STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'ÉQUITÉ EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI
CONTENTS
Tuesday 19 October 1993
Employment Equity Act, 1993, Bill 79 , Ms Ziemba / Loi de 1993 sur l'équité en matière d'emploi, projet de loi 79
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
*Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)
*Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Ms Akande
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Duignan
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: Joyal, Lisa, legislative counsel
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
TUESDAY 19 OCTOBER 1993
The committee met at 1540 in room 228.
EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR L'ÉQUITÉ EN MATIÈRE D'EMPLOI
Consideration of Bill 79, An Act to provide for Employment Equity for Aboriginal People, People with Disabilities, Members of Racial Minorities and Women / Projet de loi 79, Loi prévoyant l'équité en matière d'emploi pour les autochtones, les personnes handicapées, les membres des minorités raciales et les femmes.
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I'd like to call the meeting to order. Mr Fletcher, I'm going to recognize you. Mr Tilson is speaking in the House, as we see him on television now. I understand Mr Harnick isn't coming, although we have spoken about this, so my presumption is that we could begin without them.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): They spoke enough for three days.
The Chair: If I'm wrong, they'll let me know.
Mr Fletcher, I understand you have a statement.
Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): They said enough for a year.
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): It is my understanding that the House leaders spoke today and have come to an agreement regarding consideration of Bill 79 before this committee.
Government members were prepared to proceed yesterday with sections of this bill that are ready to go, but unfortunately the opposition members decided not to participate in this process.
Many of the sections that were stood down earlier were due to technical amendments that affected other sections of this bill. As well, the consultations on the regulations are continuing and will not be completed until October 29.
In that regard, I move that the committee adjourn from consideration of this bill and that it begin consideration of other business until consultations are concluded.
The Chair: Adjournment has been moved.
Mr Curling: Just to have understanding, though, on a point of information --
The Chair: Mr Curling --
Mr Curling: No, really, I've been very fair with you.
Mr Fletcher: There's no debate on an adjournment motion.
The Chair: Mr Curling, go ahead.
Mr Curling: Let me see if I understand the parliamentary assistant properly. You said that the bill, employment equity Bill 79, which is being considered clause by clause, will cease clause-by-clause for the moment, will remain in the justice committee, that the next thing on the agenda would be another bill that will be dealt with but, when you are ready, you will bring back Bill 79 to this justice committee. I just want to understand that.
Mr Fletcher: The motion read, and I'll read it once again for the committee members, "that the committee adjourn from consideration of this bill and that it begin consideration of other business until consultations are concluded."
Mr Curling: The question was not answered, Mr Chair. I just want to understand -- I don't want to go back to the bill -- I just want to ask him, will Bill 79 return to this committee? It wasn't said that way. Will that be so?
Mr Fletcher: Yes.
Mr Curling: Okay. I'd like to make some comments.
Mr Fletcher: On a point of order, Mr Chair.
Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): You've had two shots. We get one.
Mr Curling: There was an explanation, I thought.
Mr Fletcher: On a point of order.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, part of our understanding is that, given that you've given an explanatory note in advance of adjournment, then it leaves it open for people to comment on that. That's what we're doing.
Mr David Winninger (London South): On a point of order.
Mr Fletcher: Not to disagree with you wholeheartedly, but when the motion to adjourn is moved, regardless of any discussion or any statement beforehand, as we witnessed yesterday when Mr Harnick moved adjournment and as we witnessed when it was moved before, once the motion was moved, it was addressed. I'm going by precedents that were set previously in this committee.
Mr Murphy: Mr Chair, you've ruled. Use the power that's vested in you.
The Chair: The clerk will -- do you want to speak to this, or through the Chair? I've got two clerks advising me.
I'm advised, given the context of the way it's framed and that it is coming back and that it gives a time as well in terms of when it will come back, that the matter is therefore debatable. Rather than debating whether that is so or not, I would prefer to have the few members say a few words and then adjourn.
Mr Fletcher: Again, Mr Chair, I beg to differ in that the committee was asked to adjourn and that this be brought back after adjournment and after consultation.
The Chair: I understand what you're saying. Through the advice that has been given, I am ruling that the way it has been framed allows for members to make some remarks, and that's what it will do.
Mr Fletcher: Is that your ruling?
The Chair: Yes. Mr Winninger.
Mr Winninger: I withdraw my point of order. I yield the floor to Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: I want to commend you on your wise ruling, a proper ruling on the matter. I can understand that you're not intimidated in the least by the parliamentary assistant, who was so wrong on this matter. I appreciate that. I also respect the fact that you asked for some comment. I have no problem, first, with his motion, but I have some concerns and some comment to make with regard to his narrative before the motion.
To begin with, I want the record to show that the government was not ready, as indicated, because if one has 28 or almost 26 clauses out of 50 that it asks to stand down until it gets itself ready, that tells us that almost 50% of that bill was not ready. That's one part of it.
While we are of course prepared to cooperate in the process of waiting for amendments until they are ready, we decided to proceed, but we were extremely shocked to know at the beginning the level of clauses that were stood down, and then yesterday I think almost 14 clauses were asked to be stood down until they were ready. To come and say the government was ready and we somehow were not prepared to proceed is in error.
Furthermore, to continue this consultation that is going on -- we understand that the minister will continue talking; she seems to be extremely busy talking out there, but never has time to come here to do that -- we understand that consultations are continuing. But when consultations are continuing to get a definition of a certain part of the bill, it concerns my party, very much so. If we don't know what we're doing, to whom we are having this legislation being drawn or what the legislation is about, when they are trying to find out the what and the how and the where, we have to somehow tell the government to get its act together.
You may recall, Mr Chairman, as you stand by this legislation all along, as you see the process, that one of the colleagues here asked for just a one-day delay in order to have some of the clause-by-clause explained so they could warn us and be more prepared. It was turned down by the government of the day, adamantly saying that we did not need any extra day to do this because they were ready and they wanted to proceed with this bill. Lo and behold, what has happened?
The parliamentary assistant, with a barrage of bureaucrats who are quite qualified assisting him in that process, came and they were not ready. For them to say they are taking this bill back because we refused to proceed with it is in complete error, and I want the record to show that.
Another point I'd like to make is that whenever you try to draft legislation for just symbolic purposes, people are intelligent enough to realize it. Don't patronize them or they will resist that. We have heard that while we've been having hearings, over and over. People have been phoning us and saying that this employment equity Bill 79, this bill has no substance. It is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors and symbolism that somehow do not give the purpose of what employment equity's all about. Employment equity basically is about identifying barriers in the workplace and eliminating those barriers by having effective legislation.
I just want to correct the record and make the point about how extremely disappointed my party is about this, because we were prepared to proceed and to cooperate as much as possible, but if you don't have your bill, the necessary equipment, you can't do the job.
1550
I should then give, in closing, some small advice to the parliamentary assistant. If your leader or your Premier or your colleagues are sending you out to do a job, at least they can give you the tool. They did not give him the proper tool in order to have an effective employment equity bill. They gave him empty legislation, an empty bill, full of holes, lack of completion, and then brought him here. I don't want to apologize for the way we had to criticize the bill, but I will not do that, because we have a job to do to make sure we have the best legislation.
But tell your Premier and tell your caucus, if they're going to send you back here with the legislation, to make sure they give you the proper equipment: a good bill with proper definition, well consulted with regulations that are complete, so when you get here we can proceed effectively. It's very unfair to you; this is the part where I offer my sympathy to the parliamentary assistant. To send you here without the proper tool is one of the worst thing any caucus could have done.
You have competent people there; you have employed Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré, who is well paid and a very, very qualified individual. Not one day did you bring her here to give some of her expertise, as she was employed to do. I don't know what's happening over at that ministry. Sometimes they don't even support the concept of the Human Rights Commission; then other times they have the properly educated individuals, professional people, and they do not appear before here.
On an important bill like this, on which you always criticized that the Liberals had five years to do it and didn't, there is not a sufficient excuse. You had the opportunity to bring forward a proper bill, and now you're trying to say you can't because you're not ready.
It's gone from water in your computer to other excuses; you've sent me amended legislation on a Sunday hoping we can meet on a Monday, saying, "We want to get on with it," and today we don't even have the necessary legislation in order to make a proper employment equity bill.
I'm in full support of them withdrawing it until they're ready. Whenever you're ready, the opposition is ready to criticize that bill effectively.
Mr Murphy: One might imagine that Mr Curling had covered all the ground, but there are two points I want to make. One is that the concern I had related to not having the amendments was, for example, that I met with David Baker, who works with ARCH and is a member of the Alliance for Employment Equity, and there are a number of concerns they had about, for example, the interaction between the Human Rights Code and the employment equity bill which related in part to one of the very sections that the parliamentary assistant stood down yesterday and had impact on other sections of the bill that were also stood down.
What we were prepared to go ahead with was an emasculated bill, and I don't think anybody here would think that would be appropriate. Frankly, you have to deal with a bill as a whole; you have to have some sense of what the substantive elements are to proceed with it. Yesterday it became clear that whatever compromises were being worked out within the government caucus and in the course of its consultation hadn't yet been concluded.
That is fine; I can understand that process being an ongoing one. I think they've now made the right decision to come to their conclusions, come to their compromises and then bring the results of those forward as amendments so we can consider them and vote on them. The fact that we had to push a little to get that to happen is appropriate. We were ready to proceed if the government was ready to proceed. They have admitted that they weren't ready to proceed. I think that was obvious, but I give the parliamentary assistant credit for at least admitting the obvious.
I'm glad to see we're going to come back here into this committee to consider it once they're ready, because I am concerned about having the groups that want to have an impact on this bill to have the opportunity to be in the room as it's being discussed.
I will support this motion. Now let's get on with it.
Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): For the record, I am disturbed by the process of uncooperativeness, in terms of the opposition members from the Liberal and the Tory parties in yesterday walking out and then causing problems for this process. The employment equity legislation is very important legislation and we should have continued through the process.
Again, I am very disappointed that opposition members, specifically the Progressive Conservatives, have not showed up again today for the second day. It's disturbing, because I think it shows non-interest in the legislation itself.
I would agree with the point raised by the member for St George-St David, Mr Murphy, about the Human Rights Code issue and the protection there. That's a valid point. That's why I would support the motion, because we do require the time to do that consultation until October 29 so that we can have clarification for the amendments to address the concerns raised.
I guess I'm really asking for cooperation from the opposition members, both Liberal and Conservative, to work together, and the goal to be a more effective process that would be beneficial and productive for all. I'm asking for cooperation of all members, and I think the beneficiaries will be the designated groups who are waiting for the legislation and who have waited for this legislation for a long time.
Mr Fletcher: Please, Mr Curling, no crocodile tears for me. As far as being ready with the legislation is concerned, as we said earlier, we were ready to proceed yesterday. We've been ready to proceed with this and the stalling tactics from the opposition is what has been holding this legislation up.
In terms of a commitment to employment equity, Mr Curling mentioned five years of being in power, and during those five years there was not shown a commitment to employment equity. There was no bill, there was no legislation. Even since that time, while they've been in opposition, there has been no push for employment equity from the Liberals. I think that in itself proves there is no commitment by the Liberal Party as far as employment equity is concerned.
I think we've discussed this issue long enough, and at this time I'd like to call the question.
The Chair: All in favour of putting the question? Then are we ready to proceed with the motion? All in favour of adjournment? Opposed? That carries. This meeting is adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1558.