understand that?

Mr Hertzberger: I understand what you mean. I guess I'm referring to the proposed plan that comes after this repeal, and those are the sorts of guidelines I was referring to. But those would not be viewed by my members as the ideal situation. The ideal situation would be to have something legislated.

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Mrs McLeod: I guess we still have time for another question. The government has indicated, on the destruction of data issue, that you don't have to destroy any data that was collected prior to the introduction of Bill 79. Does that solve the problem from your perspective?

Mr Hertzberger: For some members, it does. Some members have gone ahead and done their employment surveys long before the legislation came out. Others waited to make sure that they were collecting the right data to get it exactly right. Now those employers are the ones who are going to have difficulty because they potentially could be required to destroy it and have to go back and recollect. So yes, it is going to be a problem for some employers.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Hertzberger. We appreciate your attendance here this morning and being part of our process. Have a good day.

Mr Hertzberger: Thank you.

TAMIL RESOURCES CENTRE

The Chair: The next group is the Tamil Resources Centre, Nellian Sivahurunathan. I hope I came close on the pronunciation of your name, sir. Please come forward.

Welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. You can leave any part of that time you want for questions. The questions will begin with the government, should you allow any time. The floor is yours, sir.

Mr Nellian Sivahurunathan: Thank you very much. Good morning, gentlemen and ladies. I would like to ask the Chair whether the members would like to have copies of my presentation.

The Chair: We already do.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Oh, you have. Fine. Thank you very much.

Mr Bisson: That's why we ask for 30 copies.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Yes. Forgive me if I make any mistakes in my English because English is not my first language.

I am a project coordinator representing the Tamil Resources Centre, which is located downtown, on Parliament Street.

The Employment Equity Act is a symbol of hope and a protection for visible minorities.

I am making my deputation on behalf of the Tamil Resources Centre, a non-profit community organization, the members of which are of the South Asian community who are recognized as a visible minority. We work towards public education and advocate for effective democratic and human rights. We do believe that people of ethnic minorities should be recognized as equals with the majority of Canadians, and we affirm that we will contribute to the prosperity and unity of Canada.

Within this opportunity of sharing our viewpoint on this issue, I do not want to take your time by re-emphasizing that the repeal of the Employment Equity Act will deprive the designated groups, including the ethnic minorities, of the rights and opportunities in the Ontario workforce provided by the Employment Equity Act and that all racism will be practised more openly in the workplaces.

Since November 16, 1995, we learn that many organizations have been making their deputations to you, emphasizing the importance of the Employment Equity Act and the potential consequence of its repeal. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to express to you how the ethnic minorities experience discrimination in Ontarian society and how we view the Employment Equity Act.

There are thousands of university-educated members of the South Asian ethnic community who are struggling to make their living in this society. As well, thousands of people with professional skills of the same ethnic community are suffering because they have not found a way to get into the workforce of Ontario. The majority of them are underemployed or unemployed due to the recession.

These university graduates wash dishes in restaurants. Some of them drive taxis. Those who have earned university degrees and trained as physicians, lawyers, accountants, architects and scientists in their home country are employed here as labourers. They have been refused promotion in their workplaces. The employers' or senior staff's reply has almost always been that the ethnic group members have neither Canadian experience nor do they have fluent Canadian English. By contrast, we are gathering information that people who are not visible minorities and who do not speak Canadian English have been employed and have been promoted in this country.

We are not jealous of these people who obtain employment and promotions. What we ask the government to do is to make or to maintain a law which recognizes our education, our skills, our talents and our experience. According to a Statistics Canada report, people of ethnic minorities have proved their talents and skills when employed. They have also contributed to the prosperity of Canada. But now these same people are suffering by being underemployed or unemployed.

Ontario will gain an advantage by giving an opportunity to these people in its workforce. A member of our ethnic community who is employed and who earns an adequate living will support not only his or her family, including adult children, but also an extended family including parents and grandparents. According to the principles of their culture, they prefer to live together and to support each other. This alleviates the burden that the government would have. Employing one person within our communities guarantees the lives of not just one person but also of the extended family.

These are difficult economic times. Within this situation, ethnic minorities began to view the Employment Equity Act as the only creation of the Ontario government which would give some hope that they would secure an opportunity for obtaining work and then for earning promotions. The ethnic minorities view the Employment Equity Act or similar legislation as an introduction of democracy into the Ontario workforce.

They view the Employment Equity Act or similar legislation as a political creation that would weaken racism, build unity among workers of diverse cultures, paving a path to build a healthy multicultural society. We admit that the arrangements stipulated in the Ontario regulations made under the Employment Equity Act are not perfect in some areas. These problematic areas can be corrected. We do affirm and applaud the principles of this legislation. If the present Ontario government believes in the principles of democracy and multiculturalism and if it respects the values and the talents of the ethnic minorities, it should withdraw Bill 8 or devise a better Employment Equity Act.

The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. Your English was just fine. We now have about four minutes per party for questions, beginning with the government party, Mr Clement.

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Mr Tony Clement: Thank you very much for your worthwhile presentation. You raise some very serious issues. I just wanted to key in on what we call -- in government circles, anyway -- access to professions and trades, the inability through barriers set up by professions and trades of people coming to our country to use their job skills. It creates a tremendous waste in our society when people who are trained as engineers are working as cooks and they're not able to use their training properly.

There are a couple of different levels to that. One is, credentials assessment, the proper assessment of foreign credentials and taking them into account. The other is, language requirements. You don't have to know the complete works of William Shakespeare to do a particular job in a particular trade or profession.

I want to assure that the minister feels very strongly about those areas. Without the framework of employment equity legislation, there are still things that government can do.

My question to you is, if we key in on that and work with the professions and with the trades to do credentials assessment, to make sure that we have the proper language requirements but that are not overrequirements but the proper requirements for the trade or profession, do you see that as working without the framework of employment -- do we need a Bill 79, an employment equity bill, to do that, in your opinion, or can we do it separately?

Mr Sivahurunathan: I believe that the Ontario government may introduce certain programs to help these people. But the thing is, we don't have a legal assurance if you repeal this Employment Equity Act.

Mr Tony Clement: So that's what you're looking for?

Mr Sivahurunathan: Yes.

Ms Bassett: Mr Clement has asked most of my questions, but if I could just do a preamble. Thank you for your presentation, and I wanted to say that just because we're repealing Bill 79, we do want you to know and everybody to know that we do support equality of opportunity in the workplace for people of all backgrounds and religions. We want to make sure that you go away with the feeling that our intent of reaching that goal is just different than yours, but we do want to reach it, so we value your comments today. Mr Clement hit on what I was going to ask.

The Chair: Mr Stewart, have you got a quick question?

Mr Stewart: Yes, a very quick question. You're talking, sir, about legal assurance for those who are coming in. Do you not still believe that ability and merit is still the main concern or the main product that they have to have to do the job?

Mr Sivahurunathan: I beg your pardon, sir?

Mr Stewart: You're talking about having legal assurance for those folks to have a job when they come in, if they're an engineer or a doctor or whatever. Do you not believe that merit and ability should not be primary in that consideration rather than a legal assurance that they're going to be considered?

Mr Sivahurunathan: We do believe that merit and ability must be given priority. But the thing is, for example, there are some of the laws like criminal legislation. If people violate the Criminal Code, then you have a watchdog, the police, the Attorney General's department to watch what's happening. If somebody violates the code, then you will take action. But in the ordinary workforce if something happens, say, suppose a person from a minority is failing to get a chance to get a job, the employers refuse to give a chance, they don't come out and say, "You belong to a minority community and you don't have speak Canadian English and that's why we don't hire you." They don't say that.

They do everything behind a screen. They take their decision behind their screen so there's no watchdog. So there's no watchdog. There's no watchdog -- that's what I can say -- to see what's happening there, whether their rights are violated or whether these people are discriminated against. We don't have that. But the Employment Equity Act, as far as I am concerned, imposes certain duties on the employers. So that's why I do prefer that one.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Siva -- Sivahurunathan -- now you know who has language difficulties -- can I ask you first how long you've been involved as a project coordinator in working with employment equity in your community.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Sorry?

Mrs McLeod: How long have you been involved in working as a project coordinator? I get a sense of your frustration and I'm wondering how long you've been at it.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Only for five months, but before that I had been involved with this organization. Also, I translated the summary of the Employment Equity Act and the regulations into my language. So from that I learned all the contents of the act.

Mrs McLeod: I was sensing an element of frustration when you spoke about the need for legal assurance, because I think many people in your community have heard governments over a long period of time talk about how important it is to take action on trades and professions, but the actual results aren't always there and that legislation perhaps is as much an enforcer for government to take action, because government is required by its own laws to act.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Right.

Mrs McLeod: I wanted to just pursue Mr Clement's area of questioning a little bit and ask about the setting of standards that would clearly recognize the certification that has been gained in other countries, including the language requirements. Is it sufficient to set the standards, or do we not have to go beyond that to provide, for example, language training, re-entry opportunities, the sort of proactive things that would help people to meet those standards so that they can in fact practise in their field? I'm wondering if you see that as one of the barriers, that language training opportunities aren't there, the retraining opportunities aren't there.

Mr Sivahurunathan: As far as I am concerned, the programs are not enough to help with, especially, the professions. I have my own experience. I joined a university to get my equivalency, but to get my admission in a university I took some English classes here in a high school. But those courses did not help me really, so I am taking some courses on my own by paying fees to private colleges.

Mrs McLeod: Are there other very specific barriers that you see for people in your community?

Mr Sivahurunathan: No.

Mrs McLeod: That's the one.

Mr Sivahurunathan: There's no co-ordination between the government services and the community. I can give more information. Right now I am ready to give you all the information, but I am thinking about that, getting information from the people. I know how they are suffering, so I'm prepared to focus on the suffering today before you.

Mr Bisson: A very quick question and then a comment after. You said that you did the interpretation from English to your own language of the Employment Equity Act.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Right.

Mr Bisson: Did you find the word "quota" in the translation? Was the word "quota" there?

Mr Sivahurunathan: No, sir.

Mr Bisson: Excuse me. I didn't hear you. It was not there?

Mr Sivahurunathan: There is no quota. What I understand from the legislation is that I really believe that the Employment Equity Act is legislation which conveys or carries democratic principles. What it shows is that the Ontario community has several groups of people, so this regulation says that each community must be represented in the workforce.

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Mr Bisson: I know very well. I'm the guy who drafted the act. So you say that in translation the word "quota" was not in the act.

I want to ask you a second question flowing from that. Do you find the title of this act offensive, under Bill 8, the Job Quotas Repeal Act? Do you find that offensive? The word "offensive" in my language means to say when you read the title of the act, Bill 8, that it's not true, it's offensive.

Mr Sivahurunathan: We believe that it won't help us, it won't work.

Mr Bisson: Let me just very quickly go through something that a person who immigrated to Canada many years ago, the early 1950s, told me about employment equity just recently. He came to Canada and immigrated here and talked about how his community, the Italian community, had many difficulties gaining really good jobs in the Canadian economy when they first came. The only jobs they would get were those jobs that employers were willing to pay very little money for.

He talked about how in his day it was difficult as an Italian Canadian coming here, but he wonders how much more difficult it is for somebody coming to Canada who not only doesn't speak the language but is a visible minority. He said that back when he came here he always felt there needed to be some kind of law to help his Italian friends who had come to Canada be able to get real jobs, not just the jobs shovelling the ditches and cutting down the trees and working in the mines, but to get jobs that they were trained for. They were university graduates, they were college graduates, they were administrators, they had a lot of skills and they couldn't get jobs like that. They would work digging ditches.

You have a lot of people in your community who, I imagine, are very well educated.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Oh, yes.

Mr Bisson: Do you find that they have a hard time trying to find jobs?

Mr Sivahurunathan: Really, sir, it's true. I'm a Sri Lankan, my native country is Sri Lanka, and there are about 3,000 university-educated graduates out there.

Mr Bisson: So not much has happened in 40 years. We still have educated people coming to this country who have difficulty getting jobs. On that point, do you think the legislation is needed in order to promote those educated people with lots of skills, with lots of qualifications or merit, as they say, to get jobs? Do we need legislation to help them?

Mr Sivahurunathan: That's true. I agree with you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your interest in our process and your presentation here this morning.

Mr Sivahurunathan: Thank you very much for listening to our voice.

BHAUSAHEB UBALE

The Chair: Okay, the next presenter, who's coming on a little early, is Bhausaheb Ubale, a former race relations commissioner. Mr Ubale, welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time you leave for questions will be divided among the parties, beginning with the Liberal Party. The floor is yours, sir.

Dr Bhausaheb Ubale: Thank you, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad to have this opportunity to share my thoughts with you. They are discussed in the submissions I have made and I understand you have all the copies of my submission -- they are quite detailed -- but I'll try to summarize them here.

I must state at the outset that I'm going to speak on employment equity as it relates to minorities. My support, and I say that, to Bill 8 is not prompted by political or ideological considerations. My views on this subject are based on my lifelong experience in three continents as a victim of racial discrimination, as a public policy practitioner and as an independent thinker. My views contained in my book -- this is my book, Politics of Exclusion -- predate employment equity.

Employment equity is seen as a panacea for employment problems. Instead of fixing problems associated with the implementation of the Human Rights Code, we have created a giant social division through employment equity. I strongly believe that in the long run equality of opportunity, backed by forceful enforcement of the Human Rights Code, based on zero tolerance by society at large, is the most efficient and effective substitute for employment equity and is the best solution for integration of minorities into mainstream society.

This is reflected both in the report I submitted to the government of Ontario in 1977, entitled Equal Opportunity and Public Policy, and policies and programs I've followed as Ontario's race relations commissioner until 1985.

It is my cherished belief that progress in human rights can be made only by patient chipping away of encrusted differences rather than bold strokes. A person can easily do a vast amount of harm by advocating changes from mere enthusiasm. I oppose the employment equity bill on the following grounds, and I'll list them one by one:

Employment equity is inherently and dangerously divisive. It feeds the fire of hatred and also endangers equality of opportunity. It emphasizes ethnicity rather than ability. When I immigrated to Canada from the United Kingdom 20 years ago, I came as an individual, not a member of a group. I also came here with the requisite qualifications and experience. Hence, others like me, and I, expected that our integration into the mainstream of Canadian society would be based on those considerations, that is, our qualifications and experience. That was the implied contract we had with Canada before we even decided to immigrate to Canada.

Unfortunately, on our arrival Canadian social policy pigeonholed us into ethnic ghettos. Suddenly we are no more individuals; we are members of a group and our livelihood, our employment opportunities, our employment prospects are tied up with our ethnicity and activities of power brokers within ethnic communities. Employment equity legalizes such behaviour; it takes away our individual rights and replaces them with group rights.

In that process we have become a labelling society. That label is legalized through employment equity. Consequently, employment equity is tearing us apart because it is based on the faulty foundation of who we are rather than what we are. In fact, our racial origin should matter less than our ability to make a productive contribution to Canadian society.

Visible minorities are not homogeneous groups; they are heterogeneous. Within the black community or within the South Asian community there are numerous groups, and they are again subdivided by their religion. You have Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and all of them. Now, each group is trying to establish its own identity and seek a position, those who are in public life know the delegations that you receive from these people. Hence, lumping such a heterogeneous community into one single group of a minority for the purpose of employment equity and attempting to give them some kind of preferential treatment is most dangerous and divisive.

As it is, employment opportunities for minorities are very limited. Hence, there is intense and sometimes very vicious competition among those groups. By choosing individuals purely on the basis of their membership in a group and giving them a position in such a charged atmosphere amounts to adding fuel to fire.

Employment equity leads to quotas. The quota requirement is not explicit in the legislation but it is implicit in terms of timetables, composition of population and, more importantly, it shows its ugly head at the stage of implementation, and I'll give an example. I give an example in my submission, but I'll state one.

When a minority person gets a senior position in the government as a result of employment equity, often there is pressure on that individual to hire more people from his or her racial group. Those of us who serve the government are aware of that. Although there is no quota stated in the legislation as such, each ethnic group will monitor the employment practices of its own members and will make a demand on the employers. The outcome is an implicit quota.

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The underlying philosophy of employment equity is that it must reflect the composition of the population. Now, to achieve that we play a numbers game, and again I have given that in my submission. By playing a numbers game, we are restricting the aspirations, ambitions and employment opportunity of young people.

In that case, what is going to happen? That these qualified young people have to go in search of towns and cities in Ontario where the percentage of minority population in employment is less, then what kind of society are we creating? What is wrong if there are 70% of doctors who are from a minority community working at Toronto General Hospital, or even in Thunder Bay or other places in Ontario where the population of minorities is very small? What's wrong with that?

The concept of employment equity also focuses on reversing historical discrimination, and you must have read or at least had some presentations on that. Does it do that? One has to ask that question.

In its present form, it does not give a priority to those who suffered most due to past discrimination. It only recognizes membership in the target group and gives employment preferences, even if that individual was never discriminated in the past, yet that individual can get employment through employment equity.

I know one of the geologists from the government of Ontario who felt he was discriminated and he has lost the job for 12 years. How is employment equity going to help him by promoting someone from his own community as an assistant deputy minister or deputy minister?

If the true objective of employment equity is to reverse historical discrimination, then the people who merit some consideration are those engineers who are driving taxis, architects working as draughtsmen, pharmacists working as shippers or other qualified men and women who are working as security guards. We must rescue those people who are trapped because of discrimination resulting from denial of access to trades and professions. These people come to Canada with the highest qualifications, or high qualification skills. They would be the ideal candidates for such consideration.

Employment equity is partly based on the premise that to treat people equally, we must give them different treatment at different times. Treating them differently than the rest of society is itself a major cause of their exclusion from the mainstream of Canadian society and could sow the seeds of discontent and conflict.

Employment equity stigmatizes well-qualified minorities. He or she never knows whether employment or promotion was based on qualification or quota.

Most of the time, employment equity is used by vocal or upwardly mobile extroverts in the minority communities to fast-track their own careers. It mostly helps those who are in employment and not those who are seeking employment.

It does not place social obligations on those who benefit from membership in racial groups. There is nothing in the legislation which says that if you get a job because of employment equity, you must in return spend some time in your own community doing some community work. There is no obligation on that.

It does not work as a role model, because minority community people do not see minorities who get the job because of the government programs as a role model.

The privileges are also extended to longer times, from generation to generation. If you look at India and the United States, it's not only for one generation but it's long generations.

There is no historical evidence either in the United Kingdom or the United States or in India to suggest that this has helped anyone.

It contradicts the Human Rights Code. It's very difficult for me, as a former human rights commissioner both of Canada and Ontario, to say that on one hand, "Thou shalt not discriminate people on the basis of their race, colour or creed," and on the other hand, through employment equity you are saying to us, "You must discriminate them in a more favourable way."

Now, this also has created a new industry itself. A new crop of consultants has come up over the last years, and they have a vested interest in promoting employment equity.

These are the grounds on which I oppose employment equity and, by implication, support Bill 8.

In conclusion, I wish to say, with all the sincerity at my command, that it has been painfully difficult for me to oppose this law, which many minorities have supported and many of my former colleagues in the Human Rights Commission have supported. I hope you and others outside this room will understand the force of my convictions, my emotions, my feelings and my sentiment. They are real and they are potent. It would have been intellectually dishonest of me if I had not been straightforward with you today.

Furthermore, I would have failed in my duty as a concerned citizen if I did not reflect and express the depth of dissatisfaction displayed by a disenchanted group of ordinary men and women from minority communities. It is one thing to stay in one's comfort zone, looking at the problems of minority communities as an ideological rallying point, and another to go down in the trenches with them, experience what they experience, and see the whole thing from a victim's point of view with the complexity of problems surrounding them. Taking them on the path of employment equity is like walking in a twilight zone. We would lose all our way.

Finally, let me point out I have stated my view with equity of my mind and my soul. I did this with honesty and candour.

I have no doubt about the integrity and commitment of the previous government in the race relations inherent in employment equity. Hence my views are not intended to denounce their past intentions. Rather, my views are rooted in pinpointing pitfalls and to inspire a future course of action to provide a rightful place for minorities in this country equally.

I'm not critical of other mainstream society members who support employment equity. I appreciate their concern and interest in minorities. If they had experienced our feelings, our hurts, perhaps they would have come to the same conclusion as I have: Our society is riddled with inequities and needs more comprehensive solutions than the token gesture of employment equity.

I also understand the feelings of minorities who support employment equity. There is a growing accumulation of grievance, of disappointment, of denied opportunities. Hence, they see employment equity as a straw to which they would like to hold on to take them to their desired destination. Regrettably, it's a mirage that they are running after.

Academics have tried to support the law through statistics and studies, but in this area such statistical abstractions are a poor guide to real human experiences. I have spent countless hours talking to people in India, people in the United States and people in Canada who are affected by this. I have listened to their stories, their hopes, their determination, their pain, their frustration and their despair. There's a contradiction between the image projected in such studies and the reality of their experiences.

Finally, our young generation, well equipped with education and skills, stands at the door of breathtaking opportunity for moving Canada forward in all directions in all areas. Employment equity limits the opportunity on their horizon. What they really need is a genuine equality of opportunity backed by effective enforcement of the Human Rights Code based on zero tolerance for discrimination by society at large.

Thank you very much for listening to me so patiently.

The Chair: Thank you, sir. We have about a minute each for questions. This is our last presenter before lunch. I'm prepared to be a little flexible if anybody wants --

Mrs McLeod: Dr Ubale, I would never presume to speak for Judge Abella, who first coined the term "employment equity," she's well able to speak for herself, but I think if she were here she might feel as though the focus of your remarks on employment equity are more on what employment equity has become in terms of a group-representative focus as opposed to what she perhaps originally intended it to be, which was to focus on individual opportunities and equal opportunities in a workplace.

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I suspect she might also have said that if we were to treat everybody in exactly the same way, we would not be providing real equality. For example, I would not need, for equal opportunity in the workplace, wheelchair access. Obviously, somebody with a physical disability would need that, so we have to treat that individual differently in order to provide equal opportunity.

I was struck at the beginning of your presentation that your emphasis is on dealing with the problems of discrimination, that do exist, through the Human Rights Code and through a legal judicial process.

But I wonder if you would not feel -- if we can set aside for a moment the debate about numerical targets, or quotas by any other name, which focuses on end goals and numbers that you feel are divisive -- that we need some very concerted commitment to dealing with systemic barriers, without a judicial approach that is complaint-driven.

I guess my question is, is the human rights approach enough to deal with what we know is much more prevalent systemic discrimination that's often seen to be just the way things are?

Dr Ubale: That is what I, as I said, for the last 20 years, have advocated all along, that there is a systemic discrimination that exists in our society, and employment equity is not the route to go through to deal with that, because systemic discrimination has to be tackled much more vigorously. What we have not been doing, unfortunately, is concentrating on the whole structure of the Human Rights Commission, because the commission, which we created in 1962, is no more applicable. I have said before these committees a number of times, it is not applicable in the 1990's, because a case-by-case approach is not going to help us. We need a major partner. There has to be commitment not only by the government, by the society as a whole.

When I was human rights commissioner, what we were doing is not to remain merely as an operating officer of the Human Rights Commission and just deal with the cases as they come. What we were trying to do is to go out in the community, talk to other agencies, help them, assist them. As I said, walking on the streets in small towns in Ontario, I must say, with all sincerity, that there is a tremendous goodwill. You can see in Ontario they wanted to do something in the area of promoting equality. What we need to do is we need to tap into it, and we have not concentrated our efforts to get all those agencies, out of all sectors. No government alone can do that. It has to be business, it has to be labour, it has to be media; all sectors of our society must work to where there has to be commitment, and that commitment is lacking in a sense, and this is why then we try to either go through one route like employment equity or a number of other measures that we may do it. But these are very short-lived ones.

The Chair: Okay, Mr Ubale. We've set the standard with Mrs McLeod there, so Mr Bisson, you have about three and a half minutes.

Mr Bisson: Well, I just want to say I strongly disagree with your views, wholeheartedly, and I will just say a couple of things, and try to be as polite as I can.

I come from a line, a long generation of people who find themselves in minority. Je suis Français. Mes ancêtres viennent de France. Ça fait depuis les années 1700 qu'on est ici au Canada.

I just want to say, if it hadn't have been for the innovative thinking on the part of a lot of people who were my forefathers within my community who identified themselves as francophones and who strove and pushed their provincial and federal governments -- first of all, not a federal government but Upper Canada and Lower Canada, eventually until Confederation, to where we finally gained rights in the BNA Act, enshrined those and made darned sure that we were able to be recognized as a people within this country; second of all, all of the changes that were done through provincial legislation over the years, leading up to what finally was then the Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- I would say that we would have been assimilated into the Canadian culture probably about 100 years ago.

I strongly believe that, quite frankly, your approach is in a Utopian state possible, but I don't think we live in a Utopian state. But I respect your view, because in a democratic society we have the right to have differences of opinions and also differences of approach and I respect your views and encourage you in your work as you go forward trying to represent your community as best you can.

I would only like to say the following things: I think that your comments here today have allowed the Conservative members to salivate to great extremes. I'm sure that we are going to have great media clips following your presentation as to the reasons why we should not move forward with employment equity. I thank you for advancing the cause of people in this province.

Dr Ubale: I don't want to be drawn into this political arena, but as I said right from the beginning, my views predate employment equity. I wrote a book in 1991, and employment equity was just brought recently. Again, if you look at my speeches and all that for the last 20 years, I have spoken about it. Therefore, I have not come here to advance any cause. This is my firm belief and I came here to state that.

Mr Bisson: I accept that.

Dr Ubale: The difference between, for example, people who come from British origin or other ethnic origins, from European countries, and people like us is that we are visible. My children were born and brought up here and they're still considered as immigrants. Those are educated, and therefore I'm concerned --

Mr Bisson: The wonderful part of our society is that we have the right to have different approaches. I respect that.

Dr Ubale: My daughter, who did her PhD recently -- I don't want her to be seen as an immigrant. She is a Canadian. She was brought up and educated here and therefore she must have all the equal opportunity to compete. If we can compete in universities, why can we not compete in the marketplace? Why do we need assistance from any program.

The Chair: The government party, Mr Clement.

Mr Tony Clement: I know we've got some other questioners as well, so I'll be as brief as I can.

What I was struck with in your presentation, Mr Ubale, was the view that you've expressed, which is essentially that employment equity has become the status quo ideology, if you will, in North America on some of these issues. You make mention about the effects of that in the United States and in India, that the status quo has not worked; in fact, it's performed very poorly for those it purports to help. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

Dr Ubale: Yes, India has employment equity. A form of employment equity started 40 years ago. It was enshrined in the Constitution. Again, once you start giving preferential treatment to certain groups, there are groups within the groups. If there is a heterogeneous community, people who are politically very active get organized and try to get the benefit to their own community at the cost of other communities.

This has happened also in the United States. As I said, you can look at what is happening with the Afro-Americans. There are a very small minority of Afro-Americans who get the benefit of employment equity, affirmative action programs. They don't stay in the neighbourhoods. They move away from the neighbourhoods and join the middle class. As a result, there are no role models there. Nothing is happening. As a result, if you look at what happened at last month's Million Man March, it's clearly demonstrated by a number of thoughtful people from the United States that the conditions have not improved an iota as such.

So what is happening within that framework is that you get very few people benefiting from that, and it gives an impression -- and that's why I call it a mirage, an illusion -- that it is benefiting society at large, but it is not benefiting society at large because a large section of the population still remains where it was, or sometimes has deteriorated to a considerable extent. That has happened in India after 40 years. There's a large number of the population who even more poor today than they were 30, 40 years ago, and that still happened to the United States.

The Chair: Mr Young, time for a quick question.

Mr Young: Dr Ubale, thank you very much for coming. I appreciate very much your frank appraisal of the situation. I share your concern about a labelling society. My concern is how far it's going to go. We hear we've got to have more data and more data and more data. I'm concerned about the quality of data. We know there are very many people who will not self-identify -- people with disabilities. They don't want their company to get credit for hiring them. They don't want their company to know they have a disability. We know that, for instance, the city of Toronto has expanded to include homosexuals. There are lots of homosexuals who don't want anybody to know they're homosexuals. Good for them if they want to keep it private. Where are we going with all this compartmentalizing people and collecting data on human beings? What kind of society is this leading to?

Dr Ubale: That's what I said. My objection is to collecting the data, my objection is to ghettoizing people on the basis of their ethnicity and other considerations. I would like people to be treated as people and deal with it. As I said, my own experience has been that once you allow people to mingle with each other and once we begin to know each other, then these other considerations you raise -- your sex -- become much more secondary, because people fear the unknown and therefore we have all these stereotypes. But once you start working together, those stereotypes get --

Mr Young: That's the kind of society I want to live in.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr Ubale. I appreciate your attendance here this morning and your involvement in our process. The committee stands at recess until 1:30 this afternoon.

The committee recessed from 1150 to 1336.

ONTARIO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Chair: We will begin, in the interest of time and out of respect for those who are already here. Our first guests this afternoon are from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Carla Zabek and Ian Cunningham. Welcome. The floor is yours.

Ms Carla Zabek: Good afternoon. My name is Carla Zabek and I'm a member of the employer-employee relations committee for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. With me today is Ian Cunningham, who is the director of policy for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

As background for you, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce is a business organization representing over 65,000 employers in Ontario. Our members include both large and small enterprises covering all sectors of the economy.

On behalf of our member agencies, we appreciate the opportunity to meet with the committee today to address Bill 8, the government's proposed legislation to repeal the Employment Equity Act, 1993.

We would like to begin by stating that the chamber is in complete support of Bill 8 and encourages the government to continue the process in making Bill 8, ultimately, law.

Perhaps the most significant reason for repealing the Employment Equity Act is that the act effectively removed the merit principle in hiring. Nowhere in the act was the employer's fundamental right to hire the best and most qualified candidate guaranteed. Indeed, the Employment Equity Act has been interpreted as prohibiting employers from hiring the best- qualified candidate and instead mandating that they hire employees to meet a quota.

In fact, the quota requirements contained in the Employment Equity Act impede the goal of equal opportunity for all employees. The reason for this is that certain groups are inevitably preferred over others with little consideration of assessment of qualifications. The goal should be that individuals are hired solely on their qualifications without consideration of factors which are not related to their ability to perform the duties and the responsibilities of the position in question. That is what constitutes equal opportunity.

Another important reason for repealing the Employment Equity Act is that it is very costly both for employers and for the government, and this is significant given that the act fails to address the root of the problem and the root of the problem is discrimination. It would be more beneficial to use the funds to create additional jobs and to improve the systems which are already in place, and this will be addressed in more detail shortly.

In these recessionary times, it is vital that businesses remain competitive. Therefore, government policies and initiatives must assist businesses in succeeding through these difficult times. It is the chamber's submission that continuation of the existence of the Employment Equity Act would hinder businesses' ability to stay competitive, especially for the smaller businesses, and that in turn would negatively affect the economy. That is not to anyone's benefit.

That being said, we wish to stress that the chamber unequivocally supports the concept of equal opportunity for all employees. Ridding society of barriers which prevent anyone from advancing in employment because of gender, ethnicity, or any other factor besides merit or qualification, is a goal we firmly believe in.

There's no question that such barriers constitute discrimination. However, it is the chamber's submission that the Employment Equity Act was not the appropriate legislative forum to address discrimination in the workplace, and, as I mentioned earlier, it fails to do so.

Ontario already has legislation in place, the Ontario Human Rights Code, which specifically addresses discrimination, including discrimination in the workplace. As a matter of fact, approximately 70% of complaints filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission concern discrimination in employment. It does not make sense that there be another government bureaucracy created to address discrimination in employment when there's already one in existence.

We acknowledge that the Ontario Human Rights Commission presently has a large backlog and that its system is not as effective as it could be. Therefore, what does make sense is that the government take steps to reform the Human Rights Commission so that its effectiveness and efficiency are improved and its backlog decreased. The present government has already vowed to do this, and the chamber is in complete agreement.

As mentioned, barriers in employment constitute discrimination. The root of discrimination is societal attitudes. The Employment Equity Act does not address the attitudes at the root of discrimination. The chamber strongly believes that the only answer to changing attitudes and opinions is education. Legislation is not the answer to ending the inequities in the workplace. Education is the strongest empowering tool, not government intervention.

To that end, the chamber supports the government's decision to implement an equal opportunity plan. We understand that one of the main components of the plan includes education and training on equal opportunity.

We would like to briefly address the legislation itself. Subsection 1(5) provides that "every person in possession of information collected from employees exclusively for the purpose of complying with part III of the Employment Equity Act, 1993, shall destroy the information as soon as reasonably possible after this act comes into force."

There are some employers who had been pursuing affirmative action or diversity management programs encompassing employment-equity-type initiatives even before the Employment Equity Act was passed. Other employers were involved in the federal contractor program. You can well imagine the costs and the resources expended by these employers in collecting the necessary information. These employers would likely wish to continue using the survey information in connection with ongoing efforts to remove barriers to equal opportunity or diversity management programs or as part of the federal contractor program.

It is unclear if the legislation as it is currently drafted would protect those employers. The chamber would not be opposed if subsection 1(5) were amended or even if it were removed in order that employers would be able to utilize the information, which would be very useful in employers' legitimate employment-equity-related activities.

In conclusion, we wish to again state that although the chamber is in complete agreement with the principles of employment equity, legislation is not the proper vehicle for achieving employment equity. We therefore unequivocally support the government in its decision to repeal the Employment Equity Act, 1993, and to introduce an equal opportunity plan which we believe will result in fairness and equality of opportunity in the workplace.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts with you today. We would be happy to take any questions that you may have.

The Vice-Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Thank you very much. By the way, I'm Bart Maves, the Vice-Chair. I have to fill in for Jack. It's my first time in the chair.

We're going to start the questioning with the NDP members.

Ms Churley: My question has to do with your statement about the Human Rights Commission. As you know, that's set up as a very adversarial, after-the-fact body. Once a problem is there, people have to go before it in an individual, adversarial situation.

Don't you think the fact that you yourself stated that about 70% of the cases deal with employment-related issues shows that there is a systemic problem, and that trying to deal with those kinds of problems on a case-by-case basis in an adversarial situation -- putting aside whether you agree with legislation -- is not the answer to this problem? You agree that there is a problem.

Ms Zabek: We definitely agree that there is a problem. That is why we stated that we unequivocally support education, because we think the root of the discriminatory problems in society are societal attitudes and the only way to resolve those problems is through education. Therefore, we fully support the government in coming up with an equal opportunity plan, a major component of which is education. I think that would solve a lot of the problem.

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): I was very pleased to see your comments on keeping the data. I think that is incredibly important, irrespective of my concerns about the direction of the bill. Many employers will require the data that has been collected and they shouldn't be forced to destroy it.

With respect to your concern about quotas and merit, an interesting suggestion was made to the committee the other day that if those were the main concerns people had, particularly representatives of business, perhaps there should be two amendments to the existing legislation, as opposed to bringing forward a new bill. One would be to have an amendment that states unequivocally that there are no quotas and to correct that section of the legislation from that perspective. The second would be to state unequivocally that employers have the absolute right to hire on the basis of merit. Would that satisfy your concerns?

Ms Zabek: To take your question a little further, does that then mean that any of the legislative requirements under the act would no longer be required?

Ms Lankin: Certainly there would be a legislative requirement for a program to be in place, which you indicate you think is important, that would recognize that there are barriers and seek to overcome those and that you collect data so you can analyse if you're making progress. But it would be to make it very clear that there are no quotas and that merit is the right of the employer.

Mr Ian Cunningham: We would prefer the voluntary approach, but would undertake as a business association to encourage what we believe is a natural evolution that's taking place in business to experience the benefits of an enriched workforce and the benefits of enhanced decision-making through a culturally diverse workforce. We think that can best be achieved through our own voluntary efforts, and we would undertake to accelerate what we believe is an ongoing, evolutionary process.

As stated in our brief, many businesses have that experience, enjoy that experience and want to continue it. We would hope to share their experience with our members and encourage other business associations to do likewise, but in a voluntary way.

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Mr Young: With all due respect to my colleague opposite, there was ample opportunity to include the statements, "There are no quotas," and, "The employer should have the right to hire on merit." There was ample opportunity in 1992, and for whatever reason, they chose not to include it in the legislation.

What I wanted to ask you was, how can we get the message out to business that a diverse workplace is good business, is smart business? Because that's what we want to do.

Mr Cunningham: We can undertake to do that and, as I mentioned just a second ago, encourage other business associations to do the same. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has a network of some 200 community organizations and we would undertake to deliver the message of enriched decision-making, the benefits of an enriched workforce through our communication vehicles, and hopefully other associations would share that initiative.

Mr Young: Do you think other groups like the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and the CFIB would help us also, would be interested in participating? Can you speak for them?

Mr Cunningham: I don't want to speak for them.

Mr Young: Any more ideas?

Ms Zabek: My understanding is that they would also be willing to assist in the education process. Again, we want to stress that we think that education is key here.

Mr Tony Clement: I just wanted to talk specifically about subsection 1(5), the information section that you referred to. Certainly the minister has made it very clear that, for instance, information collected as part of a federal contractors' program is obviously information that is not collected exclusively for the purposes of part III of Bill 79 and would be able to be retained. If you had a particular questionnaire which had some sections which were common to both federal and provincial requirements, those would be able to be kept, but those that were asked specifically in compliance with or the furtherance of Bill 79, it would be those sections of the questionnaire and the data that were collected under those sections that we were particularly concerned about. With that explanation in mind, does that go at least some way to alleviating your concerns in this area?

Ms Zabek: It goes a little way to alleviating our concern. But our other concern is with respect to employers who have solely, voluntarily undertaken employment equity initiatives on their own prior to the Employment Equity Act coming into place. We really don't see that there is much difference between a federal contractors' program and employer-initiated employment equity initiatives. We realize that one is federally mandated, but for the purposes of provincial legislation there really shouldn't be that much of a difference between whether it's a requirement under the federal contractors' program or whether it's something that the employers themselves had decided to do. Therefore, we want to make sure that those employers are protected.

Mr Tony Clement: You mean, programs that were instituted prior to Bill 79?

Ms Zabek: That's correct.

Mr Tony Clement: They are excluded as well.

Ms Zabek: We believe that they would be excluded under the language of subsection 1(5) and we would like them to be protected so that they could keep that information.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Unfortunately, the time is exhausted for the government side and we now turn to the opposition. Mrs Pupatello, you're first.

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Of the 65,000 members you have, what percentage would you say have their own employment equity policies?

Ms Zabek: Ian?

Mr Cunningham: I don't know; I couldn't guess.

Mrs Pupatello: Were any of them consulted in terms of the submission today, specifically?

Mr Cunningham: We have an employer-employee relations committee that is fairly broadly represented. In that regard, yes, they were, but I wouldn't want you to think that we surveyed 65,000 business organizations.

Mrs Pupatello: No, just specifically the ones that already have policies in place, because there are many of your members that did have their own policies already in place well before the bill I mean.

Mr Cunningham: I believe so, but I can't respond with a specific number or even a guess that I'd be comfortable with.

Mrs McLeod: Can I just assume, following up Mr Clement's question, that if an employer has gathered information since Bill 79 came in and would like to voluntarily continue with employment equity, and would like to be able to keep the information they've gathered for that purpose -- do you see any downside at all to them being able to keep the information?

Ms Zabek: I don't think there would be any downside. If it's a legitimate employment equity initiative, and obviously it would have been if they were complying with Bill 79, and they want to continue with that voluntarily, there wouldn't be a downside.

The Vice-Chair: Mr Sergio, we have time for a quick one.

Mr Sergio: Ms Zabek, you said before that the commission is ineffective and inefficient. Mr Cunningham, you said that a voluntary equity plan should be taking care of the concerns of people being discriminated against and stuff like that. How would you address those concerns with a very weak and inefficient commission and no legislation?

Ms Zabek: I'm sorry; I didn't understand your question.

Mr Sergio: All right. We will have no legislation guiding the equity laws within the workplace. So we have a very inefficient and very weak commission and we have a voluntary plan here, although we haven't seen any plan from the government side. Without any legislation, with a voluntary plan and an inefficient commission, how would you address the concerns of people out there: women, minorities, handicapped people?

Ms Zabek: Again, I keep coming back to the same thing, but I think education is the key, education with respect to societal attitudes as well as education to groups that may be disadvantaged. They should obtain education which would enable them to obtain a certain level so that they would be on an equal playing field with all other people.

Mr Sergio: So you would strictly, by education --

The Vice-Chair: Unfortunately, we've run out of time, and I'm trying to keep with the strict standards on time that the Chairman has set. I'd like to thank the members from the chamber for coming and giving their presentation.

LONDON EMPLOYMENT EQUITY NETWORK

The Vice-Chair: Our next presenter will be the London Employment Equity Network, Vicki Mayer and Avril Rinn. Welcome to the committee. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation. You can use that as you see fit. Several presenters have left some time at the end to take questions; you may want to do that. Go ahead.

Ms Vicki Mayer: Okay, terrific. As introduced, my name is Vicki Mayer and I'm representing the London Employment Equity Network. I'd like to start off by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to speak today and to state most emphatically that I am here to speak against Bill 8.

LEEN, which I am representing, is an organization which promotes employment equity in the London area. We number approximately 120 and have representatives in that group from various social service agencies, business, labour and human resource personnel.

LEEN was formed in 1988. We began as a small group of mainly social service agents who were getting together in support of the federal employment equity initiative. We were also hopeful at that point that provincial legislation would follow. This hope was supported by the 1990 throne speech. We participated in the discussions of Bill 79, celebrated its proclamation and are already mourning its demise.

Our goals for LEEN are to provide a forum for networking and information sharing; to keep informed of the resources in the field of employment equity; to generate resources; and to provide information and support to employers and agents in the London area. We've been very active during the last seven years and we expect to continue to be active in the future.

I myself come from the social service area. I've spent 22 years working with various special-needs groups. I've worked in both educational and workshop areas, in environments with persons with disabilities. I've had the opportunity to be involved with most groups with disabilities, both physical and intellectual. I'm a sign language interpreter and I'm presently executive director of a program whose mandate is to facilitate employment opportunities for persons with either visual or learning disabilities.

I sit on various committees and boards in the London area, and although I'm here today to talk on behalf of LEEN and my goal is to represent the four target groups, I'm going to be talking mainly from the position that I feel most comfortable with, and that's representing the disability groups and the impact Bill 8 is going to have on the disability groups.

The total population of metropolitan London is just over 400,000. Of that group, depending on which survey you're looking at, approximately 60,000 people have identified themselves as having some sort of disability. Of that 60,000, about half of that group are in the employable age range.

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National statistics say that twice as many persons with disabilities as able-bodied individuals are likely to be unemployed. I know for a fact that within that group, in separate divisions of that group, the statistics are much higher. There was a survey in 1993 in southwestern Ontario that indicated that job-seeking individuals with visual impairments had approximately a 75% unemployment rate. If you only looked at the women in that group, it would be closer to 80%.

Today, what I'd like to do is outline some of the barriers to employment for persons with disabilities and hopefully stress to you that without legislation those barriers are not likely to be overcome.

I'm going to start with the obvious one: stereotypes and misunderstandings about the abilities and the disabilities of persons with disabilities. Part of my role is often providing sensitivity training to workshops and employment areas that are bringing in persons with disabilities to hire. When I stand up and I talk about some of the common myths, the misconceptions, when I indicate that a visually impaired or a blind person is not necessarily hard of hearing and that even a person who is deaf does not communicate better if you shout at them or you talk in an exaggerated method, I'm often greeted by giggles but also guilty glances around. We all do that.

Many of us temporarily able-bodied people have a difficult time seeing beyond a disability. With almost every physical disability we assume an intellectual disability, and if an intellectual disability has been identified, we generalize its impact and work under the misconception that this individual is childlike in every way. Part of my theory is that it's fear of what that disabling condition would mean to us, and all we can see is a series of "can'ts." The "can'ts" are easy to see, and what we need is a system that encourages us to see "cans."

Other barriers? Systems problems: job requirements that do not necessarily measure the ability to fulfil the functions of the job and lack the flexibility within certain job functions. There are a great many employers who when recruiting automatically impose a minimum grade 12 or even a university or a college diploma as a condition of eligibility for those positions. As the education system has traditionally failed to adequately meet the needs of persons with disabilities, this is a requirement that effectively precludes most of the disabled community from applying for those jobs.

Difficulties surrounding essential job accommodations are also becoming a barrier. The issues in this country for the most part -- we've gone a long way to make great strides in understanding the need to accommodate for individuals who have mobility impairments. Building codes have enlightened the community to the need for accessible entrances to washrooms, although to be honest, if these are done to code most of them are ineffective. In London we have a wonderful accessible washroom at the bottom of a very narrow, deep staircase in one of our buildings that touts its accessibility. There are ramps that are built where you would need either an extremely high-powered motor on your wheelchair or a very, very long takeoff position in order to get at them. There are wonderful accessible washrooms that are behind two closed doors that are absolutely inaccessible in lots of places. Even if this is done well, accommodation does not end at that point in time.

Technical accommodations -- specialized technical equipment -- are much more difficult to obtain. We had one of our alumni who had a placement with a crown corporation, and at the end of that placement she was offered a position. She had been working with a computer that was accessorized with both voice and large print, and that equipment had been provided by our agency. At the end of that process, obviously we needed it back for training. The crown corporation, though, assured us that it had money for accommodation in case a person with a disability was hired for that position. However, when it came to the logistics of that process, that $10,000 was set aside to enlarge bathrooms or to build ramps. Convincing the corporation that access technology was accommodation for persons with a disability was next to impossible and took at least six months. At one point in time it was suggested that we find an accommodating vendor who would just bill them for a larger washroom door and provide us with the technical equipment that was necessary. Obviously, this is an area where enlightenment has to happen.

Another barrier is the inaccessibility of work site areas. Many, many businesses, particularly in the London area, are moving to the outskirts of London to set up their factories. Most of our community is dependent on public transit. Already, public transit to these areas is limited; it's going to get worse in the light of cutbacks. When we look at the parallel or paratransit system, the kinds of changes that they're talking about making in those systems will be absolutely devastating for this community in terms of accessing job opportunities.

The problems, I think, are obvious. The solutions appear a long way off. With employment equity legislation, there was a glimmer of hope for this community. That glimmer is dwindling now. I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Avril Rinn, who is a member of the LEEN steering committee and a co-worker of mine and also an individual who can speak from personal experience in terms of living with a disability.

Ms Avril Rinn: My name is Avril Rinn. There's nothing remarkable about me. I think of myself as an average Canadian. Incidentally, I have a disability; I'm legally blind. All that means is that I have less than 10% functional vision. I can do almost everything everybody else does, but I do some things differently.

I need to say to you today that when I first heard talk about employment equity legislation I was in university, and I didn't agree with that kind of legislation. I was really anxious to prove myself. I wanted to be judged on the merits of who I was, and I didn't want anything to do with being hired because I had a disability. After four years of working with people with disabilities and becoming friends with a lot more people with disabilities and being part of the workforce, I now recognize a need for that kind of legislation.

The misconceptions that are out there about us, people with all kinds of different disabilities, are appalling. I'd just like to share a couple of my own personal experiences with you, taking into account that my visual impairment is really quite mild compared with that of a totally blind person.

My job is computer instructor, and I'm often asked by people how I could possibly have learned to type if I couldn't see the computer keys. I must have needed a Braille keyboard, people tell me. There are two fundamental misconceptions happening there. The first one is that all people with visual impairments read Braille. That's not true, only about 1% of blind and visually impaired people read Braille. The second one is that I would need to know a different way of learning to type just because I couldn't see as well as everyone else. Obviously I learned the same way everybody else does: I remember where the keys are. There's nothing different about that.

Another experience I once had was on my first day of a job. I was shown to the washroom by my employer, and as she was taking me to the door to show me where it was she said to me, "Now, you do realize, don't you, that ladies' washrooms have pictorial symbols wearing skirts, and the men's washrooms have the figures who aren't wearing skirts." Obviously the problem there is that she believed my intelligence was in question.

That happens so often. You're different than other people, physically or sensorially, so people assume that you lack even the most basic of intelligence, that you can't think as well as they do.

The legislation that is going to replace employment equity, Bill 8 I guess, talks about fair hiring practices and merit-based employment. But if I'm not allowed to show what my merits are, it's not very fair to not want to hire me just because I'm disabled. Employment equity wouldn't have forced an employer to hire me if I wasn't qualified to do the job, but what it might have done is force the employer to at least consider me, to look at the good things about me, the merits, the positive qualities I had and forget about my disability.

I know that employment equity as we know it now is on the way out, and I'm really sorry for that because a lot of the hopes and dreams of people with disabilities are also going to be destroyed. Thank you for allowing me to say what I have to say. I know that Vicki has some summary statements.

Ms Mayer: Recently, I have been reviewing the federal government's annual employment equity report, and there has been -- limited -- but there has been progress since 1986, particularly among women and visible minorities. The statistical changes for first nations individuals and persons with disabilities, not surprisingly, hasn't changed. But I'm really encouraged by the federal government's introduction of Bill C-64 that strengthens that legislation and supports numerical goals -- not quotas, but numerical goals. I find it ironic that while our federal government, that's facing the same social and economic climate as we are in Ontario, is increasing their commitment to ensure fair and equitable hiring practice, this government in Ontario is effectively taking a giant leap backwards and dismissing many years of public consultation and collaboration, seemingly without guilt.

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I mentioned before that part of my role is that of educator and motivator, of trying to instil an "I can" attitude in my clients. In light of years of failure, this often is a difficult and challenging task. The language of this government in Ontario makes it even more so. Repeated assurances that the Ontario government will not adversely affect the elderly and the disabled, in my mind, effectively links them to a group who has served their purpose to society and will be taken care of by the government as they await death. A young disabled individual has a great deal more to offer to his or her community than that, and deserves the right to experience the good feeling that comes from being self-sufficient and useful, and I think that's been eliminated.

One last issue that I know has been addressed many times over these last few days is the issue of destroying all the data collected in response to the provincial employment equity legislation. To effectively eliminate the results of conscientious, careful work and resources that have been invested in constructing databases that can be used as benchmarks to monitor progress by those employers who are still now committed to hiring for diversity is nothing short of mean-spirited. If you must, as I'm sure you will, decide to repeal the employment equity legislation, please allow those employers who choose to forge ahead to forge ahead. Many of them may not have the resources to go back and collect that database that is really important, and those of us who are awaiting the implementation process will have to wait all that much longer or maybe forever.

I thank you again for your time.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Vicki. Thank you, Avril. We've got time for one minute from each side, starting with Mr Young.

Mr Young: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation, obviously heartfelt, and we hear you. I would like to assure you, Avril, that employment equity is not on its way out. One intrusive, cumbersome and expensive law is on its way out, but there are other ways to make people be fair to one another.

I did want to ask you both, do you think that women as a group and visible minorities as a group, require the same sort of protection against barriers that the disabled do?

Ms Mayer: The progress that those groups have made obviously has been much more significant than that of first nations and persons with disabilities, so perhaps it needs to be done on an escalating scale looking at the greatest needs. As I stated, from my perspective, the greatest need is in assisting persons with disabilities. But I do not mean to state that there is still not a need for a legislative process to help ensure that women and visible minorities get a fair shake in the employment situation.

The Vice-Chair: I will have to turn to another member; Ms McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: I have a belief that some form of legislation, employment equity, puts as much compulsion on the government as it does on the employers and is one of the reasons why it's needed. So let me ask you a question. You can choose to respond in any way you wish or not respond. You've been very effective in giving us some specific examples of barriers that still exist for the disabled in the workplace. I would think that if we were to look at the nature of those barriers and put a cost on it, it would be a fairly significant cost and that if there was legislation left in place, government would have to respond if they were enforcing their own legislation by providing dollars to deal with the barriers. Do you think that's one of the reasons why legislation is being withdrawn? I said you could choose not to respond.

Ms Mayer: Yes, I would like to respond, because that's one of the myths, though, too in terms of accommodation. Accommodation is not as expensive as most people believe it is. It can be done and, yes, governments have a responsibility to assist with that accommodation but so does the employment community; and it's not that expensive.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We've come to the end of your 20 minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. Quickly, we have one minute left for Ms Lankin.

Ms Lankin: You're new in the chair there, sir. I heard both of you address the issues of stereotypes and misconceptions, and I'm glad you did, particularly on the heels of Ms Zabek. We didn't get a chance to respond. Her very last comment was that education was required, and also education for disadvantaged groups so that they could be brought up to a level where they would have an even playing field and be able to compete. I was frankly shocked by that statement because it suggests that a whole lot of people in employment equity targeted groups are somehow lacking in the ability or the merit to compete for those jobs.

It's one of the reasons why I think this issue of legislation versus evolutionary processes is so important, and whether or not you can legislate attitudes, you can legislate behaviours. I was wondering if you could address that issue of the evolutionary-voluntary process versus the need for some legislated effort to remove barriers.

Ms Rinn: Actually, a lot's been said about education, education, educating people. The best way, I think, to educate somebody about the abilities of -- and obviously I feel most comfortable speaking to -- people with disabilities is to have a person with a disability in the workplace. That so seldom is probably going to happen because, it's true, there are so few employers who see the potential and can imagine what a good thing it will be.

Knowing from having been employed, I've had different people say to me, "I didn't realize, I'm amazed that you can do all the things that you can do," which sounds a little bit patronizing, but actually if it's educated somebody, then it's okay.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you one more time. I appreciate your coming to the committee.

MAYOR'S COMMITTEE AGAINST RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION IN HAMILTON

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call on the Mayor's Committee Against Racism and Discrimination in Hamilton, Marlene Thomas-Osbourne. If they are here, if they could come forward. Either chair is fine. If you could just take a quick second, maybe once you've sat down, to introduce yourselves for the benefit of the committee and Hansard. Thank you and welcome to our committee. I'll let you know quickly, as I've said to everyone before, you have 20 minutes for the presentation. You can use the time as you see fit, but you may decide to leave a few minutes at the end for some questions.

Ms Marlene Thomas-Osbourne: I've got to take my breath, sorry. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Marlene Thomas-Osbourne. I'm the co-chair for the Mayor's Committee Against Racism and Discrimination in Hamilton. With me is Denise Brooks, the executive director for SISO, which stands for Settlement and Integration Services Organization, also out of Hamilton.

I guess everybody knows that the subject today is why we're here, Bill 8, An Act to repeal the job quotas and to restore merit-based employment practices in Ontario. I have to start by saying that I guess I was one of the individuals from many other organizations, groups, around Ontario who was part of the bill that is now supposed to be the act, the Employment Equity Act that is supposed to be in the process of being implemented but the new government is trying to repeal. We had some other people who were supposed to be here, but unfortunately they cannot be.

I'm going to start by saying employment equity is about merit-based employment practices and not quotas, as Bill 8 would have us believe. Employment equity brings objective criteria to hiring, training and promotion, which did not exist in the past, and we need to see that continue, based on the Employment Equity Act that we have right now.

The government is failing to address its social responsibilities and only focusing on fiscal responsibilities. To this end, the government hasn't had time to judge the merits and success of the present legislation.

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The employment equity act, 1995, states that "Every person in possession of information collected from employees exclusively for the purpose of complying with part III of the Employment Equity Act, 1993 shall destroy the information as soon as reasonably possible after this act comes into force."

How can any plan work without information? What measures will be used to evaluate what the government is going to be calling now the equal opportunity plan? We would like to know what is the difference. We also need to know, where did the government get information that employment equity has not worked? It hasn't been given enough time.

The problem I have with Bill 8 is what's being proposed, and the problem we as a collective have is what's being proposed in Bill 8. Something is being dismantled. It hasn't been given a chance to work, but nothing has been put in its place. We need to know why.

The government of the province of Ontario is now setting us back 50 years in education, policing, the Human Rights Code, and any other act that relates to employment equity.

The Employment Equity Act creates an environment which takes a proactive approach to ensure fairness and equity. The Employment Equity Act came about after much consultation with the public, the voting public, private and community sectors, where everyone was involved with the NDP government at that time to set a clear mandate for social peace, for employment opportunities, equity and equality.

The Employment Equity Act provides an opportunity for addressing and taking an aggressive approach to breaking down all forms of barriers within employment. It supports the rights of all people to fully participate in the economic life of Ontario.

Ms Denise Brooks: Good afternoon. I was very pleased to be an active participant in the formulation of the employment equity legislation that is under repeal right now, and am very sad to have to be in a position to come here today to speak to this issue.

One of the most important things about the act is that indeed it is misleading. There is nothing to repeal in terms of job quotas because employment equity is not about job quotas, but I'm certain that everyone who is familiar with employment equity understands that. It's more of a mirroring in terms of image building around what happens in the United States, or has happened in the United States, with setting quotas. As a matter of fact, many employers still have not completed their employment equity plans, and certainly offering fair opportunity and creating a level playing field is not about quotas, but indeed about looking at merit and qualifications and skills.

The second part of that act, to talk about "restoring merit- based employment," implies something that's based on a lot of consultations that happened and are well documented in this province that speak to the fact that racism and discrimination is alive and well in the province of Ontario, and that to assume that employment equity is equal to people with less skills qualification or has less merit than any other system is a clear indicator and clear evidence of that sort of feeling and that sort of attitude that is prevalent across the province.

So in terms of thinking about what's happening with this act, we need to think about what is going to happen in this province, and why are we talking about repealing something that indeed has not gone into existence? There was no quota system in place. We want to know what is the government's position now in terms of creating a level playing field. Based on what information is this repealed? The consultations were quite extensive for the Employment Equity Act in its creation. How extensive have been the consultations to create Bill 8 and to involve community partners and people in the formulation of what would happen?

It's not about quotas; it's about opportunities. In light of the well-documented evidence both from community and from government representatives about the experiences of employment of people -- racial minorities, women, aboriginal people and the disabled -- throughout this province, how does the government plan to address those issues that are very real and very poignant that affect a significant membership of the Ontario province? I think that's quite important.

The plan identifies that it's going to ensure hiring and promotion that are based on merit, that they're going to help employers develop plans to ensure equal opportunity. This is an assumption of good faith and good feelings, and so far we have not been able to count on the goodwill of employers either in environmental issues or in employment equity issues. It has required some sort of legislative act to hold people accountable and responsible to the people who are in their environments, their communities and their workplaces.

The zero tolerance for discrimination: How will that be imposed? Who will be monitoring the zero tolerance for discrimination in the workplace?

To help the victims of discrimination faster and more efficiently by reforming the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which we know right now is a toothless body: We have very strong questions around, how do you make a toothless body something of meaning? Is it going to be independent? Is it going to have the right to impose sanctions? What form will that take? Right now we know there are backlogs, that they are going to look at case-by-case situations and thereby make it a subjective look at systemic problems, as opposed to looking at the systems that prohibit or exclude people from active and full participation. Is the government then proposing that employment equity now become a voluntary commitment, a voluntary action?

So we'd like to know, how does this plan differ from the present legislation? If the goals are the same, is the meaning different? Is the publicity around it different? Are we responding to people in the society who are putting forth some feelings based on their personal positions? We need to look at that. Voluntary participation is certainly inadequate. It hasn't created any change in the past and we have no indicators that it is going to create any change in the future.

I think if we draw examples from the environment recently, the Honourable Sheila Copps pointed out that only 30% of corporations who were asked to voluntarily do something about how they were engaging in environmental consciousness chose to do so. The other 70% had to be pointed out with some legislative guidelines.

Given the climate, what kind of educational supports are going to be in place? What kind of accesses will there be for the community, and how would this be implemented and effective anyway? How will you measure this act without having what has been formally identified as goals and time lines?

Furthermore, what about the consultation of communities? The citizens have come together prior to this to design a plan, and I think it's important and we believe it's important that when we're designing plans, we do involve the people for whom it is intended, that we don't sit outside and make decisions about others without their participation. Certainly, the consultation has not happened. What kind of review of audits has gone on to this point? Those are the kinds of things we would like to know. We'd like to know how the plan is going to be evaluated, what is the timetable, and how can equal opportunity be guaranteed?

The recommendations coming out of this are first of all that the name of the act definitely needs to be changed, because it is based on misinformation and is certainly misleading, and that the act must be adopted by the government so that employment barriers can be removed.

The Vice-Chair: We have approximately six minutes remaining; that's two per party. We'll start the questioning with Mr Sergio.

Mr Sergio: Are you the chairperson of the mayors' committee?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Yes, I co-chaired, with the mayor of Hamilton.

Mr Sergio: How extensive of communication have you had, meetings with the various communities in the Hamilton area?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: How extensively have we had meetings dealing with employment equity? Very extensive. When the previous government was in power, before the previous government was in power, and now that we have seen this, we are starting all over again. So a lot, very extensive.

Mr Sergio: So you are speaking on behalf of many organizations, I suppose.

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Yes, very much so. This was put together by the groups you saw at the front. Some couldn't be here, like the social planning and research council, which does a lot of research within the Hamilton-Wentworth region dealing with employment etc.

Mr Sergio: You have touched on the fact that the Human Rights Commission is very weak, very inefficient, and there is a backlog, and voluntary equity plans wouldn't be probably working. What makes you think that?

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Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Because history has shown us when we are dealing with equity that voluntarism doesn't work.

Mr Sergio: Have you had some experience with the Human Rights Commission?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Yes, I have, myself personally. When we're being hired for jobs, it has nothing to do with your credentials a lot of times. It's looking at me when I come through the door. That's enough experience for me and a lot of other people who look like me. That's simply enough.

Mr Sergio: You say "like you." What about other groups, let's say, women or handicapped?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Other groups, yes. Where there's some form of discrimination when it comes to hiring practices, we do need legislation in place that is going to be forced on employers because voluntarism hasn't worked and it's not going to start working now.

Ms Churley: As a New Democrat and as somebody who helped create this legislation, I'm quite aware, as you are, that this is not quota oriented.

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: That's right.

Ms Churley: In fact, there were many who wanted us to introduce quotas and we said no. So it's very disturbing to us to even have this in the title of the bill when we know it's misleading.

I want to ask you a direct question. In the black community and other equity-seeking groups, what does it do to you when that kind of misconception is out there, what is being said and was said in the election campaign, that those equity-seeking groups are asking for special treatment, that this is quota-based legislation and you are asking for special treatment? How does it make you feel? Do you think that does anything to help create a feeling of harmony between all of us to right this wrong?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Let's start out with the last and move up to the first. It doesn't create any form of harmony at all. What it does is destroy. It destroys your self-esteem, number one, because personally, as a black person, I'm highly educated, I'm qualified for work that I look for. I'm not going to be going out there looking for a surgeon's position if I'm not qualified to be a surgeon. What people from my community and I am sure other communities are asking for is the opportunity. Give us the opportunity to fail ourselves; don't tell us we're going to fail even before we are given the opportunity. It's that simple.

Ms Brooks: If I could just respond as well, in our organization we represent and serve many, many communities in the Hamilton area because we are a settlement and integration agency. We identify ourselves as an anti-racist organization, and when you ask me, "How does it make you feel?" it speaks very specifically to the heart of things, because it does speak to your qualifications. It makes it seem as though you're always having to apologize and to adjust and to do extra because it is assumed that just because you are not white or because you are not male or because you are not fully able that you are therefore equally not qualified and that whatever your credentials are, you don't have the same merit as everyone else. That's what a quota says.

But we can look around, in response to the other gentleman's question, and see that the proof indeed is in the pudding. When we look at levels of management, when we look at who are superintendents in the boards of education, who are the administrators, when we go into visible places where minorities and women and disabled people may be represented, the numbers themselves are visibly low. We need look no further than that. It is well documented. In addition to that as well, it is well documented. If the goodwill and good gestures of employers were going to look at everyone in a very equal fashion, we would see that the marketplace would indeed be reflective of the population of Ontario, which is very diverse. Since it is not --

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Sorry, I'm going to have to -- we're eating into the time of the government party.

Mr Young: What caught my interest is you said that there are no indicators for change in the future. I just want to look back a little bit at the history of Toronto. At the turn of the century, if you weren't Methodist or Anglican in Toronto, you almost didn't exist. You were nobody. When my father came to Toronto in 1920 as a little boy, it was the Irish who did all the construction. They came here and they took whatever jobs they could get. Then in the 1950s it was the Italians who came in and they took whatever jobs they could get. We know that Italians and Irish are right across every stratum of our society now. I think of my wife's father, who came from Ukraine in 1949, and it's the same thing: People study and they work hard and as individuals they work hard to get ahead. Over 50% of our university grads are women, over 50%, and women who graduate and go into the workplace are making within 1% as much money as males. So there has been tremendous progress and I'm very proud to live in this society.

Don't you hold any hope out for society without a law that forces employers to hire somebody by race?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: I'm going to respond to this. This is the very same reason why the Employment Equity Act must remain in place and be implemented, because of what you just said. You're talking about white-faced, which is already privileged -- quite.

When we're talking about the four target groups, these are people who are told constantly, "You have to double up." When I sent my kids to school, they always had to try harder, even though they are highly intelligent, they're A-plus students, and that's what we're talking about.

We need legislation in place. When you talk about hiring practices, when you go into the workforce -- again, as they said, who's being promoted? We do not want entry level jobs just to stay there. We are qualified and we want to be given the opportunity to be promoted for what we are suited for.

Mr Young: So do you think women as a group need the same level of protection?

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: Yes, women are also included --

The Vice-Chair: Mr Young, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to cut you off. You've gone beyond our time limits. I want to thank you for coming and appearing today and making your presentation.

Ms Thomas-Osbourne: You're welcome.

The Vice-Chair: I sense the demise of my time as Chair, so I'm going to turn things over.

POLICE ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO

The Chair: Representing the Police Association of Ontario, David Griffin. Welcome, David. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Question time will be divided evenly among the parties and we will start with the NDP when it's their turn.

Mr David Griffin: Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to appear today. I'll apologize right from the start, firstly, that I don't have any written submissions. Unfortunately, time hasn't permitted me to put anything together, but I think my points will be fairly brief, hopefully succinct and straightforward. And also, my colleagues who wanted to attend today couldn't because of scheduling conflicts. But in any event, I am here to appear on behalf of our organization today in support of Bill 8, as it relates to the provisions of the Police Services Act.I want to clarify that, that my comments don't relate, either pro or con, for the Employment Equity Act, but simply the Police Services Act as we have been regulated over the last five years.

In August of this year at our annual general meeting, we had approximately 200 delegates from across Ontario who unanimously adopted a resolution which called for the repeal of the provisions of the Police Services Act which deal with employment equity and the regulation itself.

By way of background, the Police Services Act was proclaimed in June of 1990 and section 48 of that legislation requires police forces to prepare employment equity plans. The legislation in section 48 clearly requires both goals and timetables which, in our view, are definite quotas, and requires that the plans be approved by the province through the Solicitor General.

Sections 17, 31 and 41 of the Police Services Act placed obligations on the chief of police, the commissioner of the OPP and local police services boards to establish and implement employment equity plans.

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The following year, Ontario Regulation 153, 1991, was passed and it required established timetables for the filing of employment equity plans and set out the requirements for our legislation. The details of the plan were mandated to include measures with respect to barrier elimination, composition goals, hiring goals, position or promotional goals, which again, in our view, were definite quotas, workforce surveys, positive measures, such as accelerated promotion, direct entry to management positions and specific designation of positions in the organization for prescribed groups.

The government bureaucracy that was created to support and administer these programs literally cost millions of dollars. Activities included grants and the use of consultants to develop supporting mechanisms for the local police services. There were significant resource requirements at the local level. Each police force, and there are 105 police forces currently in Ontario, was required to prepare its own plan which detailed the consultation within the community, detailed the measures that had been taken and statistically set out the composition of the force before the plan period, the measures and the actual movement of personnel during the plan period and the change in the workforce at the end of the plan period.

The reports themselves were quite abundant. Quite literally, an employment equity plan for a local police force would be about an inch and a half thick on legal-sized paper with all sorts of charts detailing the activities and the use of the prescribed methods.

In addition, the province initially mandated eight days of training for every member of the police force, training which, although we support philosophically, unfortunately there's not eight days of training available for any police activity and certainly there was a lack of balance with other policing needs.

Our position as an organization is that we support the goals which are set out in section 1 of the Police Services Act: firstly, the need for police forces to be sensitive to the pluralistic, multiracial and multicultural society and, secondly, to ensure police forces represent the communities they serve.

However, we do not believe that the employment equity regulation and the requirements under the Police Services Act were the means of achieving these goals. Firstly, the use of quotas certainly disadvantaged other members to the advantage of others, caused acrimony, sentiments of tokenism and perceptions of rewards not earned and reduced the confidence in managers who have been perceived to have been promoted for reasons other than their individual skill and merit.

We support the need for equitable hiring and promotional practices which are fair to everyone, and certainly as an organization representing approximately 23,500 rank-and-file police officers and civilian members of municipal police forces, we're not professing that the system of promotion or advancement in Ontario's police forces is perfect, but the means of correcting that is not to change the playing field to slant in any particular favour. We would certainly be prepared to work with the province in establishing systems that are fair to everyone.

We do not support the need for the intense monitoring and review that the Police Services Act system requires. Since the announcement of Bill 8, the province has announced that the activities of the race relations and policing unit of the ministry will be disbanded and we would suggest that savings which result from that should be reinvested in other programs.

The ministry can prescribe standards on practices for police services. Standards are currently prescribed for a number of different activities, including training, equipment and police practices. Certainly the ministry has the ability to establish standards for race relations, for equal opportunity and for the advancement of the disabled in our workplaces without the bureaucracy that was introduced through employment equity.

Police forces in Ontario have been striving and committed to the goals of the Police Services Act. It makes common sense that our police forces represent the communities that we serve and it makes sense that we're sensitive to everybody's needs in our communities.

Through the local police services boards, who are presently representative of municipal councils and members of the community that are appointed by the Solicitor General, there is an ability for civilian control of police services and for those civilian authorities to monitor future equal opportunity initiatives.

The elimination of Bill 8 will allow police forces to reallocate the resources that were dedicated to employment equity to other tasks, and in our view those resources again should be reinvested in our front-line police services.

Finally, the province does play the important role of overseeing Ontario's police forces to ensure that there's a basic and standard level of police service throughout the province. We urge the government to continue that through the use of police services boards that are comprised in their current fashion and through the increased use of standards and enforcement of those standards on a provincial basis.

The Chair: You've allowed about two and a half minutes per party for questions, beginning with Ms Lankin.

Ms Lankin: I was interested in reading through the record yesterday the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police appeared, and Jack Delcourt indicated that he didn't think there were in fact job quotas and his biggest concern was around the burden of record-keeping, which I hear is different than the position you're putting forward.

It interests me because as an association representing the officers, you indicated yourself that you need to represent all. You will have to admit that law enforcement is an area that has primarily been an employment area for men, that it's been a long time changing.

I speak from my own personal background, not being involved in police forces but being a correctional officer. I said in the Legislature that I was hired because I was a woman, because affirmative action and employment equity was in place. I kept my job because of merit. I could never have gotten in the door without some kind of program that forced them to look at me as a candidate. Believe me, I had university degrees, I had backgrounds, I had size, weight, strength; there wasn't much that they could take away on that side. I couldn't have got in there.

What I fail to understand about the position of the police association is how you're going to get from your goals that you generally support to actually seeing the changes in the workforce that you represent, being more reflective of their communities, without some kind of employment equity program that has some kind of teeth. Yes, that's fair, but it's got to have the ability to have plans, to have monitoring and to have record-keeping, and it seems to me that's what I hear from the police most often, combining your remarks with the chiefs of police: The burden of the record-keeping, the burden of the inch-and-a-half plan was too much. How are you going to get there without it?

Mr Griffin: I guess in response to the first point with respect to goals and timetables, clause 48(2)(c) of the act says that an employment equity plan shall provide for "specific goals and timetables with respect to the elimination of systemic barriers, the implementation of positive measures and" -- I reinforce this point -- "the composition of the police force." The word that's used is "goals," not "quotas," but certainly in our view it's equivalent to the use of quotas.

With response to how do we get there, I guess I would respond two ways.

Firstly, I think we get there by certainly promoting it and we see that's something that does not disappear with the elimination of the employment equity regulation as we see it. It's set out right in section 1 of the act, which is I guess the mission statement for the Police Services Act.

Secondly, I think that society has changed even in the last five years, but certainly more so in the last 15 years, that people from backgrounds and women, people from the targeted groups, may be more inclined than they were 15 or 20 years ago to seek a career in the police force.

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The Chair: I'm going to have to cut off the answer to conserve some time.

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): My question goes back to the previous questioner on the issue of quotas. It seems rather ironic that one group comes in and says that it's not quotas and another group says that it is quotas. I'm just wondering how you would define any kind of plan that has numerical targets that one is obligated to meet; if you could define that, or how we could accomplish that, without creating quotas of course, quotas being something that is a target.

Being from the country, we produce a lot of milk where we come from. In fact it's regulated by quotas. Now, the farmer's not guaranteed he can produce that, but the number is set, what it is he is going to try to achieve every day. It would seem to me in this process that when we're talking about the numerical targets, I find it difficult to see that that would not be a quota. Could you explain, or would you have any idea how we could achieve numerical targets without it being a quota, imposed or voluntary?

Mr Griffin: I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding what I'm being asked, but I guess if the point is, do we have quotas or do we not, to reinforce what has been occurring a survey was taken of the workforce. The responses, then, or the composition of the police force was compared to the composition of the community and it was ranked position-specific. Where those numbers in the police force did not coincide with the numbers for the community, you had to set out how you were going to get there and numerically establish targets for that planned period, based on the changes you expected in that particular category.

So certainly, I guess, our experience would suggest that you can't do it without setting out specific quotas. The goals, in our view, were in fact quotas.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the concerns you've expressed about numerical goals, so I don't want to talk about quotas in my question. But I would like to take you back to five years ago. You said that over the course of the last five years that the changes to the Police Services Act were in place you have seen real changes in the makeup of the police forces, changes that I think would fit with the kinds of objectives that you've set out.

I guess I have to ask you, do you think it was purely coincidental that those kinds of changes developed over the course of the last five years? If it didn't have any relationship to the changes in the police act at all, what was it that brought about the changes in the makeup of the police force over the last five years? Lastly, do you think it's gone far enough?

Mr Griffin: I would be, I think, lying if I didn't suggest that the act did have some impact on policing by mandating it as opposed to encouraging it. But I think there have also, as I said earlier, been changes in society as well, and certainly the act was introduced at a period where there was considerable turmoil between the black community and the police community. I think this was sort of introduced as a means of trying to put some of the concerns to rest.

But, in our view, I think it went too far in doing that by introducing onerous requirements and not necessarily dealing with problems or perceived problems, but slapping on a solution and saying that would make it better. I don't think it does anything to eliminate discrimination in the workplace. I don't think it does anything to support people who are interested in seeking a career in law enforcement but have some concerns as to how they're going to be received.

It certainly, I think, reinforces a climate that the police are not interested in having members from the different groups on their police forces, and the opportunity to establish that that's not the case is welcomed.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Griffin, for your presentation. We appreciate your interest in our process.

Ms Churley: On a quick point of order, Mr Chair: I'd like to ask Mr Hardeman, is this government going to get rid of milk quotas next, and how does he feel about that?

The Chair: I'm not sure it's a point of order.

Mr Hardeman: All I'm just trying to say is they're both quotas.

Ms Churley: I just couldn't resist.

URBAN ALLIANCE ON RACE RELATIONS

The Chair: Representing the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Antoni Shelton. Welcome, gentlemen. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time you leave for questions will begin with the government. The floor is yours. Would you introduce yourselves, please, so the lady from Hansard can record your names properly.

Mr Antoni Shelton: Absolutely, Mr Chair and members of Parliament. My name is Antoni Shelton. I'm the executive director of a community organization, Urban Alliance on Race Relations. Sitting right next to me is a key volunteer for our organization, Mr Patrick Clement.

It is our hope to use the 20 minutes wisely, which is to leave most of the time for a discourse with you, the members of Parliament. However, we do have a few comments that we would like to enter into the record since we are an organization which for our 20-year history has been known to publish and to have done studies in this particular area. Unfortunately, our expertise is confined to 20 minutes. However, we do remain an open-door organization in terms of providing any consultation information that the government might want in the near future.

I'm going to turn it over to Patrick at this point.

Mr Patrick Clement: Good afternoon. First of all, the point I would like to address is that the government feels that it's getting rid of a quota bill. I'm rather puzzled, as many of the other people before you have been, that this has been called a quota bill. It seems fairly clear to me that we're not talking quotas here at all and that perhaps the problem is that the government members merely need a dictionary and we could save ourselves this whole process of getting rid of this bill. If the government realized what it was dealing with, it might rethink its stand.

Having grown up on a dairy farm, I would like to point out that, as all of this province's dairy farmers realize, with a milk quota you cannot produce more milk than that quota sets out; it's concrete. You can produce it but you won't be paid. That is very different from if we had a scheme in place which said that this is a milk marketing board which set out goals for farmers to reach. Goals are flexible. Goals are open to compromise. Goals are pragmatic. Quotas come from on high and land on top of you with a thud. I think this was referred to earlier.

One of the great ironies here, of course, is that there are a lot of people who wanted quotas. They were quite bitter when they didn't get quotas in this bill. It does seem that sometimes you can't win for losing.

Another position, of course, that the government has taken in putting forward Bill 8 is that it will allow the merit system to kick in. My question is, what merit system? What it does allow to kick back in is the status quo. If you believe that the status quo is working as far as merit goes, then you'll be happy with Bill 8. However, if you also believe that merit is important and equity is important, you will be suffering from delusions.

If you look around the corridors of power, whether in government or in private business, the reality is that today females, native Canadians, people of colour and the disabled are not represented equally and they're not represented fairly. If one looks at the fact that these loftier positions generally are accompanied by higher wages and more power, then common sense would dictate that it is not merit that keeps these individuals from rising up to that level unless they have an innate desire to stay at the bottom.

I'm assuming, of course, that nobody in this room would think that there are innate inferiorities among certain groups. So if these people aren't rising to the top, then why aren't they? Common sense would tell me that there are outside forces or systemic problems that are keeping them down.

I want to be a bit pre-emptive here in that during an earlier submission I noted that Mr Young responded that the government's dedication to equity is not on its way out, that it is merely a cumbersome law which is on its way out. In actual fact, the government may continue to believe in equity as an abstract concept, but it is only common sense that replacing something concrete that can get you to that goal of equality with abstract platitudes is not a step forward if you believe in equity and if you believe in merit.

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I'd also briefly like to say, what are we getting rid of here? When employment equity rested on this whole idea, the whole thrust towards employment equity was that the status quo is not acceptable, that there is inequity in employment in Ontario today.

Secondly, it was the people's belief who advocated for employment equity at the time that if a government is ideally situated to change something, to make things better, to improve this province, then it shouldn't just sit on its hands and hope that the patterns of the previous 2,000 years will perhaps eventually cure this problem. Instead it should get off its butt and do something about it, and that's what this bill attempted to do.

Finally, the premise underlined is that it is possible to achieve true merit-based employment by requiring the stakeholders, that is the employers, labour, employees, the government, to sit down and together establish what goals you can have. Once again, it's only common sense that if you don't have any goals you're not going to get to where you want to go because you don't know where you're going, and that's all that these goals were.

If we look at the Lieutenant Governor in Council's ability to set goals through regulation which reflect the population, that is merely one of the stakeholders stepping in. Why shouldn't the government have a role in that? It is a major force in this province, as it is throughout the world. Governments are forces, and either they have to be for the gods or they're against them.

What I find most galling about this whole process and the position of this government is the fact that here's a government which says to everyone that we're here to get government out of your faces, yet here we have employers who have bona fide gone out and collected very valuable data on who makes up their employees, and this government, the government that is going to take this hands-off attitude, is going to step in and destroy that data. There's absolutely no commonsensical, rational reason for that unless where this government wants to take us is a place where equity in this province is not strengthened but actually is weakened from the status quo so that we don't even have the status quo.

Finally, I noted that Mr Young referred to the usual chestnut about Irish forebears coming to this country, working hard, and look at where they are now. Well, first of all, previous speakers have addressed this better than I, visible minorities do not face identical barriers to the Irish ancestors that some of us may have had. But that's not my point.

My point is that if you look at the construction industry back when these Irish forebears came to Canada, they were using picks and shovels to dig building foundations. Now, I'm certain that this government is not going to go down to the Metro Convention Centre and say to the builders of that construction site that you're now going to have to use picks and shovels to dig this hole for the foundation just because the forebears did it. When you own an excavator you don't turn around and start using a pick and shovel.

What this government is proposing is to take a valuable tool, something that we've learned. We look at history, we learn, we move ahead, we do things differently than we did in 1920. Just as construction workers don't use picks and shovels, today's government of Ontario should not be relying on business as usual so that they can adopt the hands-off attitude and do nothing.

The Chair: Thank you. We have about three minutes per party left for questions, beginning with Mr Clement for the government.

Mr Tony Clement: Did you have something else you wanted to say, sir?

Mr Shelton: No, I prefer it to be within the questions, but the one issue that, of course, rings in my mind is why this government, in the context of quotas, is not addressing the quotas that are set by professional associations such as the medical association.

Mr Clement: That's a very good point and certainly we've heard that from a number of other depositions and our commitment is to deal with that in due course.

I did want to get back to the issue of quotas though. Although we've been talking about dairy farms, I'm not going to be cowed by that topic and I do want to address it again. It's Friday, and my humour is not good on Friday.

I wanted to refer back to something I said last night, referring the committee to subsection 55(2) of Bill 79, which seems to suggest that in certain circumstances the government does have the ability under that legislation to mandate numerical percentage requirements for employers that would be mandatory. Does that not sound like a quota to you, sir?

Mr Shelton: Not when it's based upon the company setting, within the context of its plans -- representation, yes, but based upon new hires. If you've got no more new hires, then very clearly the legislation allows for that goal not to be met. But if you have new hires, the legislation says it should be done in this even-handed way. But it's for the company to demonstrate that it had new hires where it had an opportunity. No new hires, no quota.

Ms Bassett: What I'm concerned about is that I've come around to the belief that to bring about a change in such a sensitive area as male-female or race relations in the workplace, you need a consensus in public opinion. It's getting into the whole backlash idea. We got that consensus in the election. I wonder how you feel, if maybe it's better to go ahead with our plan? We do have a concrete equal opportunity plan, or it will be concrete in the new year, but it won't be legislated. I know what you're saying; I hear that. Could you just say what you think about the tremendous backlash? That's been totally unacceptable to me, but it is there.

Mr Shelton: I think this backlash is something that has been partly fed by the media hype. A lot of us receive this information, not from our neighbours but through the media, and we all know that the media put certain spins on stories.

Ms Bassett: But do you need the consensus?

Mr Shelton: One of the issues that doesn't come out is that this bill was supported by labour.

Ms Bassett: But do you think to go ahead making the changes is better with a consensus of opinion behind you, rather than always fighting the backlash that seems to have developed, not just with the election but over the past couple of years?

Mr Shelton: As I said, Ms Bassett, in terms of the confrontation, we believe Bill 8 doesn't answer your question but sends a message to many minorities that this government is turning its back on them.

Mrs Pupatello: It's interesting that a political party actually encouraged and furthered that backlash in the last campaign.

If you could have proposed amendments to Bill 79 to deal with some of the issues employers took, what would they have been?

Mr Shelton: We were an organization, as was mentioned by Patrick, where some people called for quotas, and we believed that goals and timetables was a commonsensical and sound approach to take. We believed there were issues in terms of implementation that needed to be worked out, for example the relationship between the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Employment Equity Commission, especially in terms of compliance.

However, as we've said consistently, we believe that through consultation this process needed an opportunity to be put to the test. It hasn't had an opportunity to do that.

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Ms Churley: I just want to address the comment from Ms Bassett on the backlash. It's not surprising that there's some kind of backlash during a terrible recession when people are terrified about losing jobs and not being able to get jobs, but it doesn't help when during an election a particular party, in this case the Conservative Party, goes out and feeds that backlash and talks about quotas and the fact that a white person is not going to get a job because the black person next door to him is going to get it simply because he's black. I want to make that very clear. That has been a big problem.

I want to cut right to the chase. This government is going to go ahead and repeal this bill. What kind of resources, financial and others, would you say this government must put into any kind of voluntary system it puts in place for a voluntary system to work at all?

Mr Shelton: I would quite clearly say that my limited experience with the supposedly equal opportunity plan was that very soon after the election I wrote to the Premier to ask him to outline his at least principle at that point around equal opportunity. It was then referred to his Minister of Citizenship, who unfortunately never got around to answering our letter as referred by the Premier. Then two weeks ago we were visited by a consultant who had been contracted by the Ministry of Citizenship to consult with us around equal opportunity. What this consultant eventually put on the table was something that I felt was quite cynical and could be best characterized as voodoo social policy, to the extent that it was information-gathering for employers on areas of diversity and human rights.

In 1995, I don't care what kind of resources I could talk about in that context; it provided no framework on which to hang the resources. My colleague who just spoke, from the police services association, quite clearly and bluntly he should be able to say, "We do not need Bill 79 because we've achieved equity" and put the data on the table. It was as simple as that. Unfortunately, he never mentioned once his data in terms of achieving equity, yet wanted to withdraw Bill 79. That is the kind of cynicism that we believe goes to the root, pulling away something and replacing it with porridge.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We appreciate you taking the time to be involved in our process and making a presentation.

Mrs Pupatello: Mr Chair, on a point of order: One of your colleagues indicated a particular statistic and used it in an argument about the difference in wage between women and men being only 1%. Unfortunately, now it's in the record, but he has agreed that it is false. In fact, he's taken that from an article --

The Chair: You will get a chance to put it into the record when it's your turn. It's not a point of order.

Mrs Pupatello: Can we enter the correct information into the record?

The Chair: It's not a point of order. If you want to introduce some other information when you get a chance, you're welcome to do that, but it's not a point of order.

Mrs Pupatello: Can we do that now?

The Chair: It's not a point of order.

MARTIN LONEY

The Chair: Next is Martin Loney, social policy consultant. Mr Loney's brief was handed out to the committee on Friday, so he doesn't have another handout today.

Mr Martin Loney: Perhaps I should introduce myself. I have a PhD from the London School of Economics. I've written a number of books on social policy and race relations. I have a grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation to research the area of employment equity. I'm basically here to rain on the parade of those who would tell you that Canadian society is characterized by grossly discriminatory behaviour in the labour market.

I think one of the more amazing things about this whole debate is that committees like this see representatives of groups who claim to speak for the vast majority of the population: the Canadian Labour Congress, all visible minorities, all women.

Why don't we look at polling data? How many people actually support the legislation? How many people's lived experience leads them to believe that we need something like Bill 79? The overwhelming majority of the population are members of designated groups under Bill 79, yet only 20% of the population actually supported the legislation. That might tell you something.

If we look at the kind of data which are adduced to show discrimination in the Canadian labour market -- I presented evidence to the Senate social affairs committee on the same issue, which is with the minister's office, and contains a lot more detail than I can give to the committee -- we find that generally what is being compared is not like with like. It is not visible minorities born in Canada with other Canadians; it is groups which are overwhelmingly composed of first-generation immigrants with other Canadians. Then we discover -- surprise, surprise -- that they don't make quite as much money.

What we have created, in part through employment equity, is an industry which goes out looking for evidence of discrimination. If you give people $70,000 a year and tell them to find evidence of discrimination, it is not surprising that they come back with it. If they didn't, they might lose their jobs. If we get rid of the Office of the Employment Equity Commissioner, we will still have a large number of other people active in this industry in the Ontario government.

The Ontario women's directorate distributes a broadsheet called Focus on Racial Minority Women. In that you will read, backed with all the authority of the Ontario government, that women of colour, visible minority women, experience intentional and systemic discrimination.

How are we to reach that conclusion? Let's look at labour market income data. What are the data on which this conclusion is based? Visible minority women, who as I said are disproportionately first-generation immigrants, make 6.6% less than other women. One might think, on examining a statistic like that, given that these are a group disproportionately with less seniority in the labour market, younger, less likely to have Canadian qualifications, less likely to be fluent in English, that the outcome would be far, far greater; that 6.6% as a gap indicates an overwhelming success in the labour market, indicates an absence of discrimination.

How do we know that Ontario, as it stated in Bill 79, engages in systemic and intentional discrimination? Did the Ontario government actually investigate this? Did they consider research? Did they commission research? The answer is no. They simply assumed that it existed.

Within the Stephen Lewis report, and I deal with this extensively in my evidence, we find a number of claims about the failure of the Ontario public service to treat on an equal basis members of racial minorities. Let's look at the figures. Management Board has the figures. The figures are entirely contrary to what Mr Lewis claimed.

He tells us that racial minorities are marginalized from political staff in ministers' offices. Let's look at the figures: One in five are racial minorities. They're not marginalized at all.

He tells us of failings in the education system. Let's look at the figures. Statistics Canada shows no indication whatsoever that racial minorities are unsuccessful in gaining entrance to university. At the PhD level, they are represented at twice the number in the broader population.

I believe there was some issue earlier about earnings of graduates and a figure about the difference between men and women. There is a Statistics Canada publication, 1990 data, that shows that women graduates, when hours of work are taken into account, earn slightly more than male graduates.

These are facts. These are not things which are simply plucked from, as it were, one's experience: "This is the way it is because we know it is." We know it is because we look at the facts, we look at the data, and the data don't tell us that we require legislation of this nature in order to ensure that we have a fair outcome.

I'll stop at that point. I'm open to questions.

Mrs Pupatello: Basically, you're telling me that you don't believe there is any type of discrimination against women in Canada and in Ontario.

Mr Loney: If I said that, it would be a truly unbelievable statement. That's not what I said. I said that if we look at the data, we do not find that this is a defining characteristic of the Canadian labour market, and that when we compare like and like, as in the case for example of three PhD cohorts, we find over a 12- or 15-year period that women earn the same as men.

Mrs Pupatello: If I may, earlier one of your colleagues, Mr Chair, mentioned a statistic that was false. What he said was that the difference in wages between men and women at a graduate level was a 1% difference. What he meant to say was that all single women working full-time earned 96% as much as their male counterparts in 1993, and a particular age group of 35 to 44, all of which he failed to mention, and now we have that on record. Don't you think that the mere fact that a stats group collecting data having to delve into so many variables in order to collect it, to find the area where they're actually close to par, is an indication that every other level between men and women in fact is very, very not equal?

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Mr Loney: I think what one finds there is that people's earnings are very much influenced by their marital status. Families make decisions collectively which maximize the benefit they get from child care, domestic work, labour market participation and so forth, and that to believe that if there was no discrimination men and women would be equal everywhere in every place, I believe, is quite wrong.

I don't not believe that with no discrimination, women will be queuing up in Yellowknife to work in the gold mine. I simply don't believe it to be the case, nor do I believe that the fact that men working in the gold mine get $100,000 a year and women working as airline booking clerks get $25,000 a year is an indication of discrimination.

The Chair: Any further questions from the NDP -- or excuse me, the Liberals?

Ms Churley: There is a difference.

Mr Sergio: Do we have time? I have lots of questions.

The Chair: You've got about another minute. Do you want to use it?

Mr Sergio: Yes, of course. Absolutely. In the absence of any legislation which would give some guidelines to employers, how would you go about protecting the minority groups, handicapped, women and so forth?

Mr Loney: As I made clear in the written evidence, I believe that there is a different situation facing aboriginals and people who are disabled. I think one can show there is historic disadvantage for aboriginals; clearly, some people definitionally who are disabled have employment barriers and I believe that those should be addressed.

Having said that, I think --

Mr Sergio: I'm sorry, how would you address them?

Mr Loney: I said I believe those should be addressed, but the focus of my evidence, is on women and visible minorities, where I simply do not believe the case has been made.

I do believe that individual employers discriminate and I do believe that should be subject to punitive prosecution. I think if you want to deal with that, you have to deal with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which nobody has yet managed to do. It is clearly not an effective body. It's a highly political body.

Mr Sergio: We had a number of people saying that the Human Rights Commission is ineffective and inefficient. How would you deal with those cases, then?

Mr Loney: I would have to look at the Ontario Human Rights Commission. I would have to look at reconstituting it. I would have to look at the competence of the staff who are employed. I would have to look at the commissioners who are making the judgements.

Ms Lankin: In this imperfect world in which we live, we sometimes try to fashion the best solutions to problems that are available to us. It seems to me you're suggesting with respect to visible minorities and women that any problems that are experienced are individual in nature and should be dealt with either as an individual victim of discrimination or an individual perpetrator -- one employer -- and through an individual source of remedy, being a more effective Human Rights Commission. Quite frankly, that doesn't accord with my experience in the world.

I'm interested in all of what you've said; it seems to be statistically and data-based. Have you done any research that is -- I'm not sure what the appropriate terminology would be -- qualitative research that would deal with individuals' experiences, or do you simply dismiss that as not being statistically based and therefore not being empirical enough for you to suggest that governments, which are public policymakers, should respond to what we see as a real concern?

Mr Loney: Firstly, I would have to say that the reason that governments see it as a real concern is, in significant measure, because they hand out larger sums of money to people who tell them it's a significant concern.

Secondly, I don't think it's simply an individual question. The argument I'm making is that you cannot provide the evidence for the claims which are made by advocacy groups regarding systemic discrimination. People will tell you, "Why only in management?" I will tell you, look at the statistics -- 8% visible minorities compared to 10% as a whole. This is a remarkable success for a group which is 83% first-generation immigrants. This is far more success than the Irish that we were talking about earlier or the Ukrainians ever had.

Ms Lankin: Could I just ask you two or three quick questions. You see no need for employment equity legislation, is that correct?

Mr Loney: I believe employment equity legislation has had the pernicious consequence of creating and enforcing the racial divisions it claims to deal with.

Ms Lankin: I take it your answer is yes?

Mr Loney: Yes.

Ms Lankin: Okay. Could I ask you if you feel the same with respect to pay equity legislation?

Mr Loney: No, but I believe in the case of pay equity we should have been looking at, if people were being paid too much, to take from them and give to those who were being paid too little, not to borrow more money on the deficit and give everybody more money.

Ms Lankin: But you do believe that there is a gender gap in wages that could be statistically proven and that some legislative --

Mr Loney: In some cases, but I don't believe that all gender gaps in wages are a function of discrimination or inequity, no. I gave the example of the miner and the clerk.

Ms Lankin: I don't believe that any legislation suggested that to be the case.

Mr Loney: No, and I'm answering your question, that there are areas of pay inequity but they're not as pervasive as is widely believed and often we are not comparing similar jobs. When one does compare contemporary cohorts, as for example in a report into the federal civil service, one finds that contemporary cohorts of men and women have outcomes which are very similar relative to their qualifications.

Ms Lankin: I think that the last question that I want to come back to which I don't believe you answered is, one of the problems I have with a lot of the statistical data that is presented to legislators, pro and con these various issues, is the way in which the data is calculated and of course the way in which it's interpreted. I would argue that there's an industry for people doing your sorts of research to support those who don't want to see these kinds of legislation as much as your comment that the reason we hear these things is because grants are given to those groups.

I still want to come back to an understanding of the individual's experiences and when, in your mind, does that total itself up to be a systemic experience, because I can tell you, over the years, not just what I've heard but what I've experienced and what I know from friends and colleagues, and here I'm talking about gender discrimination, you couldn't show me statistics that would convince me that it hasn't existed. So I'm wondering if you have done that kind of research, or do you think that that is just not at all helpful to public policymaking.

Mr Loney: If I'm a member of an industry, I have yet to meet another member of it. The statistics I use are overwhelmingly derived from work by people who actually believe in employment equity, and as I show in the evidence I gave to the Senate, you find enormous contortions when people are confronted with the fact that the data they have doesn't support the conclusion they started out with.

I have personal, direct experience of discrimination based on the fact that I am an able-bodied white male. It is actually quite pervasive now in certain sectors of society that if you're an able-bodied white male, "We already have too many of them, I'm sorry."

Ms Lankin: That's very helpful to know.

Mr Young: For the record, to my colleague opposite, Mrs Pupatello, we are all colleagues here. I don't think the delegations care what party we're from. We're all working towards the same end. I did mention a statistic that was somewhat selective. I want to add to it, and it was a sentence that you didn't finish when you were reading from the article that I just gave you, because we have to work together. "In the same category of single, working women, full-time, age 35 to 44, women actually earn more." Now that's 1993 StatsCan figures; in 1995 the figure could even be higher. So that's worth correcting.

Also I take exception to Mrs Churley's comment, and it's a very serious accusation and I'd like to know the source of it. You said that Conservatives were campaigning in our election saying that the black person got the job so the white person wouldn't. I'd like to know who said it, because I never said it and I don't know any of my colleagues did, and I think it's cheap politics.

The Chair: Mr Young, would you confine your question to the presenter, please.

Mr Young: I'd like to ask the delegation, our economy has been stagnant and the larger employers, 50 employees and more, haven't been hiring. In fact, they've been decreasing the number of employees. Whether you call it a goal or a percentage or a quota, does it not make sense to measure percentage of new hires to see if employers are being fair as opposed to a percentage of total employees?

Mr Loney: That would be the exact figure that one should be looking for, and I think the fact that that's not the figure which is characteristically used is indicative of the egregious way in which the employment equity industry uses figures. That is the right figure to use, yes, if one needs to collect that data.

Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre): Miss Martin, who's writing a series of articles in the Toronto Star -- she's a journalist -- was here last evening and among the other submissions that she made, she said that the primary factor in determining the composition of a labour force in a particular area is demographic. Is that statistically so?

Mr Loney: Yes, but it's also a historic construct. If you want to know why white males do so well when you look at the upper echelons, you have to go back to the recruitment period. You have to say, "In 1960, who were we hiring and who's been here 30 years?" And of course seniority, which is a great trade union principle, guarantees that those who are here after 30 years are moving up and those who just started are not catching up, obviously. You don't suddenly arrive, as it were, in the Toronto school board and say: "Well, now we have 50% of the population in Metro Toronto a visible minority. Why aren't 50% of the teachers? Must be discrimination." When were these teachers hired? Who was there? Who was applying?

The Metro Toronto school board has had a world-class record in fighting racism and having intelligent policies about a multi-ethnic, multiracial society, yet at some point the debate turned on its head and people began to denounce it as a racist organization on the basis of the specious argument that they didn't have the right quota of teachers.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Loney. We appreciate your attendance and your interest in our process.

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CANADIAN FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS

The Chair: The next presenters are on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: Catherine Swift, the president, and Judith Andrew, the director of provincial policy. Welcome to our process. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. If there's time for questions, they'll begin with the NDP.

Ms Catherine Swift: Thank you very much. We would like to take as little time as we can manage for our presentation and leave as much time for questions, so we'll try to be brief. We very much appreciate the opportunity to be here.

As I suspect you probably know, we're an organization that represents small and medium-sized businesses across Canada. We currently have approximately 85,000 small and medium-sized business members across Canada, half of whom are under five employees in terms of size, 80% of whom have less than 20 employees, and that is pretty much reflective of the business community. In Ontario, we have about 40,000 members in all sectors, again reflective of those size numbers that I mentioned earlier.

As you probably know as well and as I think was alluded to in the previous questioning a little bit, these days virtually all of the net new job creation is coming from this sector of the economy. Through the 1980s our sector represented about 80% and we find these days, when things are leaner, it's actually all of the net job creation. So, as a result, the views of this sector are quite important for the economy overall, not to mention the sector itself.

The CFIB membership is very supportive of the government's plan to follow through on its pre-election commitment to repeal the Employment Equity Act. We've been involved very much in this debate since the early days around 1989 when it began under the Liberal government at that time, and our position has very much been consistent, based on the views of our members that legislating employment equity is not workable for the small-business community and we don't believe it's really that workable to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity generally in the workplace. But certainly for our sector that's the case.

Our members very much, of course, are advocates for the elimination of discrimination and the promotion of equality of opportunity in employment and elsewhere in our society. We believe also, from our experience dealing with small business owners, small businesses have a particular ability to empathize with the hurtful effects of discrimination, since often a very small business finds in a legislative context, in dealing with big players such as big governments and big banks and so on, they are frequently themselves subject to a different kind of discrimination, but nevertheless they certainly can empathize with those types of situations.

We believe that the solution to discrimination in society is multifaceted and that it is evident now that the job of changing attitudes in the community is a long-term process which requires a number of elements -- certainly sensitivity on the part of all players. We feel that education on the issues and the various ways of addressing them is key to achieving the necessary changed attitudes and the regulatory approach which produces a lot of compliance problems, paperwork, concerns about reverse discrimination and so on often risks hardening attitudes instead of really ultimately changing them, because the only success we'll have as a society will be if we really alter attitudes.

We'd also like to highlight that one of the priorities on the surveys that we do with our members is consistently the shortage of qualified labour. Small business owners and managers are well aware that attracting and retaining good employees are pivotal to their own success, and although they certainly have less scope than other organizations to engage in capricious employment practices for these reasons as well, naturally our member businesses very frequently are operating every day, all day, right beside their employees, and they're certainly a very different work environment than you would find in a very hierarchical corporation.

Through our work in this area, for example, we've been told by organizations representing the disabled that many of their successes in job placement have happened in smaller firms, and we think that's very much the case for the other groups that were targeted by this legislation as well.

Ms Judith Andrew: We were pleased that the former government, and in particular the former minister and the Employment Equity Commissioner, were willing to engage in extensive consultation with our organization. We believe that they genuinely attempted to take into account the smaller business realities when they were fashioning their Bill 79.

Nevertheless we were concerned at the time, and we remain concerned, about a mandatory interventionist approach contained in the Employment Equity Act. We certainly understood that the Employment Equity Act reflected the former government's commitment to the principle of equity in employment. In fact, we certainly agree with the principle, but we didn't think it would be possible to translate that principle into a fair and workable piece of legislation, and we felt that proved to be the case in terms of the serious failings of the legislation that was ultimately passed into law.

I guess, from our small business members' perspective, the number one serious failing is onerous regulatory burdens. When you're creating a brand-new regulatory scheme, this obviously means new compliance requirements, and when you have very prescriptive regulations, often those don't mesh very well with the small-firms sector.

I would just draw your attention at this point to a piece that's in the side pocket of your folder entitled The Ontario Employment Equity Checklist. Just to give you a feel for what was involved with the Employment Equity Act, this is just a listing of what needed to be done, and it's a four-page foldover format. You can see that when you get down to the right on page 3, "Prepare a record," in terms of the detail on the data that are required by occupational group, by gender and so forth, you're getting into some fairly complex detailed requirements. So this would just give you a feel for what's involved there and why we're concerned about the regulatory burden.

I think another major concern is the subordination of individual rights in favour of equity group rights, which was contained in the language of the legislation and the regulations. I guess the most obvious example of that is the principle that was contained in paragraph 2 of section 2 of the Employment Equity Act, which stated that:

"2. Every employer's workforce, in all occupational categories and at all levels of employment, shall reflect the representation of aboriginal people, people with disabilities, members of racial minorities and women in the community."

This of course suggests a highly regulated, quota-driven approach, and it suggests population data rather than availability data. Of course, substantive provisions in the legislation did deal with some of those issues, but the fact of the matter is the language was really directed in that direction.

One comment we made when Bill 79 was passed was that the legislation failed to state that the employers have the right to hire and promote on the basis of qualifications, basically the merit principle, and that no one would be expected to terminate or demote existing employees in order to realize objectives. That was not stated categorically in the legislation, and that, we felt, was a major failing.

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We were concerned very much about the establishment of a large new government bureaucracy with a budget of over $9 million. This bureaucracy had wide-ranging powers under the act, many of which would be conflicting in terms of the same organization that was giving the support and educational functions also having the power to audit, effect settlements, issue orders and file and prosecute complaints. I think the most serious concern we had about the bureaucracy was that with the requirement to file detailed statistical reports at various intervals, this suggested that the commission was going to build its own statistical database, and this of course would be duplicative in terms of federal census data and other data sources.

The mandatory requirement to set numerical goals and timetables, which applied to firms having 100 or more employees, and to submit those reports, which was enforced by a government bureaucracy under the threat of $50,000 fines, many would say is a quota system. Obviously it would have depended on how the commission administered it and the decisions of the tribunal.

Our concerns go directly to the heart of the legislation, and these are the reasons why CFIB supports the Ontario government's decision to repeal the Employment Equity Act by way of Bill 8. We certainly approve of the government's replacement policy, which was described by Minister Mushinski in her statement as "non-legislative, non-intrusive, cost-effective and built on partnerships."

I should advise you that our organization is very interested in this area. We've already participated in a brainstorming session in connection with the three components of the new policy. You will know what the three components are, but our session covered important areas such as resource materials, information services, communications/outreach, best practices/role modelling and training and workshops.

Certainly we made the point that for small businesses the initiatives in equal opportunity have to be very practical and easily available when needed. For example, a small business person endeavouring to hire a person with a disability and in need of advice on how to accommodate that disability would need to have that provided on a just-in-time basis.

Also, I would note in the past that CFIB has been involved in equity/diversity promotion initiatives. We've participated in an advisory capacity with the Ontario women's directorate and with TVO on various projects. I also have enclosed in the package for your information the other page, which is entitled Ontario Employment Equity: Implications for Employers, and this one was forwarded to all our members last year. I think it's important to note that the author we commissioned to do this for us positioned the initiative as a management principle designed to make employment management and relationships more effective, and this was done deliberately, rather than positioning it as a compliance objective. So we have done considerable work in this area and this particular piece would have been distributed to our 40,000 members.

I'd like to make reference just briefly to the Human Rights Code, which is the legal foundation for the new policy, and draw your attention to CFIB's suggestion for financial assistance for small businesses facing expensive accommodations. When you think of it, it is really quite unfair that one small firm would be having to shoulder the entire cost of an expensive accommodation. Most accommodations aren't expensive, but every once in a while there is an expensive one. In this regard, CFIB is concerned about the so-called brink-of-bankruptcy test that the Ontario Human Rights Commission applies. Basically, this is their test for finding out whether the cost of the accommodation is bringing the firm to the point of undue hardship. We call it "brink of bankruptcy" and we believe it is a mistake for the government policy to so weaken a small firm. We would encourage that this issue be reviewed in the context of the new equal opportunity policy development.

I guess a final point here is that the workplace equal opportunity plan needs to be cost-effective and based in economic reality. Certainly, government's role in this sphere, beyond the facilitation and provision of direct initiatives in employment equity, is the mandate to create conditions where private sector, small-business job creators can actually grow and prosper and provide increased employment opportunities for Ontarians generally. This mandate is very broad. It includes the need to reduce smaller firms' total tax burden and their regulatory and paper burden so that these impediments are not standing in the way of small business job creation.

We appreciate the opportunity and we're happy to answer your questions.

The Chair: Okay, we have enough time for one quick question each, starting with --

Ms Lankin: That's not fair. I have so much that I want to ask you about and so many comments I want to make.

The Chair: A minute and a half.

Ms Lankin: I'm going to try to boil it down to two quick questions.

First, the destruction of data that currently exist, given the efforts that you're making with your membership and those particular members who are covered by the old legislation, because many weren't as a result of your very effective work: Do you think they should be allowed to keep the data? Does it cost more if they're going to have to destroy the data and then start again if they want to get their own plan going?

Secondly, in terms of paperwork and burden on firms, one of the things I believe that your groups, businesses that belong to your organization, believe in is unified tax reporting. Do you think that it's the wrong thing for small business that this government has cancelled the unified reporting program that was in place, and isn't that a greater regulatory burden for your small businesses under 50 than the previous Bill 79?

Ms Andrew: I wasn't aware that the Clearing the Path project had been cancelled.

Ms Lankin: The unified tax reporting, which was supposed to be implemented in January of this year in the Ministry of Finance -- all the design work was done; the implementation of it was completely canned.

Ms Andrew: That's interesting. That particular project was a two-edged sword in terms of small business. Certainly, one-window shopping is always better in some senses. On the other hand, with some of the tax reporting measures that we have now, there are flexible payment frequencies and so on for small business, and it wasn't clear to us how that would have been accommodated in a unified system that would have worked across the board.

Ms Lankin: Judith, come on, you demanded it for years, right? It's an interesting --

The Chair: Thank you very much for the question. Mr Maves.

Ms Lankin: Could you just address the data question, please. I don't understand it.

Ms Andrew: We are concerned about duplication --

The Chair: Excuse me, Ms Lankin's time is up, okay?

Mr Maves: Thank you for your presentation. I had my own small business, so small, in fact, that I only had one employee, being myself. I confess to not carrying out a job search because I could only hire myself, but one of the contracts that I had in my business was to help another small business, under 10 employees, to do a search for some more employees. My experience through that was that it was an extremely difficult and expensive process.

The owner of this small business worked himself, on the road, 16 hours a day and didn't have time to do it, so he hired me to do it. It was a very difficult, expensive process and it wasn't very successful. Some of his word-of-mouth hiring -- it was a construction company -- actually worked out better. He got all kinds of people from all the different groups, actually, working for him by that method. But I support businesses doing outreach programs and so on, those that can.

The Chair: Ask your question.

Mr Maves: What percentage of your businesses are so small that it's too cumbersome and expensive for them to do proper searches?

Ms Swift: I would think about half. Again, how do you define what's too small to do a proper search? Certainly, given that about half of our members have fewer than five employees -- and what constitutes a proper search I'm not sure. They sure don't find a headhunter, for example, or whatever. I think a lot of hiring would be done in informal, we'll say less formal channels.

But again I think that simply underlines why the methods we've tried to promote, of information provision emphasizing the business advantages, which are clear, to proper employment equity and tried as an organization to foster that among our members, that's why we believe those methods will work. Anything that's even remotely related to quotas when you've got four employees is pretty irrelevant, which is why, of course, we had --

Ms Lankin: The legislation didn't affect that.

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Ms Swift: I was just going to say that actually. Just let me finish my sentence -- which is why it did not apply to those with less than 50, because it made no sense.

The Chair: Thank you for your answer. Mrs McLeod.

Interjection.

Ms Swift: You should let us finish our sentence.

The Chair: Order. It's Mrs McLeod's turn to have the floor.

Mrs McLeod: In the very limited amount of time that we have, I'm just going to focus on the question of costs that would be seen to be undue costs to small businesses. You particularly talk about small businesses facing expensive accommodations, I assume as a result of an order from the Human Rights Commission.

I have a three-part question. I'll put it very quickly. Do you see a role for government in assisting businesses with the cost of accommodation for equity even prior to its having to go through a judicial process and an order being made? In other words, is there a proactive role for government in helping with the accommodation costs for greater equity?

Then there is the question of the destruction of data, which Ms Lankin raised, in terms of the cost to businesses that want to proceed with employment equity having to redo that data.

Third, there is a part of the act in the process of repeal that says that any employer that is involved in a proceeding in front of the existing employment tribunal, that will all be cancelled and it will be done without costs, and I'm wondering whether you feel this is an undue financial burden on businesses that have been involved in the process to date.

The Chair: We need very quick answers, ladies, please.

Ms Andrew: Yes, in terms of a government role before it gets to the Human Rights Commission, absolutely. Small firms are wanting to help in this area, but to have one small firm shoulder the cost up front or to have to deal with it through the Human Rights Commission is just unworkable. This is a case that calls for assistance, I think.

Mrs McLeod: So it's a legitimate thing.

Ms Swift: There don't seem to be a lot of them. There aren't really a lot of them.

The Chair: Unfortunately, because we have other groups waiting to present, I'm going to have to draw the line. Thank you very much for your input.

Ms Lankin: Mr Chair, you don't know whether they want the data kept or not.

The Chair: I think we've asked that question. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate your being interested.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chair, you didn't give the witnesses an opportunity to answer that particular question.

The Chair: Well, when I tell you you've got a minute and a half for questions, you need to keep the question short.

TORONTO EMPLOYMENT EQUITY PRACTITIONERS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: The next presenters are the Toronto Employment Equity Practitioners' Association, better known as TEEPA, represented by Lynn Bevan, Jeroo Irani, Cliff Hawkins and Elizabeth Mackenzie. Welcome to our process, ladies. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. When the time for short questions comes, we will be starting with the government. The floor is yours.

Ms Lynn Bevan: My name is Lynn Bevan, and this year I am president of the Toronto Employment Equity Practitioners' Association. We've submitted both a brief and a backgrounder paper which we hope you will find of some assistance.

Very briefly, TEEPA is an organization that was founded some seven years prior to the passage of the Employment Equity Act, 1993, in Ontario. I think that in itself is significant and also will set the tone for our presentation. Employment equity as a term, as you will be well aware by this time, was coined by the Abella commission in 1986. However, as Judge Abella recognized at that time, employment equity was a new term for an older concept, which was allowing people, rather than requiring them, to take steps that would ensure equality.

About that same time the Supreme Court of Canada made the very astute observation that equality by necessity means treating people differently, because if you treat people the same you're almost certain to cause inequality. The reason the court said that was the recognition that what equality means to a person who can walk is different from what equality means to a person who cannot. So the idea that someone can have equal treatment by having a set of steps to get up to that job or to any other opportunity, yes, that's equal treatment, but it doesn't mean equality or fairness.

With as a background, the reason I stress that TEEPA was around prior to the passage of any legislation is that there is a recognition within organizations that they will have to take steps to reflect people's differences.

We are here to speak specifically about Bill 8, which has an unfortunate title, which is one of the points that we're going to talk about. The second thing we want to talk about specifically is the retention of data. I'm actually going to start with the second point first.

The retention of data issue is somewhat confusing to us. We don't understand why a government that says it is committed to keeping its face out of business is also committed to destroying data that organizations would choose at this time to retain.

Business works on goals and timetables. They work by setting objectives and time frames within which they can achieve those objectives. In order to determine whether they've met a goal, they take measurements, so that if it is of concern to a business to try to make their employees as happy, productive and long-lasting as possible and if they, in their own judgement, conclude that they can assist that objective by finding out what keeps some people in the workplace, what attracts others to the workplace, I don't see why it should be of any concern that the data that have been collected for that purpose, by some organization's view, should be destroyed through this bill.

That is our main point on subsection 1(5). We believe that data should be retained by those organizations that see data as useful to them. If the concern of this government is, as it has been of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, that these data might be misused by any organization, then rather than requiring their destruction -- to use that old saw, why throw the baby out with the bathwater? -- it would be much more appropriate to consider putting constraints on their use or to rely on the existing protections that are found in the Human Rights Code and elsewhere at this time.

We strongly urge you to revisit that issue of destruction of data, because if the government is committed, as it said in its pre-election campaign promise, to an equal opportunity program, then this will, in our view, assist that promise to be fulfilled, because if people are of the view that they need to take these steps and you wish to leave it up to them, then this is a means by which they can achieve that.

I don't think I need to say this, but some organizations have recognized that not everyone has an equal voice in the workplace, and that is one of the things that we want to talk about when we talk about the whole idea of repealing a law in order to eliminate quotas and restore merit.

Merit is a relative concept. In some organizations productivity would be judged by allowing an employee to spend three hours a day phoning charitable organizations, asking how they can be assisted. In another organization it would be producing a certain number of auto parts. Merit does not have an absolute concept and the whole idea of being able to say that a goal, which is all that was required by Bill 79 -- and we're not here to reargue what Bill 79 said or did not say -- but to suggest that the establishment of a goal or the setting of a time frame within which that goal could be achieved equals a quota is something we find very hard to accept.

Concerning the business of merit, which I've already alluded to, merit is a relative concept, so to suggest that my view of who is an appropriate person to hire may be different from yours and therefore I don't hire on merit and you do is just, to me, illogical. I don't see the connection between this. I am a lawyer. I also don't see why it is necessary to call the bill anything other than what it is, a bill to repeal certain legislation relating to employment equity initiatives.

Do you have any questions?

The Chair: The questions begin with the government and we have about four minutes each. So Mr Clement.

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Mr Tony Clement: I just wanted to shed some light because I think you expressed some genuine dismay at why we wish to destroy the data. So I wanted to explain and then get your comments on my explanation, if that is appropriate.

You're looking at it from a business point of view and what is in the best interests of the business establishment to carry on with its programs, and we had to weigh that against the rights of the individual.

I guess if we're guilty of anything, it is standing with the individual rather than the business. The reason I say that is because we feel that information that has been obtained by virtue of a coercive piece of legislation is necessarily tainted and would necessarily be information that in some circumstances -- not all circumstances but in some circumstances -- that individual really did not wish to have in the hands of the employer.

You can say all you want that it was voluntary, but if the employee knew that the employer was held up to a standard because of numerical targets or goals, and that if that employee did not give that information the employer would suffer, there is an element of coercion involved. We wish to have a process of equal opportunity that is available to all, not built on the foundations of coercion. Do you wish to comment on that?

Ms Bevan: Yes, I do. First of all, I'm glad that you reminded us that Bill 79 was voluntary and what you've done is, you've suggested that it was self-identification. There was no compulsion to complete a workforce survey. In fact that law required the survey form and prior communication to note the voluntary nature of the survey collection.

Second, the format of the survey was such that there would be no employee identifier on the document, so that it would have taken a complete and deliberate breach of the law to have identified an employee from the document as it was drafted. But rather than getting into what Bill 79 said, I'd like to address your bigger question.

First of all, TEEPA is a diverse organization. Unlike the submitters who preceded us, TEEPA represents a diverse group of practitioners in a field that has continued with and without legislation, includes special-interest groups as you would call them, members of designated groups, business representatives, all of who have a common view, which is that there is a place for this in the workplace. So I don't want to suggest that this group here comes only from a business perspective.

Secondly, to suggest that the only way to ensure that those who may have been the subject of a breach by their employer in the way that the survey was conducted is to destroy the data, to me, is very uncreative. There are other ways that that same objective could be reached, not the least of which is simply to ask people whether they're prepared to have the data that were submitted by them stand with all the protections that existed before. There can be no individual data shown. It always has to be in a collective format.

There are already protections in the Human Rights Code that have existed for years that say that should you misuse that as an employer, then you are going to be subject to a human rights complaint. So that in terms of saying that the only way to protect people who have not come forward to express that concern, unless they are certain that it's going to be misused, is to really get back in a small way but not an effective way, with all respect, into businesses running their own business. I do believe that it is possible to say, "Do it at your peril," because the same problem has always existed. There is on file right now in any workplace extensive personal information about employees.

The Chair: I'm going to have to interrupt you there and go on to the next question. Mr Sergio.

Mr Sergio: Some deputants today said that we should leave it to the open market and let the market find its place with respect to equity in the workplace. Others have said that we should leave it to the Human Rights Commission to solve disputes and complaints, stuff like that. It also has been said that the commission is inefficient, it's ineffective, and there is a huge backlog. In your experience, is that so, that the commission is inefficient and ineffective to deal with concerns?

Ms Bevan: I think experience has shown that the Human Rights Commission has been empowered through its resource base and its primary mandate to deal with complaints on a one-by-one basis. There has been some degree of consensus that individual complaints are not the most effective way of dealing with widespread problems.

There was some suggestion some years ago to look at things, as it's known, systemically or more broadly based, which has two advantages, in my view. It means that you don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again with respect to the same problem. But also it takes the heat off, because rather than, "You are a bigot" -- which is what can be inferred from a human rights complaint; it makes people very anxious to fight it because they don't want to be found to be a bigot -- it says, "There might be something of which you are unaware in your system that creates a problem for you."

To use again the obvious example, job postings are the only way that jobs are announced. Unfortunately, that doesn't deal with people who are unaware of them for whatever reason, their sight and the like. So my simple answer is that to date there have been difficulties with the primary mandate of how the commission is to deal with complaints.

Mr Sergio: A voluntary plan could be made to protect the objectives of the equity plan?

Ms Bevan: I understand your question, but I need to get some clarification. We have to date not seen the details of any voluntary plan, so we're not in a position to judge whether that type of approach --

Mr Sergio: We haven't seen any plan either.

Ms Bevan: Correct -- would be sufficient to address any problems of the kind you've described.

Mr Sergio: But do you think a plan without any government legislation would have any effect in the open market?

Ms Bevan: For the last 20 years, studies have shown that it will be extremely difficult to enforce human rights without some government role. I might go on much beyond 20 years, because human rights have been around in a legislated form for almost 60 years in this province, and there's a reason for it. I would note, although many people are unaware of it, that human rights legislation in its straight name, Human Rights Code, is not the only human rights legislation in this province. It's just the one with that title.

Ms Churley: I appreciate your comments on the destruction of the data. I keep telling Mr Clement that this is something that I think the government is going to have to give on. I've heard one group today not being sure, but nobody, on both sides of the issue, agrees about the data. It's good to have the clarification around the Human Rights Code, but also privacy laws protect information.

I wanted to follow up on the question of a volunteer plan. It's true that we don't have any information about what that would look like. Certainly, if our government thought there was some way we could make a volunteer plan work, we would have done that, but it became very, very clear to us after extensive consultation and years of studies and reports that this wasn't working, couldn't work.

I want to ask you, given that I have no doubts that this government will repeal this legislation, what kind of resources, both economically and otherwise, would this government have to put into some kind of volunteer plan to make it even begin to work?

Ms Bevan: Just a minute, please. I am here as a representative, so I like to consult with those who are here.

Ms Churley: I understand.

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Ms Bevan: In terms of the resources, it's interesting that we are in effect almost revisiting the issue time and time again. There have been so many studies, many of which were documented at length 10 years ago and have been constantly updated to show that without enforcement, it's a hollow step. Human rights without human remedies are meaningless.

It's significant to me that at the very time that this government has chosen to remove itself from the field and go further than that, actually to prevent people using information that was collected under a prior regime -- which is fine, which means it's pushed back to the Human Rights Code, to whatever degree of effectiveness it is -- we have other jurisdictions which are strengthening this very approach because of the recognition that you have to have some teeth.

But having put that aside, the one thing that I've just said in response to Mr Sergio's question, which was, "Has the Human Rights Commission been able to be effective?" is I think it is common view, just the point I made, that it's going to take a lot more than a case-by-case response to a problem which is more than a case-by-case issue.

So in terms of assessing what kind of resources, I guess the first resource is a commitment that government has a role to supporting human rights and making sure they're a reality. Once that role has been established, then the government in its wisdom will determine the nature of the resources that are necessary to support it.

You know what? It's very much like a goal and a timetable. You set a goal and then you commit some resources to it, and you set a time frame within which you want to achieve it.

Ms Elizabeth Mackenzie: Can I just add as well, in terms of talking about voluntary programs, and I know that you have heard from various people as well that businesses will do this because it makes good business sense and they'll do it voluntarily, that yes, there are studies that in fact this is beneficial to the bottom line. There was a recent article in the Management journal talking about four professors who used the CAPM financial econometric pricing model to show that stock prices rise for companies who have been found to have meritorious affirmative action programs down in the States, and they've linked that positively and economically.

The larger companies will be able to take advantage of that research and they'll be able to take advantage of that knowledge and expertise because they have the resources in place in their organizations both in terms of experts and in terms of money to hire experts in order to have them take advantage of that.

But who is going to encourage the mid-size employers who are some of our largest employers here in Ontario, who is going to encourage the public sector to also take advantage of that kind of knowledge and expertise? What kind of help are they going to get to understand that this is a bottom-line economic situation? In a labour pool which is very diverse, where we in Ontario cannot compete on low-cost labour, where we cannot compete with other countries based on a more homogeneous type of labour pool, the only thing we can do is to make sure that we use our labour force more effectively and more efficiently.

The Chair: On that note, thank you very much. We appreciate your being part of our process.

LEARNING DISABILITIES ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO

The Chair: The next group to present is the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, represented by Sharon Bell-Wilson. Good afternoon and welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any questions at the end will begin with the Liberals. The floor is yours.

Ms Sharon Bell-Wilson: I would like to make one point of clarification as to Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario, not Canada.

First of all, good afternoon, everyone. The Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario is appreciative of the opportunity to speak to Bill 8 and would like to introduce a catchphrase for this presentation, "equity of opportunity to demonstrate merit," which I will talk about more in this presentation.

The Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario is a voluntary non-profit organization providing education and support and which serves as the provincial voice for persons with learning disabilities in Ontario. Learning disabilities affect some 10% of the population. In Ontario this means about 800,000 people have learning disabilities.

Learning disabilities are defined as a dysfunction of the central nervous system. Learning disabilities may be manifested by delays or difficulties in any of the following areas: attention, memory, reasoning, coordination, communication, reading, writing, spelling, calculation, social competence, emotional maturation. Learning disabilities are not related to intelligence, but rather affect the way in which a person takes in, remembers, understands and expresses information. The extent of learning disabilities varies from person to person in terms of having mild, moderate or severe functional deficits.

Learning disabilities, unlike many other disabilities, are invisible and generally not understood by the public at large. However, learning disabilities are one of the recognized categories of disabilities contained in the Ontario Human Rights Code.

While it is true that discrimination in the workplace is against the law under the Human Rights Code, persons with learning disabilities often face barriers at the point of hiring in terms of a general lack of understanding of learning disabilities. Without the appropriate legislation, sole protection against workplace discrimination for persons with learning disabilities under the Human Rights Code may be perceived as a somewhat hollow protection.

Webster's dictionary categorizes equity as being fair, impartial and just. Merit, on the other hand, means to deserve, to earn, or being of worth, value or excellence. Like all people, persons with learning disabilities seek fairness, impartiality, justice or equity of opportunity to demonstrate their value, worth or merit.

Persons with learning disabilities have long faced significant systemic discrimination, as was identified in the 1992 Report of the Interministerial Working Group on Learning Disabilities, of which you have a copy in your package. Employment equity, which was formally endorsed by the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario in 1989, was seen as a positive step by persons with learning disabilities who believed they were finally afforded the opportunity to demonstrate their competence in the workplace.

Persons with learning disabilities are employable, but often not job-ready. This means that their tenure on the job is often measured in terms of months rather than years. Without many of the low-cost or no-cost accommodations such as assistive devices, job sharing and modified working environments, the accepted norm means continued short-term employment, continued barriers in hiring, training and promotion, unemployment, and continued dependence on social assistance, which is far more costly to taxpayers in the long run.

"Quota" is a word that for many conjures up negative connotations. The original employment equity legislation involved four basic steps: informing employees of employment equity principles and process; surveying the workplace to determine the extent of representation of the designated groups in the workplace; reviewing workplace policies and practices to identify barriers facing the designated groups; development of a plan to remove barriers and work towards the creation of a workforce that is reflective of the community. These steps, similar to Bill 79 itself, contain no reference to quotas. What these steps contain and do support are many of the measures outlined in the proposed equal opportunity initiative.

While it may be reasonable to expect that the goals of equal opportunity can be realized without legislation, our population believes that an equal opportunity mandate which retains the following from the Employment Equity Act would subsequently benefit a broad spectrum of the population of Ontario. Such things are: accommodations; fair hiring and training practices; matching merit requirements with physical and cognitive demands analysis of the job; promotion of equity and diversity in all hiring.

In conclusion, a significant number of the 800,000 Ontarians with learning disabilities would prefer the opportunity to demonstrate merit on the job rather than continued dependence on social assistance. They are employable and, provided with the right combination of mandated equity and merit, many are in fact job-ready today. Why not give them this opportunity?

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The Chair: Time for some questions. You have roughly four minutes, to begin with Mrs McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: I guess the question I would like to ask, because I think you're dealing with a group of people facing disabilities that are just barely being recognized after 25 years of sweating it through -- I'm getting to the point of age and involvement where I look back at the very early days of first trying to convince elementary school people, as well as physicians, that there was such an entity slowly working it through to secondary school, and I think some little progress in colleges and universities.

I'm just glancing quickly at the interministerial report; it's rather discouraging to see how much still needs to be done, even to acknowledge that it needs to be done, within the ministries administered by government itself. So when you say in your report that without many of the low-cost or no-cost accommodations etc you're looking at short-term employment, is there any progress at all in the workplace or are you still, from that perspective, at zero and that's the next frontier for you?

Ms Bell-Wilson: There is certainly some progress. It would be unfair to many employers to say that there is no progress being made. But the progress is very slow to come because one of the difficulties with persons with learning disabilities, as I try to talk about the range from mild to severe, is that there are also the variances in learning disabilities.

Oftentimes people will think of dyslexia, which is one of several different types of learning disabilities. There are others, such as the problems with organizational skills and the social skills, which oftentimes people don't think of as a learning disability. But interestingly enough it's probably the social skills which are the biggest barrier in the workplace. While the persons may certainly be competent, their level of social skills maturity, in terms of knowing that you should not be this close to individuals when you're talking to them, makes it very difficult for them, obviously, in the workplace.

There's still a lot of education. We're plugging along as best we can, and we did produce a booklet in 1994 entitled Design for Success for Employers. However, with limited dollars we can only produce so many, and with limited human resources we can only get out to so many employers.

Mrs McLeod: There's so much emphasis on, and I think everybody would agree that in any employment equity plan there still has to be a recognition of, merit. I'm not even sure how to phrase the question other than I think one of the particular challenges in dealing with the learning-disabled is that their disability is not recognized and therefore it just seems as though they're not able to do the job. How do get past that?

Ms Bell-Wilson: The barriers for a person with a learning disability, obviously, start before they even get in the door, oftentimes, if they are lucky enough to get in the door. If they are measured or evaluated or reviewed, whatever terminology you wish to utilize, based on their ability or based on the actual job that they are performing -- for example, if you take a person who is very proficient mechanically but cannot write, cannot read, look at their ability as it relates to what they were hired for, that mechanical aspect, not at whether or not they can fill out a particular form, because that he or she can't do. But there could be an accommodation that could allow for them to be able to do it. One of the most common is now called computers.

Ms Churley: I find this to be, personally, an interesting presentation because my daughter has a learning disability which was not identified until about grade 5, and I'm sure you're familiar with this aspect of it. She was so intelligent whenever her IQ was tested, from about 2 on -- I get to brag about my daughter here for a minute -- she used to score off sheets, as a young child, of the score card and got so good at hiding her learning disability and was so articulate and skilful in other areas that she hid it until about grade 5 or 6 and managed to escape notice, and by then didn't have the tools, in the areas where she had the disability, to go on. At a certain point it all caught up with her and then she ran into a lot of trouble and therefore, as a result, dropped out of school, which we're now having to find ways to remedy.

I wanted to ask you about that, in particular when you talk near the last part of your presentation about some aspects that are necessary to retain even if the Employment Equity Act isn't there as it is now: matching merit requirements with physical and cognitive demands analysis for the job and all of these things. I guess I'm mixing two things here, but these are the kinds of aspects, these are some of the things that happen to people with disabilities who have very clear abilities that get sidelined or overlooked because they're not caught in school and they don't have the ability to make up and accommodate and learn the skills that are necessary. How do you see that employment equity would deal with those kinds of problems?

Ms Bell-Wilson: We would hope that a type of legislation first of all would begin with employer and employee education, because I think a lot of the difficulties faced by a person with a learning disability in the workplace is the lack of understanding. One of the aspects from -- I don't know what statute it's in right now -- previous employment equity legislation called for disclosure, and you gave an example just in terms of your daughter and how much adults with learning disabilities have mastered coping. But at some point in time in the workplace that disability may be subject to exposure, let's say for example an opportunity for a promotion based on the work they are doing, and all of a sudden it may become apparent that while they could do certain things, they may not be able to do others.

Ms Churley: Yes, and I guess my next question would be, could you see this government putting some of the money it's taking out of the commission into some form of education and helping the employers help people with these disabilities? Would that be a good use of some of the money, towards education?

Ms Bell-Wilson: I think that would be a very good use. I would encourage them to seek out who are the experts before just putting up money and saying there's going to be training. I know as I have been doing, speaking about learning disabilities, I find that even those who are identified as experts could use some education. We like to think of ourselves as something of experts.

The Chair: Thank you very much. For the government party, Mr Tascona.

Mr Tascona: I just would like to ask you, in the area of hiring and recruitment and promotion, what can be done to improve or make the Human Rights Code more effective in terms of measures to be taken and remedies to address systemic discrimination?

Ms Bell-Wilson: I believe there is some education that is required at the Human Rights Commission level, and this is certainly not a negative reflection, but it's like anyplace else; all places need education. I suppose that like anyplace else, understanding that their workload is probably very heavy, not only in dealing with persons with learning disabilities but all kinds of cases that might go before the commission, one might want to look at beefing up the labour force a bit.

Mr Tascona: Do you think there's too much emphasis on investigation at the Human Rights Commission, rather than having a process that would have limited investigation and a more expeditious arbitration process?

Ms Bell-Wilson: I think it's a question, when you're talking about a lengthy investigation, of how long one might be talking about. Like anything, there is something called "reasonable." You're not expecting that this is going to go on months and months and months, because what you have very likely are fairly clear-cut two sides: You have the employer and you have the employee. We're not talking about starting from the day both were born in a little log cabin back in the 1800s. We're talking about something that happened over a short period of time, so therefore the "investigation period" should be equally short, but not eliminated.

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Mr Tascona: What's your opinion on the use of the data collected for the purposes of Bill 79?

Ms Bell-Wilson: We certainly were supportive of it back at that particular time. However, and I mention this in partial response to the previous question, with a learning disability, how do you identify? It's an invisible disability to begin with, so the question becomes, what is an employer actually to do: Go to each person and say, "Do you have a learning disability, do you have a learning disability, do you have a learning disability?"

There needs to be an environment that is comfortable and safe enough for the individual to go to the employer and say: "My name is...and I have a learning disability. These are the accommodations that I require in order to be the most productive employee you could ever imagine. Does this work for you, Mr or Ms Employer?"

Mr Tascona: So you'd be a proponent of keeping the data, and perhaps if an employer were to implement employment equity or affirmative action under the Human Rights Code, they can collect those types of data also?

Ms Bell-Wilson: It's like anything else. When you talk about data collection, what becomes the purpose of the data if you're collecting data for collecting data's sake?

Mr Tascona: No, for employment equity, for affirmative action.

Ms Bell-Wilson: For what purpose?

Mr Tascona: The Human Rights Code allows for affirmative action.

Ms Bell-Wilson: Yes, but then for what? I'm still trying to force the issue of, for what purpose? I appreciate employment equity, but again, how are those data subsequently used?

UB page 30

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. Mr Tascona has successfully used up all of the others' allotted time. We appreciate your involvement in our process.

LAWYERS IN FAVOUR OF EQUITY

The Chair: Our next presenters are Laurel Broten and Catherine Vasilaros, with the Lawyers in Favour of Equity. Good afternoon, ladies. Welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. If you allow time for questions they would begin with the NDP. The floor is yours.

Ms Laurel Broten: Good afternoon. I should first make an introduction. I'm Laurel Broten and this is my colleague Catherine Vasilaros. We are both lawyers in private practice, and this submission is made on behalf of lawyers who have diverse practices, who are all in support of equity and who oppose the enactment of Bill 8. It is not an official group; it is simply individual lawyers who wish to voice their concern.

First of all, why are we concerned at Bill 8? In our opinion, employment equity is a fundamental means of redressing systemic discrimination, and the repeal of employment equity offends fundamental notions of equality and justice. The failure to take positive steps to redress discrimination indicates that we as a society are prepared to tolerate prejudice and discrimination. We wanted to take this opportunity to address the committee and express our views that we, as members of this provincial society, are not prepared to tolerate such injustices.

Our first submission is that the premise of Bill 8 is flawed, and today before you we advance two submissions. The first is with respect to the foundation of Bill 8, and the second, which Ms Vasilaros will address, is more particularly with respect to technicalities with respect to the drafting of Bill 8.

In our submission, Bill 8 is premised on a flawed conception of employment equity and its operation. As a result, the introduction of the act to repeal employment equity receives support from individuals who have not properly been informed about the goals, effects and objectives of employment equity. It is our submission that the premise of Bill 8 is based on myths and that accordingly, at the very least, the government should take the necessary time and steps to properly inform the public so that the true content and impact of employment equity may be considered by the community prior to taking the drastic action that is proposed in Bill 8.

When we turn our minds to how we might address and inform the public, it is our submission that you can educate and correct the misinformation by advancing what is employment equity and what is employment equity about. Employment equity is a fundamental means of redressing discrimination and is necessary to meet obligations placed upon governments pursuant to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Employment equity was enacted to ensure fair and equitable treatment for all people and to accomplish this, the Employment Equity Act required that employers develop plans to remove barriers that adversely affect members of disadvantaged groups, groups which we know are protected by the Human Rights Code and the charter.

The Employment Equity Act set a standard that employers make reasonable progress -- not overnight progress, not redress the discrimination in the past within months -- but to make reasonable progress towards achieving the principles that employment equity set out in the legislation. These more particularly were that members of designated groups have the right to be considered for jobs, hired, retained, treated and promoted at work without facing discrimination.

Over time, every employer was to examine their workforce and at each level and in every job category try to ensure that this workforce reflected the representation of the designated groups within the community.

Every employer was required to put into place supportive measures to help recruit, employ, retain, promote and treat fairly all individuals within the designated groups.

These concepts are not difficult to understand and they are concepts which are the very foundation of justice and equality and equity within our society.

Employment equity is needed to address systemic discrimination against women, first nations peoples, persons with disabilities and racial minorities, and systemic discrimination is subtle, complex, pervasive and requires a proactive approach such as that set out in the present Employment Equity Act. Simply, the goal of employment equity is to ensure that workforces mirror the composition of the labour market and, to accomplish that, proactive measures are required.

Employment equity does not mean hiring unqualified workers, and employment equity does not mean hiring only those within the targeted groups.

In our submission, the effect of Bill 8 and the act is to provide tacit government approval to institutionalized practices of discrimination. By replacing the Employment Equity Act with an equal opportunity plan, this government has already enunciated that it values, to some extent, employment equity and mirroring the community in the workforce.

It is our submission that the elimination of an effective equity scheme, which was carefully and conscientiously developed, will come at great financial and social cost to Ontario taxpayers, to be replaced with a similar scheme which has fewer enforcement mechanisms and is less effective. These enforcement mechanisms are crucial in that the only means of redressing systemic discrimination is to take a proactive and active stance.

Bill 8 is also out of step with modern concepts and approaches to achieving equality. First, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms expressly approves special programs designated to ameliorate the conditions of disadvantaged groups and recognizes the importance of the need for special programs to combat discrimination. Second, the goal of employment equity remains steadfast as a goal of the federal government, and Bill C-64, amendments to the federal Employment Equity Act, which is intended to widen the scope of existing federal employment equity legislation and to make it more effective, is already before the Senate and is anticipated to receive royal assent prior to the end of the year. Now, in light of this, in 1995, with the implementation of Bill 8, Ontario will be out of step with such progressive mechanisms and will lag behind in developing mechanisms to redress systemic discrimination.

I'll now turn the floor to my colleague Ms Vasilaros, who will discuss the technical difficulties.

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Ms Catherine Vasilaros: I'm going to be dealing particularly with subsection 1(5) of Bill 8, which deals with the destruction of records. It's our submission that this particular provision is unworkable and unreasonable for a number of reasons. The first is, how is it going to be enforced? It has no teeth. Even if you were proposing -- sorry?

Mr Flaherty: I said we should add that.

Ms Vasilaros: I would disagree.

Mr Flaherty: I thought you were going to suggest we should amend it.

Ms Vasilaros: No, I'm saying that there's no point in having it in the first place when any means of enforcing it would certainly be in contravention of individuals' charter rights and would be completely unreasonable, in our submission.

It's our position that saying you have to destroy records which have been accumulated according to the law for a valid purpose and using time, money and resources so that companies can do their best to promote equality and try to achieve very important goals I would say is completely unreasonable and, as I said, unenforceable. I can't contemplate how it could be enforced. Would people from different government agencies be sanctioned to come in and search companies' records? Obviously not. This is just a trust-based provision, in which case why have it at all?

The second reason we have a difficulty with subsection 1(5) is that you're going to be deterring companies that want to be proactive in eliminating systemic discrimination. These companies have taken the time and effort to accumulate these data and can use them on their own, even without the teeth of the Employment Equity Act. They can still make use of these data so as to set up their own programs and try themselves to promote equality in the workforce as best they can.

It's also important to remember that employees have given this information voluntarily. It's not as if people are being required to give up privacy rights or in any way have their own individual liberties trampled on. This is something that is done with the intention of promoting equity and there's no good reason to eliminate these records or call for their destruction.

I'd also like to point out that the section is inconsistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code, which requires that all relevant information dealing with a complaint be submitted to the investigating officers upon request. As I said, that's completely inconsistent. If these records are destroyed, how are they going to be submitted? I would submit to you that the Ontario Human Rights Code should take precedence in the situation as a higher law and as something of more importance than a subprovision of a bill which, as I said before, has no real teeth.

I'd also like to point out that the destruction of records could result in less evidence being available for human rights complaints, and that could cause problems for both the complainant and for the companies. When you have more records and are able to show, "Look, these are what are our policies are; this is how we do things; this is who we have employed; this is how we've treated people," then either an employee who has been discriminated against will have the evidence before him or her to show exactly what the company's policies are, or, in the alternative, the company will also have the ability to say: "Look, we've followed the rules; we've done our best. You can't come to us now complaining of discrimination. Here are our records to prove it."

So for all those reasons, I would say that subsection 1(5) in particular has a number of difficulties and we would submit that it should not be enacted.

I'm just going to deal briefly with a Supreme Court of Canada case which dealt with the issue of affirmative action and employment equity. That's at page 12; I'm just going to quote from it. It's the decision of the Canadian National Railway and Canada (Human Rights Commission). What this shows is that the idea of employment equity and the values and ideas and concepts which it encompasses is not new and is something that has been sanctioned and upheld by the highest court in all of Canada. Therefore, I think that before quickly and very effectively in a short little bill getting rid of it in Ontario, we should be very careful and look to see what are the values, what did the Supreme Court say about this very important issue.

Mr Justice Dickson said: "An employment equity program thus is designed to work in three ways. Firstly, by countering the cumulative effects of systemic discrimination, such a program renders future discrimination pointless. To the extent that some intentional discrimination may be present, for example, in the case of a foreman who controls hiring and who simply does not want women in the unit, a mandatory employment equity scheme places women in the unit despite the discriminatory intent of the foreman. His battle is lost.

"Secondly, by placing members of that group that had previously been excluded into the heart of the workplace and by allowing them to prove ability on the job, the employment equity scheme addresses the attitudinal problem of stereotyping. For example, if women are seen to be doing the job of brakeman or heavy cleaner or signaller...it is no longer possible to see women as capable of fulfilling only certain traditional occupational roles. It will become more and more difficult to ascribe characteristics to an individual by reference to the stereotypical characteristics ascribed to all women.

"Thirdly, an employment equity program helps to create what has been termed a critical mass of the previously excluded group in the workplace. This critical mass has important effects. The presence of a significant number of individuals from the targeted group eliminates the problem of tokenism; it is no longer the case that one or two women, for example, will be seen to represent all women.

"When theoretical roots of employment equity programs are exposed, it is readily apparent that, in attempting to combat systemic discrimination, it is essential to look to the past patterns of discrimination and to destroy those patterns in order to prevent the same type of discrimination in future."

It's our submission that with roots such as this, the Supreme Court of Canada is stating that the objectives of employment equity are ones that should be upheld in our society, and the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized that discrimination is not going to go away in and of itself out of the goodness of people's hearts. We would submit that Bill 8 is inappropriate in the circumstances and should not be passed.

Ms Broten: I would now like to take this opportunity to discuss a few highlights of the Abella report, which was a royal commission report with respect to employment equity that was drafted more than 10 years ago. Similar to Ms Vasilaros's submissions, again this points out that we are not dealing with a new issue and we've been talking about this issue for a long time, trying to remedy this issue for a long time, and it's not remedied. So to think that Ontario will suddenly be able to resolve it without any active measures is a bit of a fallacy.

The highlights of the Abella report are found at pages 16 and 17 of our submission, and I'll just quote for you a few of the prominent sections:

"Remedial measures of a systemic and systematic kind are the object of employment equity and affirmative action. They are meant to improve the situation for individuals who, by virtue of belonging to and being identified with a particular group, find themselves unfairly and adversely affected by certain systems or practices.

"Systemic remedies are a response to patterns of discrimination that have two basic antecedents: a disparately negative impact that flows from the structure of systems designed for a homogeneous constituency; and a disparately negative impact that flows from practices based on stereotypical characteristics ascribed to an individual because of the characteristics ascribed to the group of which he or she is a member.

"The former usually results in systems primarily designed for white able-bodied males; the latter usually results in practices based on white able-bodied males' perceptions of everyone else.

"In both cases, the institutionalized systems and practices result in arbitrary and extensive exclusions for persons who, by reason of their group affiliation, are systematically denied a full opportunity to demonstrate their individual abilities. Interventions to adjust the system are thus both justified and essential. Whether they are called employment equity or affirmative action, their purpose is to open the competition to all who would have been eligible but for the existence of discrimination. The effect may be to end the hegemony of one group over the economic spoils, but the end of exclusivity does not reverse discrimination, it is the beginning of equality. The economic advancement of some minorities is not the granting of a privilege or advantage to them; it is the removal of a bias in favour of white males that has operated at the expense of other groups.

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"Nor should we be ingenuous in believing that once access is expanded the equal opportunity will translate into treatment as an equal. It is not enough merely to tantalize the excluded groups with the idea that the qualifying education and training by themselves will guarantee employment opportunities. Individuals must be assured that the metamorphosis includes equality not only of the access to opportunities but to the opportunities themselves for which their abilities qualify them. This is meaningful equality of opportunity.

"Equality demands enforcement. It is not enough to be able to claim equal rights unless those rights are somehow enforceable. Unforceable rights are no more satisfactory than unavailable ones. This is why we rely on employment equity -- to ensure access without discrimination both to the available opportunities and to the possibility of their realization."

The Chair: Thank you very much. You have very successfully used your full 20-minute complement. We appreciate your involvement in our process and thank you for your presentation.

ONTARIO COUNCIL OF AGENCIES SERVING IMMIGRANTS

The Chair: The next presenter is the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, represented by Kay Blair and Maisie Lo. Good afternoon, ladies, and welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Questions, if you have time for them, will start with the New Democratic Party. The floor is yours.

Ms Kay Blair: Great. Good afternoon. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be able to present to the standing committee on general government. My name is Kay Blair and I'm the president of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. There are three of us here this afternoon. I'd just like to take a minute to have each one of us introduce who we are.

Ms Sharmini Peries: My name is Sharmini Peries. I am the executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

Ms Maisie Lo: My name is Maisie Lo. I'm the chair of the OCASI policy committee. I also represent a member agency.

Ms Blair: Our presentation this afternoon represents the views of the membership of OCASI and the Ontario Racial Minorities' Organizing Committee for Training. ORMOCT is a provincial organization that addresses the issues of training and adjustment programs and the participation of racial minorities in the labour force.

We particularly want to talk a bit about the work of OCASI and to talk with you about some of the basic principles that we think should be included in the equal opportunity plan, also to be able to raise some concerns that we have regarding the introduction of Bill 8, which we believe repeals the essential elements of equity, and also to suggest to you some recommendations that we think you might need to consider in terms of the establishment of Bill 8.

OCASI's agencies provide a wide range of essential services to assist immigrants and refugees in the settlement and integration process. Our membership consists of over 140 organizations serving way over half a million individuals.

Our work is fundamentally based on assisting individuals in breaking down the barriers which often prevent immigrants from reaching their full potential as participants and contributors to Ontario's prosperity and vitality. Immigrants to this country do contribute to the economic growth, development and wellbeing of Canada. They bring a wealth of skills and talent which enrich the social, economic and cultural life of our country.

It is very clear today that Ontario is open for business. However, in order to move forward with this productivity and prosperity, we must use the skills of all Ontarians. Immigrants can provide the much-needed necessary linkages to enhance Ontario's competitiveness in a global market. However, barriers of discrimination, racism, lack of access to training and lack of recognition of professional credentials earned abroad limits the full participation of Ontario's immigrants and refugees in the life of the province.

Recent studies have actually documented the impact of discrimination on immigrants in the labour force. These studies have shown that immigrants experience marginalization, resulting in undue financial difficulties, and suffer emotional hardship. It is our belief that if Ontario is to truly become a prosperous and dynamic economic force, then all Ontarians must become contributors to the economy and become builders of a competitive society.

It is on that basis that we believe quite clearly that the guiding principles of any equal opportunity plan must focus on full and equal access for all Ontarians. It must also address mechanisms to eliminate systemic and institutional barriers. We see this as quite necessary because there's a huge body of evidence that exists which makes it quite clear that the merit principle which Bill 8 is based on has never been a prevailing force guiding Ontario's employment practices. What our history has spoken of is that it's not about what you know but whom you know that allows for access and participation to the point where you can begin to experience any kind of independence towards one's self-reliance.

The subject before this general government committee today is Bill 8, An Act to repeal job quotas and to restore merit-based employment practices in Ontario. The concern of OCASI and its membership is the introduction of legislation to repeal job quotas that do not exist and legislation to restore a merit-based employment system that has never existed. We are left to assume that there appears to be a misinterpretation of the previous government's Employment Equity Act, which was intended to guide the establishment of practices of equal opportunity. However, in the absence of a detailed equal opportunities plan, it makes it difficult for us to understand its utility. We can only hope that it will embrace the guiding principles of equity and access.

At this time, what I would like to be able to do is to share with you some recommendations that we would like to form part of your consideration in terms of the establishment of Bill 8. Premier Harris, in his campaign, made this quotation, and I'll read it as it was specified at the time: "Failure to recognize the qualifications of people trained outside Ontario poses an employment barrier. A Harris government will work with licensing and certification bodies to ensure they incorporate access principles into their policies."

Given this statement made by the Premier, we encourage this government to embrace this thrust. If Ontario is to truly provide this province with an openness for business, we must work together to capitalize on the enormous wealth of talent, expertise and skills possessed by immigrants and refugees.

It is our recommendation that the provincial government promote and encourage the breaking down of barriers to access and accreditation by taking clear, measurable steps towards equitable access to trades and professions.

We also feel quite strongly that the role of the Human Rights Commission needs to be strengthened. An essential aspect of any equal opportunity plan must be revitalized in the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

It is our recommendation that the provincial government take steps to make the commission an effective and expedient enforcement body with a strong focus on equal employment opportunities.

Skills training and work experience are critical to the participation of our community. The provision of high-quality and accessible employment development services is critical to achieving equity in the workforce.

Therefore, it is our recommendation that the provincial government promote and encourage appropriate language training, vocational counselling, employment skills training and work experience programs to ensure equal opportunity in employment.

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Affirmation of voluntary measures is critical for us. We have seen where we have tried to work with a voluntary system and that has not created a level playing field where we've had equitable participation in the workforce. Bill 8 has caused some degree of confusion for employers who wish to continue to work towards equality. The federal government's Employment Equity Act and contract compliance programs are still in place.

It is our recommendation, therefore, that the provincial government clarify that volunteer equity policies are still permissible and necessary and also encouraged.

That really speaks to the whole notion of the data that have been gathered. Bill 8 indicates that the information gathered should then be destroyed. We think that it is quite significant. It is indeed a marketing tool and it assists in terms of workforce diversification.

A service to employers is very critical. We believe that many employers need consulting services to advise on qualitative measures to ensure non-discriminatory and equitable employment practices are in place.

It is our recommendation therefore that the provincial government promote non-discriminatory measures that would enable equity practices in the business environment.

Most important of all for us is that the provincial government launch a public education campaign that focuses quite clearly on the importance of non-discriminatory practices, that the leadership from the provincial government is critical to ensure that we're here committed to full and equal participation of all Ontarians.

Therefore, OCASI recommends that the equal opportunity plan include a concrete action plan to fulfil Premier Harris's commitment to moving ahead with education against discrimination, towards full and equal participation of all Ontarians.

In looking at Bill 8, what we see is that there are two guiding principles that we need to embrace. Bill 8 needs to allow for full and equal access to all Ontarians and it should address mechanisms that eliminate systemic and institutional barriers. I believe that the task ahead of all of us is to develop cooperative, creative and innovative strategies to ensure equal access to employment, education and sustainability for all Ontarians.

We strongly support the revitalization of the Human Rights Commission with a strong focus on enforcement to guide the implementation and monitoring of this plan. Our goal as volunteers and professionals working with the community organizations across Ontario is the development of a harmonious and prosperous Ontario.

Contrary to some beliefs, immigrants are not a drain on the system. We're all taxpayers. We want to work, we want to contribute and succeed in building a more competitive Ontario. However, the presence of systemic and institutional barriers denies us this opportunity. We're at a stage as members of designated groups where we experience a complete loss of faith in the system. We have not experienced where the application of merit principles has advanced our participation in the workforce.

It is on this premise that we come to this committee today to appeal to your sensibilities in the development of an equal opportunity plan that embraces true equality for all Ontarians. It is our belief that for us to experience full prosperity, it has to be a plan that embraces all Ontarians, not a focus on the ones who are privileged and accustomed to having access. It has got to be recognized that in this society there is not true equality and that unless there is legislative action to allow for the recognition of people who have been done wrong in the past, then we will never experience equality. So it is up to this government, in its commitment to equal opportunity, to develop a comprehensive plan that is going to address the participation -- full participation -- of all Ontarians.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We now have the almost insurmountable task of having just two minutes each for a quick question, starting with the New Democratic Party.

Ms Lankin: Thank you, Mr Chair. That was well done, by the way.

Most of the groups that we have heard from today and over the course of the last two weeks of the hearings as colleagues have been around the table listening have said many of the same things you did: that the name of the bill is a misnomer; that there weren't quotas in Bill 79; that there wasn't a merit process that was in place that benefited people of many groups.

In fact, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business was here earlier today and although it made reference to the previous legislation as perhaps one could say or presume it might have been a quota, in the educational material they sent out to their members they said very clearly: "It is important to understand that numerical goals are set by the employer according to what is reasonably achievable. Allegations that the legislation requires you to hire unqualified people are not true. There are no quotas. There are no requirements to hire unqualified people." This is the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to their member organizations. Now, they said something a little bit different when they were here today, but that's what they sent out.

I guess my concern is that even though we're hearing over and over again from groups like yours that the very premise of the legislation that's being brought forward was a myth, a misconception about the previous legislation, that this government will in fact move to repeal the legislation, I think you're right to focus on, what are they going to replace it with? We heard Miss Bassett say earlier that there isn't yet, but will be, a concrete plan in the new year.

You talked about what's needed. You talked about training programs that are accessible. I put to you that training programs are being cut back. You talked about the need for --

The Chair: Come to a question, Ms Lankin. You're not leaving much time for the answer.

Ms Lankin: I'm getting to it very quickly. You talked about the need for a concrete action plan to fulfil Premier Harris's commitment to moving ahead with education against discrimination. All of these things take resources and in the fiscal situation where we see that part of the reason for doing away with the commission is to get that $9 million out of the expenditure plan of the government, I'd like you to address for us, what are the concrete resources that are going to be needed to have a program of education that does get out to employers and to have sufficient skills-training programs that do allow people access and do allow people the kind of equal opportunity -- meaningful -- that you're talking about?

The Chair: I'm going to have to interrupt this. I did warn you that there were only two minutes. We're well over the time, so unfortunately there's no time to answer the question.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you for your presentation. I must say that some of the items that you've mentioned, particularly strengthening the role of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and skills training and work experience programs and affirmation of voluntary measures, are matters that we support along with you. I think there's a matter of principle that my constituents spoke to me about during the election campaign and it's this: There's a concern among people of all religions and races and backgrounds in Ontario about what people often call merit. We know, and I think you'll agree, that education is the key predictor of later occupational achievement in Ontario, and the matter of principle I want to raise with you is mandating results.

When I look at paragraph 2 of section 2 of the act to be repealed, which says, "Every employer's workforce, in all occupational categories and at all levels of employment, shall reflect the representation of aboriginal people, people with disabilities, members of racial minorities and women in the community," that is mandating results and that's the objection I think as a matter of principle that many people in Ontario have to it; that is, we are not taking education into consideration, we're not taking work experience into consideration and we're taking matters into consideration that, with respect, we ought not to take into consideration.

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In my work on behalf of African newcomers, in another life as a lawyer, I remember a high commissioner saying to me, from one of the African countries, very proudly, "In my country, we know no colour." And with respect, I think that's a goal towards which we should work in this country, and this kind of legislation, this statement of principle here is dangerous. What are your views on that?

The Chair: Again, I have to interject. With only two minutes, folks, if you don't keep the questions brief, there's no time for an answer. Ms Pupatello, are you going to ask questions?

Mrs Pupatello: I have a couple of questions I'd like you to comment on, please. I have a couple of things if you could comment on. A gentleman was in here earlier, Martin Loney, and he suggested that, in particular for women and women of minority groups, it's not an issue of discrimination in terms of the workforce; what it is is there aren't many in that group who have the educational level that compares to others, and that in fact is the issue. So in fact he contended that there isn't really discrimination; it's education, and there just aren't many of them who are educated to the same level as a typical white male. I'd like you to comment on that.

Also, you commented in your report that the accreditation system for new immigrants is a critical factor in being underemployed, and I agree. Do you think the equal opportunity plan that's going to come in is going to address that and you'd want it to, and with this equal opportunity plan, what teeth do you suggest ought to be in place, because I think the proponents of it are suggesting it be completely voluntary?

Ms Blair: A couple of comments to what you have just indicated.

Mrs Pupatello: Quick, quick.

Ms Blair: If I just touch very quickly on the skills of immigrants. I think Canada has the most skilled taxi drivers in the world. There are PhDs driving around in taxis. It is not about a lack of education. It's not about a lack of skills. It's about a recognition of the skills and talents that we bring to this country, that there is a missing formal system that recognizes our professions that we bring to this country. Our governments have invested in us, and Canada and Ontario can capitalize on that investment.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your answer, and my congratulations to Ms Pupatello for getting her question in. She gets the gold star. Thank you very much, ladies. We appreciate your being part of our process.

Ms Blair: You mean we're finished?

The Chair: Yes, you are finished.

Ms Blair: Great. Thank you for having us.

The Chair: Twenty minutes goes by quickly, doesn't it?

Ms Blair: I just want to say a couple of things, that I really do hope that --

The Chair: We've been pretty strict on the 20-minute time limits, so unfortunately, I'm going to have to say thanks very much.

Ms Blair: Great. Thank you for having us.

AFRICAN CANADIAN LEGAL CLINIC

The Chair: The next group is the African Canadian Legal Clinic, represented by Philip Pike, who is a staff lawyer there. Good evening, Mr Pike. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time that you leave for questions, we'll start with the government. The floor is yours, sir.

Mr Philip Pike: Good evening and thank you. As the Chair has indicated, my name is Philip Pike, and I'm the staff lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic.

My formal comments are going to be actually quite brief, and perhaps I'll use some of my remaining time to respond to a question that Mr Flaherty put, even though he's now left the room.

The African Canadian Legal Clinic was established in 1994 to address anti-black racism and other forms of systemic and institutional discrimination in the justice system, in education, employment, housing, health and in many other spheres of Canadian society.

While the primary strategy for carrying out the work of the clinic is test-case litigation, the clinic is also interested in monitoring government policies and initiatives and assessing whether or not those policies or initiatives might have an adverse impact upon the members of the African Canadian communities.

The formal comments that I want to make are directed to two areas: First, it's to the nomenclature of the act and, second, to the issue of policing. Ms Lankin has pretty much summarized the comments that I'm going to make, but I want to say that the bill in question has been titled An Act to repeal job quotas and to restore merit-based employment practices in Ontario, and I think that this title is an affront to the people of Ontario, and more particularly to those who are members of the designated groups under the employment equity legislation. I believe it is a fraudulent misrepresentation of the employment equity scheme that was set up under the act.

The purpose of the data collection under the act was to identify and explain underrepresentation of qualified available candidates from the designated groups. The areas of underrepresentation would then be examined for the barriers to employment. Employers would then seek to work together to develop plans to eliminate those barriers and to set goals and timetables for increasing representation from the designated groups. The goals and the timetables were to be set by the employers themselves, and in certain cases where employees were organized, together with the employees.

The goals and the timetables were not imposed by government, and it is my understanding that employers were not subject to a fine if the goals were not met. They were simply required to make reasonable progress towards their own flexible goals that were set. Therefore, I think it's disingenuous and indefensible to refer to the Employment Equity Act as a job quota law.

Mr Flaherty, in his question to the previous group, quoted from the act and talked about the fact that it said "it shall reflect." It was his interpretation that this mandates results. With all due respect, I don't think that is the case. My understanding of the legislation was that it was to set the goal to move towards reflecting the workforce in the community.

Mr Flaherty also talked about education. I think implicit in his question and the way he framed it, from my point of view, is a belief that we're operating from a level playing field. Certainly, if we're going to be hiring people based on their qualifications, based on their abilities, based on their merits, but who are underrepresented in the workforce, then I don't see any conflict between a merit-based principle and the objectives of the act.

If one assumes that there is in fact not a level playing field, that not all groups in society, not all individuals, have access to equal amounts of resources in terms of training and educating themselves and preparing themselves to participate in the workforce, then one has I think also to recognize that one has to examine those barriers and see how those barriers can be removed.

The second area in which I would like to make comments relates to the area of policing. Policing is an area of particular concern to members of the African Canadian communities.

In 1988, following a series of police shootings, some of which resulted in the death of or serious injury to young African Canadians, there were many demonstrations and a great deal of activism by the African Canadian community.

As a direct result of this agitation, the Attorney General for Ontario established the Race Relations and Policing Task Force, the Clare Lewis task force. The task force mandate was to address promptly the very serious concerns of visible minorities respecting their interaction with the police community.

One of the recommendations made by the task force was that police forces adopt employment equity policies to ensure that the forces were more reflective of the communities they serve. This recommendation was later adopted and incorporated into amendments in the Police Services Act.

Since 1990, police services in Ontario have indeed made progress towards a workforce that more accurately reflects the communities that they serve. This progress towards a representative workforce has been, I believe, an integral part of community policing. It is a fact that public confidence of African Canadians in policing increases with the diversity of community policing. It is a fact that the public confidence of African Canadians in policing increases with the diversity of the police. Indeed, many members of the African Canadian community support the principle of community policing, and I believe that Bill 8 would therefore strike a real blow to the notion of community policing.

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I submit that police forces and their hiring and promotion systems must continue to be made accountable to the public through the continuation of employment equity planning. While we are opposed to the entire contents of Bill 8, I would implore you and I would recommend that you leave intact the employment equity provisions in the Police Services Act.

Subject to any questions you may have, those are my submissions.

The Chair: We have about three and a half minutes per team, starting with the government.

Mr Young: Thank you very much for your excellent presentation. I'd like to ask you a question that gets to the crux of the matter from our viewpoint, which is the hiring process, hiring and promotion. If you were a human resources manager or a personnel manager and you interviewed 20 people for, say, four positions, and you had the résumés, the work records and the whole evaluation process, and you laid them all out and put them in order of who you'd like to have first on the job, but your boss had said to you that morning, "Hey, we're not complying with section 2.2 of the Employment Equity Act; you'd better get your numbers up for visible minorities and women," would you start at the top and hire the best person for the job or would you go down the list and pick somebody who was a member of one of those minorities?

Mr Pike: I think the way the question is phrased, and I say this with respect, is somewhat misleading because again it takes us back to a situation where we're looking at the legislation as simply a numbers game. I disagree with that.

I think under the scheme that was set up under the legislation, the way the scenario you pointed out would have worked is, was there anyone of those 20 who was qualified for the job but is also part of an unrepresented group? Because if you look at the community in which that employer is located, let's say there are 100 people in the community, 25 or 30 of them are going to be from the designated groups. The point of the legislation is, are there barriers within that employer that has not allowed qualified people from those groups to be part of that workforce?

To answer your question directly: I would look at the 20. I would see if there is anyone who is qualified. If they're also a member of the target groups, wonderful, they have the job. If not, my understanding of the way this scheme works, the employer would not meet that goal that year, but perhaps it would be a continuing effort later down the road to meet the goals that were set.

The Chair: Another minute over there. Any other questions? Mr Tascona, a minute now.

Mr Tascona: The question is that what we've been hearing here is that the legislation was needed and that you needed it in place with a fine so that you could have a hammer to ensure that the employment equity goals and the objectives were achieved. That's what we've been hearing. So maybe we have an interpretation difficulty here in terms of what your interpretation is and what other groups have been interpreting and that we interpret this as indeed there being a hammer to ensure that legislation is enforced. If your interpretation is correct, why would we need Bill 79?

Mr Pike: I stand to be corrected by those who are experts on Bill 79, but I know, for example, that one of the criticisms of even the groups who were militating in favour of the enactment of Bill 79 was indeed the fact that it did not have enough enforcement provisions. As I say, while I stand to be corrected, my understanding is that the goals were not mandatory in the sense that there were fines or penalties to be imposed if those goals were not met. They were simply goals for the employer to work towards.

Mrs Pupatello: I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on the equal opportunity plan that we have yet to see. We don't know its content, but it will in all likelihood come about some time and this bill, Bill 8, will surely pass. What is your thought in terms of how effective it will be?

Mr Pike: I think any equal opportunity plan which in any way backtracks from the high water mark that we were able to achieve in Bill 79 is really not going to be effective. It's hard to sort of respond to something without having --

Mrs Pupatello: You talked about the importance of education and that component, and clearly whatever plan is going to come focuses almost entirely on that. So if the government then thinks that is going to be the seed, all of sudden we'll have all of this equity growing out of this plan --

Mr Pike: Indeed, because education is simply one part of the picture. The other part, and the more important part and the bigger part, is those barriers. Let's not kid ourselves. The barriers have very little to do, in most cases, with education. Education is important because the playing field is not level, but part of what makes the playing field not level is the systemic barriers which are there. I think the comments that the previous presenter made with respect to the taxi drivers are an example of that. Here you have people who are qualified, so certainly education isn't the problem. The problem is, how do they get over those barriers which are in place?

Mrs Pupatello: In other words, this plan, whatever it is and whenever it comes, will likely do absolutely nothing.

Mr Pike: Indeed.

The Chair: The New Democratic Party, Ms Lankin.

Ms Lankin: You're quite right, in fact, about the fines. The fines that were in the previous legislation were not attached directly to failure to meet goals or objectives; there was a flexibility there. There was a $50,000 fine for non-compliance with the active role, if you didn't attempt to collect data, to put in place a plan. Members opposite often confuse that when they talk about the fine and relate that to quotas.

The act will be passed; I think we have to accept that. I wish that people would be listening to the vast majority of presenters that have come forward, but I believe it will be passed. I hope that they'll consider amendments to the name, only because it's so offensive, but also to the data provision.

What I'd like you to take your time to address is, in the voluntary plan, that concrete plan that members opposite say will be coming some time down the road, what aspects have to be in place to give us any hope that that voluntary plan will accomplish something in the province?

Mr Pike: If we accept that what we're dealing with is a voluntary plan, I think it has to be transparent and it has to be accountable. It's simply not good enough that we put in place a voluntary plan which employers may or may not buy into if there's no accountability, if there's no openness, if there are no standards by which their participation can be measured. But then it boils down, really, to nothing. You really have nothing left if you have a voluntary plan where there is no accountability. So I would say that a major part of that has to be accountability, has to be some method where we can go in and say: "What is your progress? How do we measure this? How have you indicated that you're actually providing equal opportunity?"

Ms Lankin: Do I have time for a follow-up? Yes. That's very important to hear. That sounds to me like collection of data. It sounds to me like establishment of goals and some measurement of whether goals are being achieved. So it sounds to me perhaps like the legislation that was in place without legislation in a voluntary approach, and anything short of that is going to not meet the elements that you've set out. Now, I may have misinterpreted that, but I would ask you to respond.

Mr Pike: No, that's precisely it. Without that, we're back to the regime where it's wide-open and where there is no protection. There's no protection of employment equity or there's no protection under equal opportunity. So it has to have some measure. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. It really defies common sense. I think, therefore, yes, you do need to have some sort of data collection, or else how do you measure the program? How do you assess your goals and what you've achieved?

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Pike. We appreciate your involvement in our process and your presentation tonight.

Mr Pike: Thank you for the time. Good evening.

The Chair: Okay, a little bit of good news: Our last presenter has not been able to make it, so we're through for the evening.

Just a couple of little housekeeping notes before we leave: Expense reports have to be returned to the clerk as soon as possible. The agenda for Monday has been handed out. You'll notice the committee room is 228, which is upstairs. It's not in this room; it's upstairs, 228. Anything that is important to you, please take with you. All right, Mr Young?

Mr Young: I hear you, Mr Chair. Thank you.

The Chair: My thanks for your cooperation. It was a long day and your cooperation made it go very smoothly. Thank you very much.

The committee adjourned at 1730.