EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8:01 p.m.
EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming consideration of Bill 141, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, before we adjourned at 6 p.m. for dinner, we were discussing the amendment placed earlier this afternoon. We had heard comments from the New Democratic Party that our amendment did not go far enough. They did not understand it and they were not quite sure what to make of it. But later on it appeared from their comments that they had come around full circle and might even vote for our amendment. We would accept their support and that they finally understand the amendment. They should realize, as should the government, that the amendment would bring in equal pay for work of equal value.
That is what the discussion here this evening is going to centre on: the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies), the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay), was in the committee several weeks more than I had the opportunity to be --
Mr. Chairman: With all due respect, the member should be speaking to the amendment.
Mr. Wrye: He is speaking to it.
Mr. Boudria: And an excellent speech it is.
Mr. Mancini: I agree that we are speaking to the amendment. I want to make it absolutely clear what the amendment is and what it does. Then when we have the vote on the amendment, members will know exactly what they are doing. I am sure the New Democratic Party will have to caucus several more times before they make up their minds exactly what they are going to do.
Mr. Charlton: You are a joke, Remo. You do not understand your own amendment.
Mr. Mancini: The member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) will have an opportunity later on to express his views on the amendment.
Mr. Wrye: Maybe he could explain it.
Mr. Mancini: Yes; maybe he could explain it.
Mr. Charlton: Where are your comments on our amendment?
Mr. Chairman: The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) has the floor.
Mr. Mancini: The amendment we put forward will then force us to focus on the debate and centre our thoughts on the matter of equal pay for work of equal value. As I was saying, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour sat on the committee for many more weeks than I and he heard the many very valid reasons as to why we need such legislation.
Before we adjourned, the members will recall I brought up the matter of the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) receiving the same salary as the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Brandt). If we were to accept the logic of the government, the salary of the Minister of Education would have to be reduced to 63 per cent of what her male cabinet colleagues receive. I dare say the women here who are not in the cabinet also would have to have their salaries reduced to 63 per cent of whatever the male members receive.
I made those remarks in reference and in rebuttal to the statements made by the parliamentary assistant when he said equal pay for work of equal value would create chaos in the marketplace.
Mr. Gillies: That is not quite what I said.
Mr. Wrye: Pretty close.
Mr. Mancini: Not quite, but I am trying to paraphrase what the parliamentary assistant said. I believe the word was "disruption." He said it would create disruption in the marketplace, in the work force and in the economy.
I for one do not understand, and I want it explained to me, why there is disruption. Why is the economy affected when you are paying a fair wage to an individual to do a particular job? Why does that cause disruption in the marketplace or in the economy?
As far as I know, in areas of work where there is already equal pay for work of equal value there has been no disruption to the work place or to the economy. When members of the teaching profession all across this province sign collective agreements with their school boards, there is not an agreement for the male teachers and a separate agreement for the female teachers; in the colleges and universities there are no separate agreements. In other areas of work where progressive employers realize a person should be paid for the job he or she is doing, we have not seen the disruption that the parliamentary assistant has talked about either to the work place or to the economy.
I ask the parliamentary assistant again, when he has his opportunity to respond and to make comments on the amendment, if he will please give us specific examples of his particular concern.
Getting to the matter of whether our amendment is sound enough, I say to the members that anyone who reads subsection 33(1) the way we have amended it and anyone who does not want to be partisan for his own reasons will conclude that the amendment we have made to subsection 33(1) does indeed install the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in this legislation.
I close by saying that some of my other colleagues will be rising soon and putting forward their comments. But we have no hesitation in making public the amendment we have made this evening, and we are looking forward to sending our amendments and the debates that are taking place tonight to every women's group in Ontario and to everyone else who is interested in what is happening here.
8:10 p.m.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Chairman --
Mr. Wrye: Now we are going to get an explanation. Now we are going to find out why you are voting against it.
Mr. Swart: Yes, they will. The previous speaker, the member for Essex South, made a comment and I wrote it down. He said we do not know what we are doing over here. We know exactly what we are doing; that is why we are going to vote against this amendment and substitute our own in its place.
In the nine minutes in which he spoke since the dinner hour the member for Essex South used the phrase "equal pay for work of equal value" at least half a dozen times. That is what we have in our amendment. That phrase has come to mean something; it has come to mean something to the women of this province.
I suggest it is no accident that those words are not in the amendment put forward by the Liberal Party members. What they are trying to do is weasel on this. They know very well what the words "equal pay for work of equal value" mean, yet they leave in the clauses that state equal pay shall apply where the work requires "substantially the same skill, effort," etc. and is "substantially equivalent." If they leave those kinds of qualifications in there --
Mr. Wrye: They are not qualifications.
Mr. Swart: They are qualifications. The Liberal members do not want equal pay for work of equal value embodied in legislation. That is what they are saying to the women of this province. That is what they are saying to this Legislature. It does not matter if they get up and try to pretend that is what is in there; it is not in there.
We have seen all kinds of legislation passed in this House where the wording is not specific when principles are stated. We know what happens to it. Even the Liberal Party is not happy with the application of the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act. At least I think I am right in saying that. My goodness, that sets out principles which have tougher statements in them than the amendment they propose here. Yet the government was able to get around that and will get around this. It has no meaning.
If they want to have equal pay for work of equal value, they have to say that. They have to lay out the specifics for enforcement. This is what our amendment does, and the Liberal Party amendment does not do it. I suggest to the party on my right -- far to the right, both philosophically and in direction -- that its wording is deliberate. It is a compromise within their caucus so they can attempt to serve both factions within their caucus. They have come up with something that will be meaningless when it comes to enforcement.
We in this party cannot go along with the equivocating phraseology they have in their amendment. We want to mean what we say and to say what we mean. Our amendment does that; their amendment does not. We are voting against theirs and voting for our resolution, an amendment that has some meaning.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about a couple of things, but first I will deal with my friends on the left; that should not take long. Then I want to talk about some of the comments made by the parliamentary assistant to the minister.
I want to congratulate my friend the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart), because he at least has the courage, although he is wrong, to outline the problem our friends on the left supposedly have. I suppose the real problem they have is that our amendment is not written on New Democratic Party paper. That is basically the problem. If there is a second problem, it is that the amendment the Liberals proposed is the amendment that came first.
I want to deal with some of the comments made by my friend the member for Welland-Thorold for a very important reason. I want to congratulate the New Democratic Party, ever the party that would stoop low enough to play politics on an issue that is crucial to the women of Ontario. They have managed to give the government an out. My friend the parliamentary assistant stands in his place, holier than thou, and says, "The opposition cannot agree, so we cannot do it." Thanks a lot to the NDP. Frankly, we will vote for their amendment, and then he will lose at least one excuse.
Let me deal with the substantive part of an amendment I have seen but have not heard. I may hear it a little later tonight. I did see it in November 1983. Even if my friends on the left do not understand, I know you will, Mr. Chairman. The substantive part of their amendment to section 33 is in subsection 33(3). Correct me if I am wrong, but I see their amendment as being very like ours.
Their amendment says, "In assessing the value of work performed by employees employed in the same establishment, the criterion to be applied is the composite of the skill, effort and responsibility required in the performance of the work and the conditions under which the work is performed."
Our amendment to subsection 33(1) says, "No employer or person acting on behalf of an employer shall differentiate between his male and female employees by paying a female employee wages that are less than the wages paid to a male employee, or vice versa, for work" -- not "substantially the same kind of work" -- "performed in the same establishment, where the work requires substantially equivalent or greater skill, effort, responsibility under similar working conditions when the skill, effort, responsibility and the working conditions are considered as a whole and not individually."
In essence, the amendments say exactly the same thing. The New Democrats want to write in the word "value," because someone said it was important that they write it in. Obviously they have not checked with any legislative counsel, because it is not crucial at all. This amendment takes out the crucial, qualifying words that make this the composite test, that is, "substantially the same kind of work." We have not qualified the work. We have allowed any kind of work being undertaken in the same establishment to qualify under the equal pay laws.
I do not want to completely defuse the arguments of my friends on the left. I will agree there are some phrases in their amendments that I can support. They try to define "establishment." They try to set up a mechanism for complaints, although I understand a mechanism is already there. As usual, my friends on the left wish to completely rewrite the world.
I want to put it on the record that the members on my left have done a disservice to the women of Ontario. They have suggested that in some way, to use the words of the member for Welland-Thorold, we are weaseling. We are doing no such thing. It is too bad they have lost the leadership on this issue to our party and particularly to my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps). Now they are trying to get back.
No matter how they rail about how their fellow party supporters in the Equal Pay Coalition told them -- and I am sure they told them after careful study, because they did not see our amendments until 4:30 -- no matter how much weaseling of their own they do about how our amendments are really not "equal pay for work of equal value," it is indeed equal legislation. I am sure the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) could set them straight on that.
I would be extremely disappointed if the New Democratic Party were to vote against this amendment. Not only would I be disappointed, but I think it is something the women of Ontario should be reminded of as well. When their paycheques are the bottom line, the NDP members cannot rise above petty politics long enough to support the women of Ontario.
8:20 p.m.
We will support their amendment. I have not reviewed it carefully word for word, but we will support it because the principle of the NDP amendment is just as important as the principle of our amendment. The members of the third party should remember that. It is principles we are supposed to be dealing with in this Legislature, not on whose paper the amendments are written.
I want to deal a little more with the comments of my friend the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour. I would hope some of my colleagues might find interesting the comments he made in regard to the disruption in the economic marketplace that he claimed would be caused by this horrendous decision of actually saying to the women of Ontario, "Enough is enough; we are going to support you."
The parliamentary assistant raised the issue that equal value legislation would not close the 37 per cent wage gap. I agree with him. It will not close it entirely. I want to read something into the record in this important debate as this is our last opportunity in this parliament. If our friends across the way by mischance and misfortune are re-elected -- and I do not think they will be; if they want to go to the polls in June, 46-40, let us go in June.
Mr. Riddell: Right on.
Mr. Wrye: One out of four at least.
I want to remind my friend the member for Brantford of this and challenge him on it. I want to use a little study prepared for the Ministry of Labour in February 1982 by a professor by the name of Morley Gunderson from the University of Toronto. I am sure my friend is well aware of the study. It is called The Male-Female Earnings Gap in Ontario: A Summary.
Mr. Gunderson makes it very clear in that study, and I would certainly agree with his conclusion, that equal value legislation will not close entirely, or even by 50 per cent, the wage gap that now exists in Ontario. Of course, what this will do, and the member for Brantford knows it, is absolutely nothing. It will not close the wage gap one per cent, and he knows it.
Let me put on the record what Mr. Gunderson said. He was speaking about equal pay for equal work. He said: "Throughout the paper, equal pay for equal work legislation was not portrayed as a powerful and important policy option." That is what we still have. We have equal pay for equal work. We do not have anything but that. We have a composite test that widens equal pay for equal work, but that is all we have.
He said: "Given the small magnitude of narrowly defined wage discrimination, its potential is limited. This rather negative portrayal of equal pay legislation, however, should be qualified. It may have a substantial indirect impact by changing the attitudes of employers and employees and may alter the relative position of the parties within households. Given these qualifications, perhaps the most balanced statement that can be made is that equal pay cannot be relied upon as the main policy option."
In this popgun arsenal of weapons that the ministry has, what we have before us tonight is the main and only policy option that this ministry has offered to close the disgraceful wage gap.
Mr. Gunderson went onto say: "The results of this study shed some light on the efficacy of the controversial legislation for equal pay for work of equal value. First, by broadening the scope of comparison across occupations, it opens up the possibility of reducing the discrimination that results from occupational segregation" -- I hope the parliamentary assistant is taking notes so he can tell us how the composite test does all this -- "which was shown to be larger than the narrowly defined wage discrimination that is the purview of legislation on equal pay for equal work."
To explain this to the member for Brantford and to the government members -- and I would like him to respond to this -- what happens is that equal value in and of itself is not the only springboard to narrowing the wage gap. What happens -- and I think he should talk a bit about this -- is there is a spinoff effect of equal value legislation in narrowing the job ghettos, the employment segregation we have here at Queen's Park right within the Ontario civil service. I really think, and I always have, that this is probably one of the greatest impacts of bringing in equal value legislation.
Then Professor Gunderson went on to say, "Second, to the extent that it is accompanied by job evaluation techniques to assess equal value, it may reduce the gap indirectly because the gap tends to be smaller in jobs with evaluation schemes." I heard my friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) agreeing. I am sure those of us who sat on the committee and had the opportunity to hear about job evaluation and the impact it can have know this certainly will happen, but it will not happen with the simple little composite test.
Professor Gunderson added: "In addition, given the importance of differences in productivity-related factors -- notably, the different facets of experience -- legislating equal pay for work of equal value cannot directly reduce discrimination in the acquisition of these factors. Equal value legislation, like any legislative intervention in the labour market, will also have its own obvious costs.
"In summary, its potential is clearly broader than conventional equal pay legislation" -- and that is what is before us -- "but it will have its own associated problems and it cannot hope to completely close the discriminatory gap."
There is no argument at all with that on this side.
The parliamentary assistant knows that right in the next paragraph our friend Professor Gunderson referred -- and this is the referral that has been popularized in these debates, particularly by the Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch) -- to the phrase "arsenal of weapons." But he used "arsenal of weapons" in the sense of equal value legislation as an important weapon in that arsenal -- not equal pay for equal work but equal pay for work of equal value.
I hope when my friend the member for Brantford next rises in his place he will explain to me how the composite test will begin to end occupational segregation in the marketplace, because it simply will not happen, and he knows it.
I want to remind the House of some information that was provided to those of us who sat on the committee, called comments by Honourable Russell H. Ramsay on certain matters raised in the public hearings of January 9, 10 and 11. One of the many matters the Minister of Labour dealt with -- and, again, I want the member for Brantford to comment on this -- is number 11. He will find this in his sheaf of notes; it is dated January 23, 1984, and I am sure he can have one of his people in the Ministry of Labour send it to him. It is called Potential Impact of Composite Test and Equal Value. I want to read into the record some of the things the Minister of Labour said to those of us who were on that committee.
"Questions were asked about the numbers of workers who would benefit from the composite as well as from equal value. I am advised that there are limits to how specifically this question can be answered." That, of course, is because it had years and years to start doing some studies and had done none at all.
"To provide a perspective, I should note that from March 1980 to November 1983 through the enhanced enforcement program" -- that means they were actually trying to enforce their law -- "of the equal pay unit of the employment standards branch, 645 investigations were completed, two thirds of which were initiated as a result of employee complaints."
Here is the important statistic that the minister offers to the members of the committee: "Twenty-two per cent of the total employers investigated were found to be in violation." Then he went on and gave some numbers. Of course, because it is over three years, they are pretty large numbers. He talked about how $1.3 million was repaid.
8:30 p.m.
I hope the member for Brantford will note we are now moving to page 15. This is the crucial paragraph because this is really the crux of what this composite test is going to do. I would remind members that we talked about 22 per cent out of the 645 investigations. About 140 or 150 were found to be in violation. The rest, not because there was not some discrimination but because our law was so narrow, were not in violation.
Here is the tipoff and the giveaway about what little this composite test will do. The minister wrote, "For part of last year, equal pay officers monitored investigations for instances which, had the composite been applied" -- that is what is before us -- "a violation would have been found where employers were currently in compliance. As a result of this monitoring, staff identified an increase of violations of at least 10 per cent that would have been found under the composite approach."
He said things really would have been better. Of course, he does not have any proof; he just says it would have been an increase of at least 10 per cent.
Let us just sum up this for the member for Brantford to comment on. We had 645 complaints that were sent for investigation with the employment standards branch. I am sure he will understand, as I do, there are a lot of people who understand equal pay for equal work is a waste of time with respect to equal value legislation. So a lot of those were not even applied for.
Of the 645 that were applied for, some 22 per cent of the employers were found in violation. I am not too quick in mathematics, but that is about 135 or 140 out of 645. Under the legislation we are getting rid of, that means 500 employers were not in violation. Clearly, some of them were not because the complaint would have been thrown out in any event.
What the minister now says -- what he put on the record -- is that of the 505 cases that were not in violation, had the wonderful composite test been in place, there would have been an additional 10 per cent or an additional 50. That leaves us with 450 cases in which the law will not allow for proper redress. I would venture a guess that in many of those 450 cases at least as many could have been redressed through the composite test.
We have no complaint with the composite test; it just does not go far enough. It does not begin to go far enough. In at least 50 of those cases, the member for Brantford will surely be aware that equal value legislation would have narrowed the gap.
He had some comments to make this afternoon with respect to the economic disruption that would have been caused. I hope the member for Essex South was able to find them.
Mr. Sargent: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: While my colleague is looking up his facts, members should know the score is 1-0 for the New York Islanders in the first period.
Mr. Chairman: The point of order is out of order, but we thank you for the information.
Mr. Wrye: I want to thank the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) because I have found at least one comment from the member for Brantford.
I would like him to explain something else too -- I have a lot for him to explain. He said this afternoon, "Further, beyond that, there is concern about moving to an equal value law without due consideration of the effects this can have on our jurisdiction." That is a lovely comment. Why does the member not find out the effects? The Tories have been the government for 41 years. Would they like the opposition to write the bill for them?
He went on to say "it could raise levels of unemployment." This is the old scare tactic. Now we are going to have levels of unemployment. Will the member please explain that? It really becomes a little much after a while. He said, "It could worsen the situation for working women in our province." He should pull out Gunderson. Maybe he will help the member on that.
What we are faced with is a government that says it believes in equal value legislation and a parliamentary assistant who says he believes in equal value legislation. However, he has not stood in his place, the minister has not stood in his place and the Premier (Mr. Davis) has not stood in his place and said one iota about any pilot project or any studies that are under way that will lead to a pilot project or to general legislation.
Those of us on this side are a little sick of hearing the phoney bleatings from over on that side of the House -- I do not mean the parliamentary assistant because I would not want to impute motives -- about how they are all in favour of equal pay for work of equal value.
I wish just one of them would stand up and say, "I am not." Why do they not have the courage of their convictions? They do not want it and they have not proposed it. I really wish one of them would stand up and have the courage to say, "We do not want it and that is why we have not brought it in." At least it would be honest.
Mr. Philip: Why did the Liberals disappear and not vote on my leader's affirmative action bill?
Mr. Wrye: I hear my friend the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip). I guess he was out. Does he want me to read it again?
Mr. Boudria: He is the Etobicoke landlord.
Mr. Mancini: I hear he is a slum landlord.
Mr. Wrye: I would not say that about my friend.
Mr. Philip: That is the kind of stupid sleaze one would expect from a Liberal.
Mr. Chairman: Order. The member knows that is not parliamentary language.
Mr. Philip: This sleaze should not --
Mr. Chairman: Constrain yourself. That is not parliamentary and you will be having to withdraw it pretty soon.
Mr. Philip: If he is going to lie, I have a right to correct the record.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the remark "slum landlord."
Mr. Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Wrye: I think we all understand these matters can get a little emotional. I hope my friends to the left will understand that there have been occasions when they have perhaps got carried away. My friend the member for Essex South has --
Hon. Mr. Andrewes: That is why we have Wilkinson.
Mr. Wrye: That is right. That is why we have Wilkinson and we do not just use him in the morning.
Perhaps I should help my friend the member for Etobicoke because he apparently missed it the first time. If he will read our amendment in total and if he will read subsection 3 of the New Democratic Party manifesto, Bill 108, the equal pay part of it, it means the same thing. I am going to vote for it and our party will vote for it.
I suppose that is why the NDP is not very skilled in the law because they have obviously not checked with legislative counsel to find out it is six of one or half a dozen of another. I want the member for Etobicoke to understand. All he has done, and I think the women of Ontario will be really pleased to hear this, is given the government an out.
My friend across the floor stood up this afternoon and said: "You guys are split. Because the Liberal Party has split with the NDP and they cannot get together on this thing, now we do not have to bring it in." That is fine. I am willing to allow them to use their paper if they will bring in our amendment. I am quite prepared to vote for theirs, but I would have thought they would have voted for ours and then said, "We have something even better." I might even have agreed with them.
Instead, we are faced as usual, once again and ad nauseam, with the political games our friends on the left play. Then they run off to the working women of Ontario and say: "We could not get it for you. We could not get anything for you." I guess after a while some of us in this party get a little fed up with having to listen to those political games being played.
I see my friend the member for Hamilton East smiling. I know he and I may agree on a lot of things, but after a while some of us find the phoney, self-serving posturing on the left just a little much.
Mr. Mackenzie: It is coming from an expert right now and has been for the last 20 minutes.
Mr. Shymko: Hear, hear.
Mr. Wrye: I see my friend the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko) has joined in. I am sure he is going to stand up and admit that he really wants equal value legislation, but he cannot figure out how to do it.
Mr. Shymko: I said it in my first campaign literature.
Mr. Wrye: I am sure the member for Brantford will want to haul him down.
Mr. Shymko: I said it in 1981.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Wrye: Of course, they all say it. He is going to say it in 1984 and 1985 and he does not believe it today any more than he believed it then. Let us not be so --
Mr. Shymko: You did not even mention it in your campaign literature in 1981.
Mr. Wrye: Does the member want to check my campaign literature?
Mr. Shymko: That is right. Give me a copy.
Mr. Chairman: Order. The member for Windsor-Sandwich has the floor. Carry on with the debate on the amendment.
Mr. Wrye: I will be very interested to hear the response from my friend the member for Brantford and I am sure he will want to give me a detailed response. I think the working women of this province would be somewhat disappointed with those of us in the opposition if we allowed this travesty to go sailing through this House. I look forward to hearing a detailed response from him on the points I have raised because I think they are important. Should he not want to make a detailed response, perhaps I will raise them with him again.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, if I might just take a moment or two, I would be very pleased to respond to the points raised by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), only I am not quite sure which ones. Perhaps he could give me some guidance on which set of points I should respond to -- his position before dinner, which was that the introduction of equal value legislation would close the wage gap by 37 per cent, or the post-dinner admission that it would do nothing of the kind. It would close the wage gap perhaps, as Professor Gunderson suggested, by something over five percentage points.
In my comments before dinner I was responding to his earlier comments because, in terms of unfairly raising unreasonable expectations, I thought a disservice was being done to any working women in this province who would read those remarks. I find it much easier to agree with my friend's latter remarks, those we have just heard. I have examined Professor Gunderson's study, and we can look for a few moments at the points he raised about the closing of the wage gap.
In 1981 the average wage of a male in Ontario was $23,305. For a female, it was 63 per cent of that, $14,682. The professor's study indicates that, at the most, legislation of the type we contemplate or even of the type my friends opposite contemplate through amendment would close that gap by between five and 10 per cent. I have to disagree with my friend the member for Windsor-Sandwich. We feel what we are doing with Bill 141 will close the wage gap. He made the comment that it would not close it by one percentage point and said that I knew it. I have to disagree with my friend: it will.
Mr. Wrye: How much?
Mr. Gillies: I think experience will show this, but I would like to come back to it in a moment.
Professor Gunderson thought another 10 to 15 per cent of the gap was due to differences of female participation within broad occupational groups and across establishments -- for example, fewer women being in higher paid specializations within the medical profession and soon.
Mr. Wrye: What page is the parliamentary assistant on?
Mr. Gillies: I may not have the page the member has as this is a distillation of some of the professor's figures, but I would be pleased to send it over to him in a moment.
The professor thought another 15 to 25 per cent of the 37 per cent gap was caused by differences in participation between occupations in industries -- for example, there are fewer women in the auto industry and more women in banking -- and because of productivity-related factors such as education, training and time worked.
It is very clearly seen from the professor's study that at no time -- and the ministry paid very careful attention to what he was telling us -- did he think equal value legislation would close the bulk of the wage gap. I accept that. My friend seems to have come to a latter-day, post-dinner acceptance of that.
In various meetings the professor had --
Mr. Wrye: I want the parliamentary assistant to repeat it, so I can do a point of privilege in a minute.
Mr. Gillies: My friend can do a point of privilege whenever he wishes.
Mr. Shymko: What did he say before lunch?
Mr. Gillies: This is not Abbott and Costello. I am not going to feed him his lines.
Also, in Professor Gunderson's meetings and discussions with the ministry, he felt the composite approach, the approach we are anticipating, would have an immediate or a reasonable expectation of closing the gap by about five percentage points. He was less specific about what equal value would do.
But the professor did say in an interview, which I am sure my friend read, with Rosemary Speirs on December 5 that equal value would have its own associated problems and it cannot hope to completely close the discriminatory gap. For all the inflammatory talk my friends opposite raised about what I said before dinner, that is what I am saying. We cannot create unreasonable expectations as my friend did by saying we would close the gap of 37 per cent by bringing in the Liberal amendment.
My friend the member for Windsor-Sandwich also said, and again I agree, that whatever we do today, be it equal value, be it the composite test or be it any other legislative measure, will have a spinoff effect, that its real impact, beyond the five per cent the professor identified, will be psychological or spinoff. In the ministry we believe our legislation, Bill 141 as it stands, will have a significant psychological and spinoff impact on the marketplace and we are very pleased that will be the case. I am glad my friend raised it.
He also raised the question of by what percentage there would be an increase in successful adjudications under the composite test as opposed to under the equal pay legislation we have now. I hope that even if the increase was 10 per cent, it would still be one heck of a lot more successful than the introduction of equal value legislation in Quebec.
Quebec enshrined equal value legislation in 1977, and I understand the first and only equal value court decision was rendered in Quebec just this past February, upholding a complaint launched by six women in 1979. The employer is appealing that decision and the Quebec human rights commission has yet to collect any money. Under the Quebec legislation, there has yet to be a penny collected to the benefit of any of the working women in that province.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, on a point of privilege: I am sorry to interrupt, but before the member goes on, since he suggested I thought the 37 per cent wage gap could be wiped out, I have a copy of the rough Hansard, and I want to remind the member and read to him, "With those five words" -- the words we proposed to delete -- "we can take an important step, not the only step, but an important step towards reducing in a very important way the wage gap the women of Ontario must now face, a wage gap that is 37 cents on the dollar, with all the attendant spinoff effects that wage gap holds." I never said it would totally reduce it.
Mr. Gillies: I certainly apologize to my friend, but he will admit that even with what he said there and what he said a few minutes ago, there is a very distinct shift in emphasis in what the member is saying, from saying this is an important step towards the eradication of the 37 per cent to saying that it would be a step, it would be a largely psychological and spinoff effect and so on -- a very different emphasis.
I hope whatever we do will be one heck of a lot more successful than the experiment in Quebec. If that is the equal value model we are going to hold up as the one to which we should aspire, I happen to think we can do one heck of a lot better in Ontario.
I would also like to touch briefly on some of the arguments put forward by my friend the member for Essex South. All I would really say about his remarks since we resumed the debate is that he raised a couple of examples, one regarding the salary paid to a woman cabinet minister as opposed to a male cabinet minister, and another about the negotiation of teacher contracts, which is all interesting but both those arguments have nothing to do with equal value legislation. Those are equal pay arguments. Obviously, all cabinet ministers perform similar work so they are paid the same. Teachers perform similar work so they are paid the same. It was an interesting argument, but completely irrelevant.
8:50 p.m.
Mr. Charlton: Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a few moments to pass a few short comments because this debate this afternoon and this evening has been disturbing me greatly. First, it is very clear that the government has no intention of supporting equal value legislation in any shape or form, whether it be the amendment we are dealing with now or the amendment my colleague the member for Hamilton East will be moving later. So I would like to take just a few moments to speak to my Liberal colleagues about their amendment, and I attempt to do this in all sincerity.
I honestly cannot believe the naïveté that has been expressed here today by the Liberal caucus. How many times do we have to get kicked in the head before those people will begin to understand that the kind of amendment they moved this afternoon is totally meaningless? I will support their amendment, but it has no meaning and there are a number of members of our caucus who are extremely upset because it has no meaning. How many times do those people have to be kicked in the head, as we have been, before they will start to learn?
In this province, we passed an Environmental Protection Act and an Environmental Assessment Act. We set out no procedure; we set out no firm, established routine; we set out no enforcement commitments; and they have been decimated.
In 1968 we passed Bill 70, the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The two opposition parties fought like hell for a number of amendments to that piece of legislation. We did not set out in clear terms the staffing requirements and the inspection requirements, and that piece of legislation is in all kinds of trouble.
I listened to the member for Essex South say this afternoon, "I do not want to tell the government how many inspectors it has to hire." The member for Windsor-Sandwich talked about the bottom line with respect to women's dollars, women's paycheques. Well, there is no bottom line if there is no enforcement.
In a number of areas in this province we have some of the best pieces of legislation that exist. I mentioned a few of them this afternoon. We have rent review legislation in this province that has gone to tumbleweed because we set out the principle in 1975 and did not clearly establish the procedures; and it has fallen apart. Now they are standing up here and telling us that a simple amendment in principle is all of a sudden going to cause something to happen. I say that is extreme and unnecessary naïveté.
There is an air in this House that we should deal with the principle. We dealt with the principle in October and it did not mean anything, and it will mean nothing to deal just with the principle here again today. If we do not establish in whatever we support a very clear approach to what we intend not only with respect to the principle but also with respect to how it will work, we will have accomplished absolutely nothing.
As I suggested, I will be supporting the amendment. There may be a number of members of our caucus who are frustrated enough and angry enough to vote against the amendment. I do not know.
Mr. Mancini: If it is not worth while, why are you supporting it? I do not understand it.
Mr. Charlton: I am supporting the amendment because I know the government is going to vote against the principle in the Liberal amendment and against the principle in ours, so I am just going to take two shots at stating my position. I chose to speak to this amendment so I could make my position perfectly clear, because this amendment is just another resolution of the member for Hamilton Centre, a statement of principle and nothing else. It will have no more effect.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, I wish to participate briefly in the debate on the amendment that was proposed by my colleague the member for Essex South.
I wish to speak, of course, in favour of the amendment. I cannot help reflecting on some of the remarks that were made by the parliamentary assistant when he referred to the undue disruption in the labour market that such an amendment would presumably cause. I suppose if we were to have stood in a legislative assembly in some southern state in the United States over 100 years ago, we could probably have listened to a similar debate among legislators who were deciding whether they should abolish slavery.
Although you may think the parallel I am drawing is unfair, Mr. Chairman, we cannot help but feel society as a whole must start treating women as equal to men. Granted the amendment as proposed by my colleague cannot by itself do that, it will be a statement of principle and, together with other things we can do as legislators, I hope it will improve the status of women in this province.
Some time ago, we dealt with a report on family violence in this Legislature. We discussed the issue of women who were abused by their partners. One of the themes of the report was that society in general must take whatever action is necessary so we can start considering women and men as equals.
Like many other members of this Legislature, I happen to be the father of some young children, one of whom is a girl. She is six years old. Most little girls grow up to be much bigger, and I can best describe in a very few words to this Legislature how I feel on this issue by stating that I for one will never accept that my daughter is worth 63 per cent of somebody else's son. That pretty well summarizes the way I feel on this issue.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, once again and very briefly, I would like to set the record straight, I think we have already banished my colleague the member for Welland-Thorold. I would not want somebody to my right to have a heart attack. Most of the New Democratic Party members will be voting for the Liberal amendment.
I simply want to state the frustration that is there because of the Liberal amendment they themselves say is not going to solve any of the problems. Removing the word "substantially" does absolutely nothing in terms of the basic principle of equal pay for work for equal value.
Mr. Mancini: I dare you not to vote for it then.
Mr. Mackenzie: I do not happen to like voting for the Tories on anything. That is one of the problems.
Mr. Mancini: How can you vote for something you do not believe in? What hypocrisy.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The member has the floor and there are other ways of participating.
Mr. Mackenzie: I am not going to get exercised this time, Mr. Chairman. It is strange that we were some kind of oddballs if we did not support them; now we are real hypocrites if we do. I cannot quite understand what happens to my right here.
I just want to make the position of this caucus clear. The amendment will be supported, although it really means nothing. The gist of the bill is in the amendment I hope we will move shortly, unless there is a filibuster going tonight.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman. I just want to say briefly, particularly to my friend the member for Hamilton Mountain, I appreciate his comments on the amendment we have proposed.
I acknowledge there is a substantial difference between the NDP amendment and ours in subsection 33(2). Putting an employment standards officer in place is a very proactive amendment, but, quite frankly, I have no problem with that. It may be a slightly different approach, but I want to assure my friends this certainly is equal value legislation.
9 p.m.
I want to ask my friend the member for Brantford to make a couple of brief comments. He trotted out the Quebec experience, obviously because that was the best one for him to trot out. I would like to hear him talk a little bit about the experience federally, and how that is going. I have not yet heard him comment -- I guess he is not going to, and I want to put it on the record if he is not going to -- on what this ministry intends to do in terms of studies or pilot projects regarding equal value legislation.
This government has said it is in favour of enshrining the concept of equal value in the Employment Standards Act. I would hope the member for Brantford would get specific about what is going to happen. I hope he would do so in these final minutes of the debate on our amendment and perhaps as the debate continues on the amendment the member for Hamilton East is going to propose.
We are not the government. We wish we were. Both opposition parties wish they were the government, but it is the Conservative Party that has a mandate to govern. It is about time it got on with the job as far as the women of the province are concerned. The government has lots of bucks to spend on all sorts of foolish things -- I have a good two-hour speech ready if the members want me to get into that; but I will not, the hour is late.
I would like to hear from the member for Brantford what is going on. We have been promised this stuff about studies almost since I came to this place. I would like to hear whether we will actually get any kind of studies or any kind of pilot project.
Finally, I refer the member to page 17 of the Gunderson study, the summary of highlights. He will not have this in his notes, because he has other notes prepared for him. The member for Brantford talked about the 60 per cent, which it was in February 1982. He also talked about the various productivity-related factors, experience, time worked, education and the like; this brought it to somewhere in the range of 75 to 85 per cent. Then there were a number of other factors that ultimately narrowed it to 90 to 95 per cent, a gap of five percent. The member will choose five. so let me choose 10.
If we are talking about even a five per cent gap, I would like to hear how much the composite test is going to narrow it. I would also like to hear why, if it is going to close the gap -- let me be generous on my side -- at the 10 per cent level, the women of this province would not expect the government to say this part of the arsenal of our weapons is going to close more than 25 per cent of the existing wage gap.
The member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) said the women of this province, be they young or old, would like to hear from the government beyond the words it mouths at the time of resolutions. This is the bottom line. I know my friends on the left believe there are not sufficient details about compliance -- the member for Hamilton Mountain mentioned that -- but there are certain compliance rules within the present laws. However, we are not talking about a resolution now; we are talking about a clause in a bill. If this amendment carries, the composite test is dead and equal value legislation lives.
I would like to know from the member for Brantford why the women of the province, faced with the possibility of being able to narrow the wage gap by an additional 10 per cent and make it only 27 per cent, should not want to go for the whole thing. Why should they take half a loaf when they can have the whole thing?
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few more comments in reply to my friend opposite.
We are dealing with hypothetical numbers, regardless of the research done by Professor Gunderson and others. There could be possibly a five per cent narrowing of the gap, possibly 10 per cent, possibly something in between. However, I would hope we would look at the practical experience and at what we know about some of the legislative solutions that have been tried. Quebec had an equal value case, since the introduction of legislation in 1977, which adjudicated a meaningful raise for six women. Six people in a province the size of Quebec is a very small number. One has to wonder how effective that legislation has been.
The member for Windsor-Sandwich asked about the federal experience. I suppose it has indirectly had a much greater degree of success, but that was in the case of the general service workers. It was a matter that was settled by agreement and there was no adjudication, so there has not been a single adjudication.
If we were to increase the number of cases we adjudicate under our equal pay law in Ontario by 10 per cent at the very least, it would be a great improvement, a tremendous improvement over what is going on in any other province in the country in terms of percentage.
My friend asked what we are going to do; what the members can tangibly look for. One thing he can look for, and I can give him the assurance my minister has already made, is a very dramatic increase and tightening of enforcement procedures. With the passage of this legislation, we anticipate an increase in staff of officers in this area in the employment standards branch of five or six. Five officers will be assigned.
Mr. Wrye: At least one in Windsor.
Mr. Gillies: I cannot promise one for Windsor, but we will do our best. Five more officers will be specifically adjudicating cases that will arise out of this legislation. They are being hired to enforce what we enact in Bill 141. That is what they will be doing. They will be in the employment standards branch, and doubtless other cases that might have come up under our previous legislation will go to them.
I give my friends opposite that assurance and they can let us know a year or two years from now whether they do not think it is happening. We are beefing up staff. There will be more prosecutions; there will be more adjudications made on behalf of the working women in Ontario, I can tell the members that.
In terms of studies and future considerations of this very important legislation, we will be carefully monitoring what we bring in. I can tell the members that Professor Gunderson and other people are available to the ministry to launch studies as required of what we should be doing beyond Bill 141.
I have one last point, if I may give this assurance again. I know my friend has a concern that we get into rhetoric, and I am not talking rhetoric, but in this House he has heard the Premier, the Minister of Labour and the Minister responsible for Women's Issues reaffirm time and again the commitment of this government to equality for working women and equality in the work force for all people.
One of the members opposite raised a rather dramatic and a very unfair comment about a debate on slavery in the southern United States. As he will recall, because I know my friend is a student of the history of Ontario, one of the first acts introduced in the Parliament of Upper Canada way back in the early days of the political organization of our province was a bill abolishing slavery. We in this jurisdiction have always been at the leading edge of social legislation for the good of working people and we will continue to be.
I urge the member not to take the assurances made by the ministers and the Premier lightly. We are very serious about what we are doing in this legislation.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, I would first like to say that I am very confused by the position of the members of the New Democratic Party. Some are going to vote against our amendment; others are going to vote in favour of the amendment, even though they claim it is worthless and really not supportable. I cannot understand why they would vote for any amendment if they did not truly believe it was worthy of their support.
At this time, I want to ask the parliamentary assistant again -- he is good at avoiding some of the questions -- before we have a vote on this amendment, to please give us an example or two of the disruptions that are going to be caused in the economy and in the work place as he described them earlier on this afternoon.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, I have to hearken back to the predinner speech by my friend the member for Windsor-Sandwich, in which the emphasis was definitely on a very dramatic closing of the wage gap, 37 per cent, that he anticipated through the passage of legislation.
Our concern would be that the great bulk of this wage gap is not caused by the absence of legislation. It is caused by the fact that women are not competing in equivalent types of occupations with men. It is caused by lower levels of education and training among our working women. It is caused by the fact that more women are likely to be employed in part-time occupations as opposed to full-time ones.
I guess our concern would be, frankly, that legislation alone could take attention away from those other very serious problems and in the long run perhaps militate against solving those problems where the bulk of the problems lie.
Some have expressed a concern -- and my friends can look back through the committee considerations that went on those many weeks -- that to bring in dramatic legislative changes alone could cause disruption in the marketplace and could cause, in some sectors where women are heavily employed, perhaps higher levels of unemployment.
Mr. Wrye: Threats do not scare you any other time.
Mr. Gillies: That is a concern expressed by some in the marketplace, and we have to give due recognition to that argument, whether or not we completely agree with it.
These are some of the concerns. We feel equality for women in the work place is a goal we have to continue to work towards. We do not feel legislation itself in this narrow area is going to close the wage gap completely; we have to continue our efforts in all those other areas to do that, and so that is the stated intention of the government.
I certainly hope, regardless of any disagreements over amendments being proposed by the various caucuses, that all members of the House will read again what we are doing for the working people of Ontario through Bill 141 and, in the final analysis, lend the bill their support.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, as usual we did not really receive a full answer from the parliamentary assistant; there were no specifics whatsoever. He uses a scare tactic of unemployment. If we pay people a fair wage, he says, it is going to cause unemployment. He further points out that the problem is, as we all know, that job ghettos have been created because of the fact that these jobs have been traditionally done by women and therefore paid less.
I want to recall to the parliamentary assistant the comments I made in the committee. I informed the committee that last fall I travelled to Italy. I had some business to do in one or two of the banks, and I was quite surprised when I went into the banks that almost every single employee there was male. I asked my uncle, "Why are there no females who work in the banks?" He said, "The banking jobs in Italy are the highest-paying and the most prestigious," whereas over here in North America that is not the case. Therefore, we have created a job ghetto, and we funnel women into this job ghetto.
Once it is changed, once equal pay for work of equal value has been put in place and women are paid on the same basis as men for their skill and for the responsibility they must undertake, we will see men flowing into these jobs also; that in itself will help eliminate the problem and help eliminate the job ghettos. The parliamentary assistant says we cannot do this because we have job ghettos. I say to him that we should do this and it will help eliminate the job ghettos.
He should not use these scare tactics about unemployment and he should not throw up excuses such as that these jobs have traditionally been done by women, because we have seen around the world, whenever working conditions are appropriate and salaries are good, competent people flow into those areas if given the opportunity.
A lot of working women are holding jobs that require a great deal of competence, skill and hard work. Because of the mere fact that there are no men in their particular work place, the minister says: "No. Let us not change the situation. Let us not help rid the economy of job ghettos." If we accepted the logic the parliamentary assistant puts forward, we would continue the status quo without any direct benefits either now or in the foreseeable future to the working women of this province.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to prolong the debate unduly. There have been many debates about equal value involving various ministers and critics for lo these many months. All I say to my friend opposite is that we do not believe the sole weapon in the arsenal we need to eliminate job ghettos is legislation.
While I fully accept my friend's argument that in Italy bank employees are apparently treated differently, they have a different role in the economic structure than they do here. I would ask him if he could please give me one example -- and I do not say this because I know the answer; I am asking to elicit information -- of a jurisdiction that has brought in equal value legislation which has eliminated job ghettos.
It is the stated position of the government that legislation can close a percentage. We accept that. We feel what we are doing with Bill 141 will in time close a percentage of the gap; but we feel much more than that is needed. Much more of the answer lies in our education system, in our training programs, in some social programs and in the very way our society treats its working women. We feel that is a much larger part of the solution.
If my friend can tell me where in the world job ghettos have been eliminated, where women have been raised to virtually equivalent status in some job streams because of legislation, I would very much like to hear it. With respect to the research that has been done by the ministry and the government, it is certainly not the experience in the jurisdictions we have examined.
Ms. Copps: Mr. Chairman, I would like to take up the challenge that has been launched by the member for Brantford and set to rest some of the myths the government has assisted in perpetuating about the whole issue of job ghettoization and women.
Myth number one is that women will somehow achieve improved status in the work force if we improve our education; that it is simply and solely the education system that is responsible for job ghettoization. We must bear in mind as members of the Legislature and as citizens of Ontario that on average the women of this province are better educated than the men.
The infamous issue of the parking lot attendant versus the switchboard operator has been raised time and again in relation to equal value. I think everyone in this Legislature will agree that the switchboard operator, who needs a minimum of a grade 12 education with good communication skills and public relations, is often at the forefront of any inquiries that come to this government. It is clear that the educational limitations of the switchboard operator are not the factor that leads to that switchboard operator being paid less than a parking lot attendant, who must meet the criterion of being able to communicate effectively in the English language.
9:20 p.m.
It is clear in the example pointed out by my colleague the member for Essex South that the Italian banking system has decided in its wisdom that banking is an overvalued or valued position occupied by men. If we look at examples in the Canadian system, such as the nursing profession, we women are constantly being told the reason we do not ascend to positions of upper management is that we have had too many limitations on our participation in the work force; we have taken time out to have families. In fact, we know women are more stable than men in their stick-to-itiveness to a particular occupation.
We have been told that perhaps we do not have the experience, the education or the background. Yet if we look at the nursing profession, one of the professions that has been predominantly occupied by females, we have seen over the last few years an increasing trend, albeit rather small, for men to enter the profession.
If we analyse the number of men who, having entered the nursing profession very recently -- that is, in the last decade -- have managed to ascend quite swiftly to positions of management in the profession, it belies the kind of argument made by the member for Brantford that the difficulty women face is simply that we are ghettoized in traditional jobs that have been undervalued.
For example, let us look at the salary levels attributed to a child care worker. I think everyone in this House would agree that a child care worker is responsible for the care of our number one resource, our young people. Anyone who has taken the time to study Piaget or any of the psychologists or child psychologists, will know that the formative years from age zero to five are critical to a child's development.
Presumably, when we are according to a child care worker the responsibility for looking after that child, we are according the responsibility for looking after and developing one of our greatest resources. The salary of the average child care worker in Ontario forces many of them to carry on simply for the love of the job, because they are not doing it for financial remuneration. Let us compare that salary with the salary that can be accorded someone in a traditional male assembly line job. Are the Minister responsible for Women's Issues and the government suggesting it is more laudable for women simply to seek nontraditional jobs on assembly lines, or is the government prepared to face the issue that women's jobs have been undervalued and underpaid because they are seen to be women's work?
It is patent nonsense for the government to suggest that any member on any side of the House believes equal value legislation will solve all the problems. Morley Gunderson in his own report has suggested a conservative estimate of a seven per cent increase in women's salaries compared with those of men if equal value legislation were enacted.
I would suggest to any member of this House that I do not think any of the women in Ontario who are earning 63 cents for every dollar earned by a man would object to the government passing legislation that would bring them up to 70 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
For the government to suggest we cannot support this legislation simply because it will close the gap by only five or 10 per cent is an admission of impotence in the face of one of the most serious problems we are facing in society today.
I think it is clear that the comments made by my colleague with respect to the bank workers in Italy point to the difficulty of the problem that female job ghettos have traditionally been undervalued. How do we solve the problem? Do we merely move the women en masse into male job ghettos, or do we begin to take a real quantitative look at the value of the work they are doing in comparison with the value of work being done in dissimilar jobs within the same company? That is the issue at stake in the discussion today.
I do not think any member would argue that this legislation would be the panacea to bridge the gap between the salaries of men and women, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction. The same government that purports to be concerned about women's issues, that at least in a smoke-and-mirrors fashion is beginning to recognize an increasing gender gap in voting patterns, must also believe the women of Ontario are incredibly stupid if it thinks we are going to be sold lock, stock and barrel by a piece of legislation that does not in any small measure do what it purports to do.
We have only to think back to the comments made last January by the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Mr. Sean O'Flynn, when he told our committee quite clearly that Bill 141 as currently structured will do absolutely nothing to allow comparisons between jobs within the public service. We are talking about thousands of civil servants who presumably are going to be at the vanguard of any social change affecting equal value legislation. According to the president of OPSEU, not one of those employees will be affected by this legislation.
The arguments that we will not totally bridge the wage gap or that somehow women are to blame for the situation because we have not been trained in nontraditional jobs, because we have sought value in things like child care work, because we have looked at traditionally nurturing professions, like the nursing profession -- which, I might add, requires as much education as many other helping professions, predominantly male, which are overvalued in salary terms -- are gratuitous arguments that the government seems to be foisting on the people in the hope we might buy them.
I think the old adage you cannot fool all of the people all of the time applies in this particular case. I would warn the government that if it moves ahead with this bill without the kind of substantive amendments that have been presented by both opposition parties, it will be sending a clear message to the women of Ontario that not only does it undervalue their jobs and their economic worth, it also undervalues their intelligence, because it believes they are going to be sold down the river and will actually believe this particular piece of legislation as it stands unamended is going to help the women of Ontario.
The women of Ontario are not that short-sighted; they are not that shallow. They are getting political. I think it is about time the government paid more than lipservice to the women of this province by introducing and supporting the substantive amendments we have presented on this side of the House.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, many of the points raised by the member for Hamilton Centre are quite valid, but I do not know if there is any great value in our getting into a war of statistics.
She cited Professor Gunderson's report and his feelings that equal value legislation might close the wage gap by about seven per cent. Professor Gunderson has advised the government that the type of approach we are taking through the composite test would have an impact of approximately five per cent. We have no way of knowing whether that is valid. I do not want to split hairs between five per cent and seven per cent. Maybe her approach would be marginally better. Who knows?
I want to assure my friend opposite that there is a commitment over here on this side of the House, as I sense there is certainly on her side of the House, to improve the position of working women in our society, to see them advance and eventually to see the complete elimination of the wage gap. I do not think either the member or I believe this will be accomplished solely through legislation.
I think we disagree somewhat on the approach, but with the introduction of the legislation we are putting forward, with the Deputy Premier's (Mr. Welch) current and ongoing considerations of the whole question of affirmative action, with a serious look at the other things that lead to ghettoization in regard not only to the length of education but also the type of education, not only the degree of training but also the type of training and all of these things, we can close that gap.
I share the member's concern entirely. I do not think what we are doing through Bill 141 is smoke and mirrors. It is perhaps a somewhat different approach from that put forward by the Liberal Party, which in turn is somewhat different from that which we will see put forward shortly by the New Democratic Party. None the less, it is a step forward, and a very determined step forward, by our government to address the wage gap and the situation of working women in our jurisdiction.
9:30 p.m.
Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I really just wanted to engage the parliamentary assistant for a moment or two on what he has said and said again to each of the members who has spoken on it. In this sort of arsenal of weapons he has by way of legislation, education training and all the other things, he has missed out one of the fundamental parts of it. It is not a question of his commitment but a question of his fundamental inability to understand the simple proposition that is before the assembly time and again on the question of equal pay for work of equal value.
The parliamentary assistant is still hung up, he continues to be hung up and his government is hung up on the proposition that women's work is essential but subordinate and that therefore, a fortiori, men's work is essential but superior. What he does not understand is it is not a question of affirmative action in any sense in the basic, fundamental inequality that exists in the society. Affirmative action has a place within a framework of upgrading the opportunities for women to contest for other kinds of jobs. It has a role there.
What he fails to understand is that the work women are doing today is essential and equal to the kind of male work he thinks is essential and superior. He has a basic, fundamental immediate job to do, and that is to raise immediately the wage scales and levels of all women who are engaged in activities that up to now he and his government have designated as essential but subordinate.
If the parliamentary assistant wants to get hung up on all the minutiae of comparisons between this job and that job, then he will not understand what I am trying to say to him. He has an across-the-board obligation to move immediately to upgrade all those areas where the majority of workers are women. The way to do that is to say to himself: "We have always thought of that job as essential but subordinate. Today we are going to think about it as essential and equal to many other areas of work that are done."
Until he takes that first, fundamental initial step, which is the kind of step he seems incapable of taking, he is not ever going to understand the principle of the issue that is before the assembly time and lime again. For him to mouth and parrot to us that he understands the principle of equal pay for work of equal value does not make it so. What does not make it so is a fundamental inability of members of the Tory caucus and the Tory government to understand that proposition.
It is not a question of denigrating work; it is a question of having said it is essential but subordinate. That has always been the tradition -- a fortiori, the work men do is essential but superior. Until they get rid of that dichotomy of what is subordinate and what is superior, they are not going to understand the issue.
Their first job is to say: "We have been wrong. The attitudes of society have been wrong. Here is what we want to do in Ontario." Not the rest of the world; there is plenty to do right here at home without trying to make comparisons with other jurisdictions.
What they have to do is understand that the basic areas of work occupied by women today are being paid at a level that reflects that fundamental misconception, valid as it may have been in a different society, but invalid as it is today. Women's work is essential and equal to the work men do, which is essential and equal. People in this society are entitled to that equality on all fronts.
This evening we happen to be speaking mainly about the question of equal pay for work of equal value in relation to men and women. That is the fallacy in the continued reiteration by him of the proposition that we cannot do it by legislation and we have to do it by education, training and affirmative action.
It will start right in the caucus of the Tory party when the members meet some Tuesday morning and thrash it out among themselves and there is a united agreement on this principle. Whatever the parliamentary assistant or any other member of the government may say about keeping the promise, or doing what they say they mean to do and are committed to do, they must understand that they have to start right in that Tory caucus.
We all know each other pretty well one way or another. It is that fundamental inability I would draw to the parliamentary assistant's attention. I hope at the time he will say to this House: "We understand, we did caucus, we did come forward. It is not a question of us saying we agree in principle. We agree in the practicality of requiring it to be done if we believe in an equal society."
That is the question the government has to face. Equality is not something that comes easily. Equality comes by legislation. The parliamentary assistant himself took pride a few minutes ago in the fact that slavery was abolished by legislation. He was using that as a basis for castigating somebody by indicating that what we were talking about was slave conditions. To use the same example, not because it is slavery but because we are trying to create conditions of equality among people, the way to do it is not to link legislation as if it were one of several equal instruments. It is one of the principal instruments, one of the major instruments of changing social attitudes.
A former leader of this party used to carry around in his pocket a little saying by a man named Pound, who was dean of the Harvard Law School. It said something to the effect, "You tell me you cannot legislate morality. I say, sir, you do little else but legislate morality. Morality, sir, in its fundamental sense is equality." That is my view of the problem the parliamentary assistant poses for this assembly in the constant reiteration of his commitment and the way in which he is going to deal with this problem.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, we are getting into some of the fundamental philosophical questions that face us. I would say to my friend opposite that he is quite right. There has been on more than one occasion an in-depth, lengthy and sometimes heated discussion in our caucus on this issue, as I am sure there has been in the caucus of the official opposition and in the NDP caucus.
It is a very difficult question we are wrestling with. We all have in our caucuses people who come from different backgrounds, who bring different slants to this argument, such as former employers, former professional people, all sorts of people. We have adopted as a caucus the position that through legislative amendment to the Employment Standards Act, as we contemplate it in Bill 141, we can begin to close that wage gap to a degree.
We do not believe it can be eliminated by legislation. The most fervent advocates of equal value, the most fervent speakers in favour of the Liberal amendment, and I am sure when we come to the NDP amendment we will hear it again, would not say the wage gap can be completely closed and eliminated by legislation. That is why I raise these other points.
I am not shirking our legislative responsibility. I am not backing away an inch from what we are doing. I do believe as a Legislature we want to debate not only what we can do tonight, next week or next year by legislation, but also the disappearance of the 37 per cent wage gap between men and women and how that will be accomplished.
9:40 p.m.
We believe legislation is part of the answer. I do not believe experience shows us it is the whole answer. However, if through this legislation we close that wage gap -- and Lord only knows, I am the worst person when it comes to statistics because I generally disagree with them and forecasters are notoriously inaccurate when they talk about labour force trends -- five per cent, I think we have accomplished something meaningful; if we close it seven per cent or 10 per cent, so much the better.
This is why I am pleased to be carrying Bill 141 on behalf of my minister, because I believe it is part of the answer to achieving the very equality of which the member spoke.
The Deputy Chairman: All those in favour of Mr. Mancini's amendment will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the nays have it.
Vote stacked.
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Mackenzie moves Bill 141 be amended by deleting section 1 and substituting the following therefor:
Part IX of the Employment Standards Act, being chapter 137 of the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1980, is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"Part IX -- Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value
"33(1) No employer or person acting on behalf of an employer shall establish or maintain any difference in wages paid to a male and to a female employee employed in the same establishment who are performing work of equal value unless the difference is based on seniority or quantity of production.
"(2) An employment standards officer may assess the value of work performed for the purposes of subsection (1) and, where the officer finds that an employer has failed to comply with subsection (1), the officer may determine the amount of money owing to an employee because of the noncompliance, including any expenses incurred by the employee in enforcing subsection (1), and the amount shall be deemed to be unpaid wages.
"(3) In assessing the value of work performed by employees employed in the same establishment, the criterion to be applied is the composite of the skill, effort and responsibility required in the performance of the work and the conditions under which the work is performed.
"(4) Separate establishments established or maintained by an employer solely or principally for the purpose of establishing or maintaining differences in wages between male and female employees shall be deemed for the purposes of this part to be a single establishment.
"(5) No employer shall reduce the rate of pay of an employee in order to comply with subsection (1).
"(6) No organization of employers or employees or its agents shall cause or attempt to cause an employer to agree to or to pay to his or her employees wages that are in contravention of subsection (1).
"(7) A complaint that an employer contravenes this section may be made by an employee, a class of employees employed in the same establishment or an employees' organization.
"(8) An employer, employee or class of employees that is aggrieved by a decision or order made by an employment standards officer under this part or section 47 may, within a period of 15 days after the date of delivery, service or notice of the decision or order, or such longer period as the director may for special reasons allow, apply for a review of the decision or order by way of a hearing before a referee and subsections 50(2) to (7) apply to the review, with necessary modifications, except that the referee has the power to make an order under section 47 in addition to the powers conferred by section 50.
"(9) The minister shall table a report annually in the Legislature on the progress of compliance with this part and the annual reports shall be referred to a standing or special committee of the Legislature every three years.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, the meat of the issue is now before us, and it is simply a question of whether or not this House, the members of this House and this government are ready to move in a positive and direct way to establish the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.
Quite frankly, it is a disgrace that we have to have the current bill on the floor here tonight and that we do not have a section such as we have read out, or something close to it. It is a disgrace and an indictment of the Conservative government, as far as I am concerned, that they have known of the inequities that exist and that these inequities have been documented in case after case for as long as they have; and also that they have known that they themselves have some commitment to the International Labour Organization convention number 100, which established back in 1971 -- and it was supported by this province -- equal pay for work of equal value. It was subsequently ratified by a number of countries, at least one province and basically now the federal government, but not the province of Ontario.
What did we get instead? We got a bill that deliberately, in my opinion, tried to skate around or evade the issue of equal pay for work of equal value. What is worse, we got a bill that was deliberately loaded with a couple of little sugar-coated placebos.
There is nothing wrong with them. There is a section in this bill on pregnancy leave, and it was needed and long overdue; there is a section on adoption, and it was needed and long overdue. Nobody could oppose those sections, although they might be better worded and they might be tightened up considerably. Everybody would support those two sections in the bill. Apparently the intent is to say: "Hey, we have given you something that makes sense. There is no way you can oppose a bill such as we have now put on the floor of this House."
I want to make it very clear that while we might support the Liberal amendment, while we did support the Conservative amendment earlier -- a very small point, but we supported it -- and while we might have voted in a separate bill for those two particular changes in the Employment Standards Act, we are not going to be sucked in by that kind of presentation in this House, because it is going to be a while before we will have another bill before us that deals with the issue of equal pay for work of equal value.
The Tories have made a lot of mileage for a lot of years by being able to play pretty clever games, but some day they are going to have to face the issue; some day they are going to have to decide. As one of the Liberal members said, when you look at your daughter, who may be six, 10 or 12 now, do you think she should have to work for 70 per cent of what a man makes?
I think they are going to start moving on it, because it does not take much arithmetic to take a look at the lineup, the coalition of women's groups, the labour movement now and also at the population figures to see that now just slightly over 52 per cent of the population of the province are women. When the government finally gets a little bit scared that these women realize what has been going on, that it has been going on for a long time, that they are not going to take it any longer and that this might then mean some of the government members' seats, then they will probably be ready to move, but we would like to hurry it along a bit.
9:50 p.m.
I suppose if it meant getting rid of the government members altogether, I might delay for a short period of time, but I do not want to. I would like them to be put on the spot right now and to have to decide if they are going to continue to play this little game with a bill that does not deal with the basic issue.
There are a number of things I want to quote in this House tonight. I dug out, if I can find it, some of the debate that went on in 1979. I can go back a lot further than that from my reading, but it is interesting. First, just to cover what I mentioned earlier about this government being put on notice a long time ago, is one simple sentence from a previous colleague of mine, Ted Bounsall from Windsor-Sandwich. When he moved his Bill 3 in this House in 1979, he said:
"The idea of equal pay for work of equal value is not a new one; it was first passed," or carried some stature in the world, "in 1971 by the International Labour Organization convention 100 and ratified at that time by 83 countries.
"This convention" of the United Nations "was ratified in Canada in 1972 when it received approval in principle from all provinces, including Ontario, yet Ontario has to date done nothing to implement that commitment. There was an internal ministry report advocating equal pay for work of equal value some two years ago," -- that would have been 1977 -- "which was rejected by ministry officials.
"There is absolutely no activity or consideration of equal pay for work of equal value taking place within the ministry now. As I understand it, the concept has been killed totally within the ministry, which is a disgrace and this gross discrimination against women continues in Ontario."
A little later I am going to quote some of the answers of the Minister of Labour at the time, the member for York East (Mr. Elgie). Some of them sound remarkably like the comments about how we might disrupt the economic order in Ontario that we heard from the parliamentary assistant tonight.
There are probably good reasons for it, but I find it significant that we have the parliamentary assistant with his great labour record and record on women's issues -- an outstanding one I am sure -- handling this bill in the House. I would have thought the equal pay for work of equal value issue would have rated the Minister responsible for Women's Issues, who was specifically appointed to that position and handpicked as one of the more high-profile Tory cabinet ministers.
I think this was probably done because -- relating to what I said a few minutes earlier -- they are beginning to understand there is a growing groundswell in this province about the way we have treated women and women workers. They picked one of their best at skating and someone with a pretty good reputation and whom everybody likes. I really do not know why he is not here to shepherd this bill through and answer some of the questions.
If not him, then why not the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay)? I guess either the bill is not that important -- they themselves recognize it is a nonbill -- or maybe they do not want to be associated with the arguments that try to put down the opposition. Perhaps they do not wish to appear to be giving some credibility to a position I do not think it is possible to give any credit to, that position being the bill we have before us.
I would like to make it very clear this party will not be supporting Bill 141 unless this amendment carries. We might support certain amendments. We would have supported the two sections that give some relief to women workers, regardless of those votes -- four amendments. Regardless of whether any of the others carry, regardless of the fact the government has tried to trick people with a couple of nice little specialties in this bill, this party will not be supporting Bill 141 unless our amendment carries.
We will be very proud of that position. We recognize we have from time to time taken some positions that allow our enemies to take potshots at us or try to isolate a vote on a specific issue. However, we have decided we are sick and tired of the games that are played and the dishonesty of this piece of legislation.
We spent some time with the coalition, with the different women's groups; teachers; trade union groups; business and professional women; the head of the coalition, Mary Cornish, who is a lawyer and the people who work with her; and Sean O'Flynn of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, who was referred to by the Liberals. I do not know when they last talked to them on this bill, but we talked to all of them.
Their position was, if anything, stronger than the position they took in the three days of hearings before Christmas. Incidentally, those were three days of hearings which this party forced when everyone else in this House, both government members and the members to our right, was ready to go through that bill in one or two days to get it through before Christmas.
We got a request from the groups who were saying: "This is too much of an issue. Too long we have been fighting for the issue of equality. You are not going to get away with that. We do not want that to happen."
We said, "No. You can withdraw the bill." That was the specific and exact threat of the Minister of Labour. I sat in at one of the meetings with him and the Deputy Premier and our House leader when he said, "You either support this bill and shove it through in the last couple of days of the session or the bill is withdrawn."
I know from some of my reporter -- I should not say "friends" -- contacts, that as late as 3:30 or 4 p.m., when all of a sudden the about-face was done, the same Minister of Labour was telling the press the bill was dead, that the NDP had killed it because we were demanding more than just the two days to rush it through this House.
What happened? They had a House leaders' meeting at 6 or 6:30 p.m. and all of a sudden they said: "Put it through second reading. We will send it out and will give you three days; then we can bring it back for clause-by-clause consideration some time in the new session."
If I had been the Minister of Labour in an issue such as that with my legs cut right off at the knees, I would have been a bit annoyed, but it was obvious that shoving it through in that kind of time, even if they had the Liberals on side, was something that even bothered the Conservatives in this House a little.
We got our hearings and some of the Tory members, as well as our people, sat in on those hearings. The groups were not happy. Almost every one of them told the members clearly in those hearings that they did not like this bill and that it should not he supported even with those two sugar-coated placebos in it.
Did anything change? As I said, I do not know how much checking other members in this House did, but we made a point of touching base with these groups, and we were proud to. After all, they have led the fight on this. My colleague in this House going back a number of years, Ted Bounsall, really started focusing the issue.
Other than that, no matter what we have done as politicians, all of us in all parties, it is the coalition of women's groups that has finally said: "We are getting strong enough. We are going to organize and we are going to pull diverse groups together. We want some action on something that is only just and is supposed to be the position of the province."
We went back to them, and those groups told us the same thing in the last two weeks that they told us at those hearings: "Do not get sucked in. Do not buy this kind of bill. Yes, we would like a couple of its provisions, but we are being euchred once again and we do not like it."
That is why I want to make it very clear -- not that we do not think there are a couple of things we would like to have been able to vote for -- that we have no intention of playing the minister's game with women in Ontario, no intention whatever, and that we will proudly stand to vote against this bill.
We will take our chances on their running around the province saying, "We tried to do something for women and the NDP voted against it.'' I do not think he will withdraw it this time, so I suppose we will get the placebos anyhow, but quite frankly, even if he were threatening it, it would not bother me because sooner or later he is going to have to face where his party stands.
10 p.m.
My colleague the member for Riverdale put it very well. It is the fundamental commitment as to whether or not the government is finally going to do something. They are finally going to say: "We are on side. We know we are wrong. Now something has to be changed in Ontario."
That is what we are debating and trying to get across to people here today. That is why it was a little unfortunate that we wasted the time we did in the games that were played here tonight by all of us on the amendments. It is a little unfortunate that we did that, because this is the fundamental amendment; it does change the entire section and the principle clearly. If it had got on the floor first, we could have had at this debate this afternoon and again tonight at eight o'clock rather than fooling around as we did.
I guess the frustration showed in some of my colleagues. We talked it over and said: "We have nothing to lose. We gain nothing but we have nothing to lose on the amendment that is before us."
I am a little discouraged that there has not been more understanding by all opposition members as to what is at stake with this issue, this debate and this bill here tonight.
I think it is worth going over a number of things. A little later, I want to go into some of the debate that went on in 1979 because it was an excellent one. I should stop for just a minute and make the comment that when that debate was on the floor of this House -- we got to second reading, then amendments were moved -- there was general support for it. It never got through in the final analysis, but in 1979 it seemed we were on the verge of a breakthrough.
As I say, the debate was excellent. I am going to enjoy reading some of the comments of the Liberal minister who was responsible at the time and some of the comments made by some of the other members --
Ms. Copps: The Liberal minister? Wishful thinking.
Mr. Mackenzie: Pardon me; the Tory minister at the time.
Mr. Boudria: Next year there will be all kinds of Liberal ministers.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Robinson): Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: I suspect the Liberals would not have much trouble dealing with the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations as a colleague. They do not seem to have much trouble dealing with most of the members on the opposite side of the House.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order. The member for Hamilton East has the floor.
Mr. Mackenzie: I want to warn my colleagues on the right -- I am going to read some comments of those across the way, whom I recognize as the enemy; it is just a game with these people over here -- that if I get too much heckling, I will read back some of the comments some of their members gave to the women who did the canvassing in this building the other day. It might knock members off their feet.
Hon. Mr. Walker: Read them back.
Mr. Shymko: Do not be afraid.
The Acting Chairman: Order. The member for Hamilton East has the floor.
Mr. Wrye: I am sure you are absolutely certain of the quotes too.
Mr. Mackenzie: I am never as sure as some others. I will qualify it to the extent that I sat in for two hours on a debriefing. It was absolutely excellent. There were 97 women and three men there plus officials of the Ontario Federation of Labour. It was a debriefing of the people who were canvassing. They taped some of it. They also took notes from women who came around in groups of three and four. Some of the comments were very interesting.
Mr. O'Neil: Read them back. Play the tapes back.
Mr. Breaugh: These guys are begging to have that on the record. We should do it as a public service.
Mr. O'Neil: Read us back those tapes.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: I really do not want to be provoked into doing that, Mr. Chairman, but the pressure is so great, I will give the members just a couple of samples.
The Acting Chairman: Order. The member for Hamilton East has the floor.
Mr. O'Neil: Those are only the NDP lackeys.
The Acting Chairman: The member for Quinte (Mr. O'Neil) will please bring himself to order.
Mr. O'Neil: We do not want to hear what the NDP lackeys have to say.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: Regarding the commitment to equal pay for work of equal value, I sent a questionnaire to the past Liberal leader, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), in the House the other night. There were four questions. I simply said, "Quiz: Can you identify your colleagues who made the following comments?" First -- this is not so much a comment; it is the rating he was given: "Which Liberal member earned the unanimous rating of 'pompous, arrogant and awful'?" That rating came from two of the three women.
Mr. Breaugh: You are in the running, Remo, but you are not a close second.
Mr. O'Neil: Tell us the way it really is.
The Acting Chairman: Order. The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) on a matter of privilege.
Mr. O'Neil: Tell it the way it is, Remo.
An hon. member: Tell us about those NDP hacks.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order. I can wait.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: If the member for Essex South really believes in freedom of information, he will tell us.
The Acting Chairman: The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) is out of order. I recognize the member for Essex South on a matter of privilege.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, on a point of privilege: I am actually surprised that even the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) would go along with this.
I want to say that the member for Hamilton East claims to be speaking for some individuals. While he is making those claims, he is trying to impute motives and he is trying to --
Some hon. members: No, no.
Mr. Mancini: Yes, he is.
Mr. O'Neil: Definitely.
The Acting Chairman: Order. Let me hear the point of privilege.
Mr. Mancini: He is saying that certain members of a caucus were viewed in a particular way. He smears the entire caucus. We are not sure whether those comments come from a biased or unbiased source.
Mr. Bradley: I can tell where they come from -- a biased source.
Mr. O'Neil: NDP hacks.
The Acting Chairman: I am still trying to concentrate on what you are saying.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, let me finish and then you can make your judgement.
The Acting Chairman: I am still trying to hear what you are saying.
Mr. Mancini: He uses this opportunity when we are supposed to be talking about what he claims is a very important amendment to an important bill. Instead of speaking to the bill, as we thought was his intention, he uses information we do not know is biased or unbiased to smear the entire caucus.
Mr. Chairman, I think you should consider what the member has said and whether it is in order or whether the privileges of some members have been abused. I feel my privileges have been abused. If I picked up a document and said some people had told me a certain number of derogatory things about somebody in the NDP, I would hope someone from their caucus would stand up and say they were not going to be smeared in that fashion.
I hope you have a chance to think this over, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman --
The Acting Chairman: Order. The member for Quinte; but let me first find out whether it is the same point of privilege or a new point of privilege.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, it is a different point of privilege.
The Acting Chairman: Then let me rule on the first one.
I cannot recognize the comments of the member for Essex South as a point of privilege. However, I remind all honourable members of the provisions of the standing orders, particularly the provisions of section 19, which deal with the rules of debate.
I also remind the member for Hamilton East, as a veteran member of this House, that he knows the response he is likely to evoke if he attempts to be provocative. I will rule accordingly and individually on every occasion as is necessary.
On a new point of privilege, the member for Quinte.
Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Chairman, on a point of privilege: It relates to the comments that were made by the NDP member. I would like to ask the member whether he would --
The Acting Chairman: Just address your point of privilege to the chair.
10:10 p.m.
Mr. O'Neil: The member stated that certain Liberal members were taped, and he accused some of those members of comments that were what I would call unparliamentary. I would ask if the Chairman would investigate whether the member sent some of his political hacks out to tape some of our people, and likely some of the Conservative members, and whether those members were made aware they were being taped on those occasions.
Mr. Mackenzie: On the same point, Mr. Chairman: I want to set the record very clear.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: This is important. Obviously, they were not listening. Certainly, the member for Quinte was not listening. I did not say at any time that any of them or any of the Tory members were taped. To the best of my knowledge, they were not. What I did say was that notes were taken and turned in and some taping was done at the debriefing.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order. I was not able to determine in the general din whether the member for Hamilton East made some reference to taping.
Mr. O'Neil: He did.
The Acting Chairman: Order. Hansard will ultimately reveal that. If he has misled the House on that matter, he has now corrected his own record.
Are there new points?
Mr. Bradley: Mr. Chairman, my point of privilege relates to the comments that are about to be forthcoming from the member who has warned us of these comments.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Bradley: We were under the impression --
The Acting Chairman: Order. I would say to the member for St. Catharines I can hardly rule on things that may be forthcoming.
Mr. Bradley: On what he said then.
The Acting Chairman: On what he has already said, how have your privileges been abused?
Mr. Bradley: My privileges have been abused because these people came disguised as representatives of the Ontario Federation of Labour when it is quite obvious from what the member for Hamilton East said that they were simply operatives for the NDP. This is why the official labour union movement has so little influence in this province. They simply play games and have the NDP send them out to the other caucuses to gather information for them.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Bradley: And then they debrief.
The Acting Chairman: Order, That is interesting, but it is not a point of privilege.
Interjections.
Mr. Wrye: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I listened to my friend across the way with interest in terms of freedom of information. I hope the member for Hamilton East will wish to name all the operatives who came into our offices and give us the number of their membership in the NDP.
The Acting Chairman: That is not a point of order. Now that we have disposed of all that, we have two minutes before the stacked vote.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, I want to --
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: I march in step all the time with them.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: We obviously bothered some people. Before we adjourn the debate for the evening, may I make the point that I offered -- if they would stop the heckling, which they started -- not to read those comments, and I only read one of them. If they will calm down a bit, maybe we will not read the other three to them.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order. We are on Bill 141, part IX, subsection 33(1), on an amendment moved by the member for Hamilton East. May I continue to have his comments on the amendment.
Mr. Mackenzie: Yes, you may, Mr. Chairman.
Interjections.
Mr. Mackenzie: I do not know why the member for St. Catharines was so upset. They did not have anything on him anyway, and he was not one of the questions on the list.
Interjections.
The Acting Chairman: Order. I will ask the member for Hamilton East to adjourn the debate.
On motion by Mr. Mackenzie, the debate was adjourned.
The Acting Chairman: By agreement, there is a stacked vote at 10:15 p.m., a 10-minute bell.
10:25 p.m.
The committee divided on Mr. Mancini's amendment to subsection 33(1) of the act, as set out in section 1 of the bill, which was negatived on the following vote:
Ayes 30; nays 52.
The Acting Chairman: For the information of the House, there was one earlier amendment, which I understand was carried at the time and not stacked. This was the only matter stacked before us this evening.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the committee of the whole House reported progress.
ROYAL ASSENT
The Deputy Speaker: I beg to inform the House that, in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to certain bills in his chambers.
Clerk of the House: The following are the titles of the bills to which His Honour has assented:
Bill 1, An Act to amend the County Courts Act;
Bill 4, An Act to amend the Wine Content Act;
Bill 6, An Act to amend the Corporations Information Act;
Bill 11, An Act to amend the Liquor Licence Act;
Bill 12, An Act to amend the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations Act;
Bill 13, An Act to amend the Ombudsman Act;
Bill 14, Arboreal Emblem Act;
Bill 18, An Act to amend the Justices of the Peace Act;
Bill 27, An Act to amend the Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act;
Bill 44, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act;
Bill 100, An Act to revise and consolidate the Law respecting the Organization, Operation and Proceedings of Courts of Justice in Ontario;
Bill 122, An Act to revise the Architects Act;
Bill 123, An Act to revise the Professional Engineers Act;
Bill Pr1, An Act to revive Moramos Holding Club of Essex;
Bill Pr4, An Act to incorporate Central Baptist Seminary and Bible College;
Bill Pr11, An Act to incorporate the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation;
Bill Pr18, An Act to revive Zeta Psi Elders Association of Toronto;
Bill Pr42, An Act respecting the City of Peterborough.
The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.