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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

1110

The Chair (Mrs.Judi Longfield (Whitby--Ajax))

Mr. Johnston

The Chair

An hon. member

Mrs. Longfield

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon--Rosetown--Biggar, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen (Director General, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission)

1115

1120

1125

1130

1135

1140

1145

1150

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Carol Skelton

Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

1155

Ms. Andrea Wright (Legal Advisor, Legal Services Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission)

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa--Orléans)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

1200

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Bellemare

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Monique Guay

1205

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Monique Guay

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

1210

Mr. Rhys Phillips (Director, Policy and Legislation, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission)

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Rhys Phillips

Ms. Joan Bishop (Director, Statistical Analysis Unit, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission

Mr. Tonks

Ms. Joan Bishop

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Joan Bishop

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Joan Bishop

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

Ms. Davies

1215

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Davies

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Davies

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Joan Bishop

Ms. Libby Davies

1220

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Davies

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Rhys Phillips

The Chair

Ms. Neville

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Anita Neville

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

1225

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Dale Johnston

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Mr. Johnston

The Chair

Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea--Gore--Malton--Springdale, Lib.)

Ms. Joan Bishop

Mr. Rhys Phillips

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

1230

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Nicole Chénier-Cullen

Ms. Andrea Wright

The Chair

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup--Témiscouata--Les Basques, BQ)

1235

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

1240

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Dale Johnston

The Chair

Mr. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois--Salaberry, Lib.)

1245

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Mrs. Carol Skelton

The Chair

Mr. Paul Crête

1250

The Chair

Mr. Paul Crête

A voice

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

1255

The Chair

Mr. Paul Crête

The Chair

Mr. Serge Marcil

Mr. Crête

Mr. Serge Marcil

Mr. Paul Crête

The Chair

Mr. Serge Marcil

The Chair

Mr. Serge Marcil

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

NUMBER 047

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á (1110)

[English]

The Chair (Mrs.Judi Longfield (Whitby--Ajax)): I'll call the meeting to order.

We have a little housekeeping matter to take care of. Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a slight change in the membership of our committee, so we have the opportunity to elect a new vice-chair for the opposition. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), I would now call for nominations for vice-chair, opposition.

Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance): Madam Chairman, I would like to place the name of Carol Skelton for consideration.

The Chair: Okay.

An hon. member: I'll second that.

The Chair: Okay.

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon--Rosetown--Biggar, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you all.

The Chair: Our next item of business is to hear our witnesses. We have returning to us the Canadian Human Rights Commission. They have a wonderful presentation that we're all looking forward to seeing. I'm aware that we have overheads on either side, and I'm assuming that we have one in English and one in French.

Madame Chénier-Cullen, perhaps you can start off, and you might introduce your panelists as well.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen (Director General, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission): With me are Joan Bishop, who is the director of statistical analysis, Rhys Phillips, the director of policy, and Andrea Wright from our legal services branch.

We've circulated to the members a copy of the presentation in both French and English. We'll do our best to entertain you. I always start with this warning: some viewers may not share this sense of humour. Quite frankly, having worked on the Hill for 15 years for several cabinet ministers, I had an awful lot of fun doing this. As a matter of fact, I had so much fun doing it I ended up marrying my boss, but that's not what we're going to talk about today.

We're going to talk about employment equity, and these are the subjects I hope we'll be able to get through: who does what; what employers must do; how we audit employers; where audits are at; the progress of designated groups; attitudes and behaviours; and a review of the act. We're going to do this in 45 minutes or less, and if I'm not finished, you can just interrupt me.

This is where it all got started on October 24, 1996. A new Employment Equity Act was promulgated by Parliament today. The act, which for the first time includes the federal public service, confers enforcement powers upon the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The commission's mandate takes effect in 12 months, during which time employers should start working towards compliance.

This was probably the reaction of employers, who were probably caught short, because they are still being caught short during the terms of the audit. If I am to find a metaphor for our commission, this would be it here: a serene environment, with a mother duck quietly leading her little ducklings. But actually, we were put in the position of having to master highly complex tasks on the fly, and we pretended we knew what we were doing so well that no one noticed we did not know what we were doing until we really did know--and we kept our sense of humour through it all. So that is why this metaphor is particularly interesting, because under that calm water those little ducks are pedalling about 100 miles per hour.

The first thing we did in the administration of the Employment Equity Act was contact our partners, Human Resources Development Canada, the Treasury Board, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission. We worked very closely together throughout the formulation of our mandate and the implementation of the act.

Our mandate is very clear. We conduct audits of the private sector, which includes employers of 100 or more employees in transportation, communications, banking, and other areas, and that includes the crown corporations. In the public sector we have federal departments, regardless of size--we actually have federal departments that have 10 employees, which is quite unusual within this program--and separate agencies with 100 or more employees.

HRDC is certainly the lead department. They receive annual reports from the employers. I think you people have been talking to HRDC and the Treasury Board, so you probably know all this already. Regional workplace equity officers give employers advice on achieving compliance. They also maintain a database, and they audit federal contractors. I was the first director of the federal contractors program many years ago, and I believe firmly that if this program is ever going to work properly, it will have to be given a legislative base--but that's not even for the transcript, that's outside my own responsibility.

Now that I've alarmed my colleagues at HRDC, I'll keep going.

Á (1115)

With the Treasury Board, the employer of the public service, we started by negotiating a memorandum of understanding, which has probably now been overtaken by events. They introduce guidelines for the public service and they monitor performance. Their portfolio officers advise departments on receiving compliance. They receive annual reports from departments, they maintain a database, and together with the Public Service Commission, they implement policies and programs for recruiting and promoting employment equity. There are going to be some changes, which the Treasury Board talked about at their last meeting here and which are being fully supported by the commission.

I must say, we've had our differences, but we enjoy a solid relationship and work well together, to the benefit of the program. Among other things, we regularly share information and data. We meet regularly, and not only at the senior management level; my auditors will meet regularly with the workplace equity officers from HRDC and people from the Treasury Board, and we each produce an annual report. Ours is produced at the end of March, and both HRDC and TBS have always been very generous in giving us the data in enough time that we could produce our report while criticizing their data--sometimes positively, sometimes not.

The second thing we looked at is what employers have to do in order to achieve compliance. We had the benefit of having some of the best experts in the country to help us do that, and two of them are sitting at this table here. So if there are any technical questions on that, we will be pleased to answer them.

There are two ways by which employers can achieve compliance under the act. The first is if the employer has full representation of all designated groups in each occupational category--that's very important, not just overall representation, and they must have in place the means by which to maintain their program. If they are not fully represented, we turn to the 12 statutory requirements related to the development of an employment equity plan. I believe I talked about this briefly the last time we were here, and I circulated some documents that illustrate the 12 statutory requirements.

You would do this like any good research project. You start by doing your research, planning your strategy, seeing how you're going to resolve the problems, and then go on with the new program. If you look at these statutory requirements in sequence, you'll see they make sense. First you do your workplace survey. That's where you get the profile of your workforce, and you know how many members of designated groups you have in place. But that only gives you the profile. In order to know what the gaps are in respect of designated groups, you have to do your workforce analysis. That's what tells you you have so many gaps in this occupational category for this designated group. Then you go on and do your employment assistance review, and that's where the numbers stop. That's the quality stuff, that's what's going to enable you to identify all those barriers in your workforce that have an adverse impact on your ability to have designated groups working in your workplace.

After you've done that, you go on to prepare your plan. First you have to tell us, the auditors, how you're going to eliminate the barriers you identified in your employment systems review. You have to provide for accommodation, which includes accessibility to the workplace, but is not in the act. You have to give us positive policies and practices that will enable you to fill the gaps identified in your workforce analysis. These positive policies and practices and special measures will also allow you to meet your hiring and promotion goals, which you also have to give us, for every gap. If you meet your hiring and promotion goals, you will be meeting your representation goals.

Once that's done, you turn to the implementation of your program. You monitor, review, and revise your approach at least once in a three-year period, and the statutory requirement there includes accountability. You have to provide information to your workforce on a regular basis to tell them where the program is at and what kinds of things you're expecting to do. You have to consult with unions and employees, that is a very important part of the program, and you have to maintain appropriate records. Once you've done that, you have to keep your workforce analysis up to date, you have to keep your workplace informed, and you have to make sure you're going to meet your goals. So it's not a one-stop deal, it keeps going, and it's a new way of managing your human resources.

Á (1120)

The workforce survey identifies the number of designated groups in the workplace. Most employers are in compliance with the workforce survey, because they've had to report that to HRDC since 1987. However, some surveys are not kept up-to-date, and some use wrong definitions.

I've got a very interesting article from this very well-known publication Workplace Diversity Update. It's always nice for us when we audit companies,and we turn around and see some good things happening as a result of the audit. In this case it's the Hong Kong Bank of Canada.

The Hong Kong Bank took the opportunity of the audit to survey, but now they've gone back and resurveyed their workforce. The survey instrument was transformed in November 2000 from a simple one-page questionnaire--and I brought one for you here, if you would like to see what a questionnaire looks like; I will leave one with you. So what the Hong Kong Bank did was take the questionnaire and develop a booklet with it. The booklet contained a detachable survey form, a message from the president, background information on diversity, and a section addressing fears and myths surrounding self-ID. So what happened there?

We often hear that self-ID doesn't work, because too many don't self-identify. Sometimes it's because there hasn't been a good strategy leading into the self-identification survey. So here the comment from HSBC is that the results were amazing. There was a huge increase in the number of aboriginal people and people with disabilities who self-identified. The new survey really made a difference. The data almost reached the 2004 goals, and one of the senior executives said, it was the best $15,000 we spent this year, to redo this survey. This is just as an anecdote, particularly satisfying for us.

Nobody's in compliance with the workforce analysis. It's a very technical statutory requirement, and it requires them to compare their workforce profile with the census data and identify the gaps by occupational groups. There are 14 groups in the private sector and 6 categories in the public service. The analysis sets the stage for the next step, the employment systems review,

Technically, when the workforce analysis comes into our office, we check it, and we give them the right figures. One organization, for instance--and it's not just one organization--had declared that for semi-professionals they would have a goal of 50%. When we looked at what they meant by semi-professionals, it was all women pilots. So we went back and said, no, this is more like 17% in your area. They just didn't understand that if they had kept that 50%, they would never have reached their goal.

So there's a lot of give and take, and it requires a really comprehensive approach on our part, because the employers, by and large, don't understand how to do that, so much so that now, when we do an audit--we learned this very early on--we ask the employer to provide us with the workforce analysis during the course of the audit, so that we can set the stage for the employer as to what needs to be looked at in the employment systems review.

The ESR has to be the most powerful force for achieving corporate culture change, and it's a challenge for both employers and auditors. We're not talking about numbers, we're talking about a lot of quality measures here. This is the auditor trying to figure out how the employer did the ESR. Employers must review their systems, policies, and practices, including attitudes and behaviours, in order to identify barriers that reasonably explain the gaps in their workforce. This allows for the formulation of special measures to close the gaps. It's not easy, but it's essential, and it's a critical area where employers have not been doing well. There have been a lot of special measures and positive policies, but none of them are directed to areas of gaps and none of them have been directed to those barriers in the workplace that need to be eliminated and need to be addressed. So essentially, that's been the big problem with the ESR.

Having done that, the employer proceeds with the plan, and the plan has to address the short-term measures, the positive policies, provide for accommodation, hiring, promotion, and long-term representation goals.

Before we leave the audit, some of the key elements where the auditor has to be satisfied are the following: that survey and analysis have been done and all the gaps have been identified; where the gaps have been identified, that all policies and practices specified in the act, including attitudes and behaviours, have been examined; that all barriers have been clearly documented and measures to eliminate them have been identified; that the accommodation policy has been communicated and accessibility has been planned for; that the hiring and promotion goals cover all gaps; that the positive policies and special measures are sufficient to meet the hiring goals; that union and employee representatives been appropriately consulted; that employees are sufficiently informed; that senior management is committed and managers are accountable; that the process is in place to measure the plan for progress?

Á (1125)

When that's done, the employer, if he or she follows the plan, will have a pretty good chance of making sufficient progress in closing the gaps and hiring the groups the way they should have been hired in the first place.

Á (1130)

[Translation]

We will now take a look at the audit process. As I was mentioning before, we have a staff of 29 and a budget of $1.9 million. I think that there were some problems with that last time. In the audit section, there are 17 people; in the data section, 5, in the policy section, 4, and in the director general's office, 3. If you are tired of the cartoon characters, this is what our branch looks like. These are actual members of our staff.

The act is very different in that it gives us a basic principle to work from. That is very important. In the commission, there were concerns about how employers treated us on site. The commission used to deal with complaints, which made for quite an aggressive system. So the act makes it very clear that, wherever possible, cases of non-compliance should be resolved through persuasion and the negotiation of written undertakings, and that directions should be issued only as a last resort. The act is very specific in that regard.

These are our auditors. We have a good time. There are 15 auditors and two clerks. They work cooperatively and apply requirements judiciously. Sometimes, when we are negotiating with a bank, the private sector or a small transport company, it is very important to show a lot of flexibility when it comes to enforcement. Our auditors do not just sit at their desks. They first analyze the documentation and then go on site to validate the findings and conduct interviews. Otherwise, it would become just a mail-in exercise, which is something we would want to avoid at all costs.

I am sorry, but I cannot speak in French and do my report in English at the same time.

The auditors must be satisfied that if implemented, the plan will lead to reasonable progress. That is very important. Each auditor has a caseload of 10 or more active audits. It takes us between 10 and 12 months to complete an audit, and most employers require two audits. If an employer is still not in total compliance after the second audit, an extension of approximately three months will be given. Where employers have been issued a direction or where a case has gone to court, there will be three and sometimes even four audits.

A two-stage audit is used if the employer is in non-compliance. That is when undertakings are negotiated. The undertakings are signed by the CEO or deputy minister, and the organization is given a maximum of 12 months to implement them, after which a follow-up audit is initiated. But that is not all. It is the main aspect of our mandate under the act.

Once an employer achieves compliance, we monitor progress on the basis of reports submitted to HRDC and Treasury Board. If an organization is not making reasonable progress, another audit may be initiated. That is absolutely crucial.

We look to see whether the employer has made reasonable efforts. If the efforts made are consistent with those outlined in the plan but no progress resulted, we may start to negotiate new measures to ensure that the plan will be put into effect. There are certainly things that can happen on the economic side, and companies may suffer the repercussions. We always need to take that into account. If no reasonable progress has been made, but there have been reasonable efforts, we can negotiate new undertakings. If reasonable efforts have not been made, we still need to negotiate new undertakings, and the audit cycle begins again.

I will be making a proposal to you later on on how this problem could be corrected.

Á (1135)

[English]

With enforcement, you notice this officer does not have a very big stick here. There are three instances that may lead to enforcement: if the auditor is unable to obtain a written undertaking; if the employer does not fulfil the undertakings; and if the employer refuses to cooperate. Then we can issue a direction. The commission must first issue a direction giving the employer additional time to reach compliance. Should the employer not respect the terms of the direction, the commission may then seek an order from the tribunal confirming the direction. The employer may submit comments to the commission reviewing a recommendation for a direction and an order, and has a right of appeal to tribunal. The tribunal decision is registered in the Federal Court and has the full force of a court order.

We don't think this is really going to happen. This is a slight exaggeration. But who knows what the Federal Court might do with a contempt of court case? Usually, they would impose a fine, but that's not in the act, and we haven't got there yet.

We get a lot of confusion as to the levying of monetary penalties. That has nothing to do with the CHRC. It's important to remember that those outlined in the act can only be enforced by HRDC and are restricted to employers failing to file an annual report or reporting misleading information to that department. So it's exclusively HRDC that has the authority to levy monetary penalties.

Education was not clearly in our mandate, but when we first did the audits, there was very little knowledge of what to do in order to achieve compliance. So we requested additional resources soon after our mandate came into effect to educate employers about what they must do to achieve compliance, not how they have to do it, because that's HRDC and Treasury Board, but what they must do. Over 80 presentations have been done by my branch since January 2000 with employers, unions, designated groups, consultants, and other interested parties, including--and we're particularly proud of this--foreign countries that have expressed an interest in the Canadian approach.

The act is smart in three ways. First, it gives the commission clear marching orders as to how to conduct itself in a spirit of cooperation and persuasion. That's very important.

Second, it tells employers what they do not have to do. We hear the term quota all the time, but for us it's a very inappropriate word. The act says employers don't have to take initiatives that constitute undue hardship--no quotas, no creation of new positions, no hiring of unqualified people. Layoffs and recalls under collective agreements are fully protected. That's what employers don't have to do.

Third, it does give employers the opportunity to negotiate undertakings to put themselves in compliance, which really enables the implementation of an employment equity program within a positive environment, which is absolutely crucial to its success. So that is a very important part of the act.

But in other ways the act is very frustrating. Employers continue to wait until the audit before starting to work towards compliance. The act is not clear in stating what it is that employers have to do, and they don't understand the requirements very well. In the majority of cases it takes up to three years before we can find an employer in compliance. The act is silent on the need for a written accommodation policy, accessibility, and accountability, three elements we consider very important.

Also important is that with four years under our belt, we really feel the enforcement process is rather flawed. The tribunal seems to act as a catalyst for employers who have thus far reached compliance before a hearing can be scheduled, and by the time they get to a tribunal, they have been with us for at least three to four years. Maybe the ultimate objective of compliance is achieved, but the process represents long delays, is an ineffective use of the judiciary system, and is unnecessarily resource-intensive for both the commission and the tribunal.

Á (1140)

[Translation]

We will now take a look at the audit situation. I believe that the committee was interested in knowing where things were at with the audits.

There are 215 employers being audited out of a total of 410. In the private sector, there are 166 out of a total of 331. In the banking sector, the proportion is 15 out 20. In communications, 39 out of 94. In transportation, 86 out 170. In the category of other organizations, which includes museums and other institutions of that type, there are 26 out 47 being audited. In the public sector, there are 49 out of 79: 41 departments out of 65 and 8 separate agencies as well.

I will now give you some information on the size of employers. Just to make it more difficult, I have reversed the columns: the total is on the left and the number of organizations on the right. Of organizations with 10,000 employees or more, 14 out of 15 are audited; in the category of between 2,000 and 10,000 employees, 20 out of 28, 1,000 to 2,000 employees, 23 out of 33; 500 to 1,000 employees, 25 out of 60, and under 500 employees, 84 out of 211. So you can see that the vast majority of these organizations are small businesses.

There is something interesting to note here. Employers under audit account for 53% of all employers, while 86% of employees work for employers that are subject to the act. In the private sector, 77% of employees work for employers that are subject to the act; in departments, 97%; and in separate agencies, 94%.

Coming now to the status of compliance, we have initiated 354 audits. Of those, 269 have been completed, involving 215 employers: 73 of those were in compliance; three have been referred to the tribunal by the CHRC; and four have been referred to the tribunal by the employer.

I know that there is also a great deal of interest in federal departments that have more than 100 employees. So 41 out of 48 departments are under audit. There are 17 that are in compliance. Three directions have been issued. One tribunal is scheduled, one is being recommended and there is a third case in which the employer achieved compliance after the direction was issued.

Here is information on the enforcement status: 20 directions have been issued; five employers are in compliance, five or rather six, since one was found to be in compliance yesterday; a total of seven referred to the tribunal; three by the commission; one tribunal has been withdrawn because the employer was found to be in compliance; four by the employer; and four cases that have been referred by employers have also been withdrawn.

This gives us a compliance rate of 80% since the program started. We feel that that is a very good rate.

Among the 73 employers in compliance, only eight achieved compliance at the first phase of the audit, and only two were fully represented.

[English]

Is there any improvement in the representation of designated groups? This is based on 1999 data. The 2000 data will be available through the annual reports that HRDC and Treasury Board are publishing very soon and through ours, which will be published in March.

Women in both sectors, aboriginal people in the public service, and visible minorities in the private sector are making steady progress, but remain concentrated in lower-level occupations and under-represented in senior management. In the public service visible minorities failed to make any gains and continue to be largely under-represented. At 5.7%, their share of hires falls short of their 10.3% availability in the Canadian workforce. Aboriginal persons in the private sector are not doing very well. They experienced a slight increase in overall representation, but their share of hires continues to be lower than their availability, and they continue to be under-represented. As long as your hiring is less than your availability, you're not making progress, you're digging yourself in deeper.

With persons with disabilities, it's just not acceptable what's happening. Their representation increased only marginally, as they continued to be denied their fair share of hiring opportunities in both the private and public sectors. In the public service, persons with disabilities obtained 312 jobs, when close to 900 should have been hired. Not a single person with a disability was appointed to the executive group. Their representation actually decreased in 19 of the 40 federal departments with more than 200 employees, and only 4 such departments meet the 6.5% availability benchmark.

In the private sector only 700 got jobs, when close to 5,000 should have been hired. They are under-represented in all industrial sectors and lost ground in all but transportation, where their representation increased from 1.8% to 2.5%, again against an availability of 6.5%. That was interesting in the transportation sector, because this is the first year they've showed an increase in any of the groups.

Over the 13-year period of the act persons with disabilities have never received a share of hirings much greater than one quarter of their availability in the workforce. However, we have figures to demonstrate that once they are hired, the termination rate for persons with disabilities is lower than that for other workers, indicating that they are not leaving the workplace in disproportionately high numbers. What is going to make it even worse is that a new survey that will be coming out in 2002 will increase their availability, as it will for visible minorities. So needless to say, measures to achieve and maintain full representation will require coherent strategies, strong determination, and a persistent focus, if we are to make progress in this area.

There is a bright light on the horizon. Mr. Louis Perinbam did a wonderful job in his report. We are expecting to see some improvement this year in the presence of visible minorities in the public service. And you can be sure this commission will pursue vigorously any measures that could be taken for persons with disabilities reflected in the Perinbam report.

One persistent problem with designated groups is that there are still a lot of negative attitudes, myths, and fears about persons with disabilities. When we do audits, we often hear these negative attitudes. If they're not addressed in employment systems review, we will go back and make sure they are addressed. Attitudes remain our major problem for all designated groups, but especially for persons with disabilities. They are often ignored. In the ESR they are an invisible, but persistent barrier, and here are some quotes.

“We're a crisis-driven operation. People resent persons with disabilities slowing things down.”

“Our salespersons have to host high-profile customers.... They would react negatively to a person in a wheelchair..., and besides, he could not pick them up in his own car.” Is that a requirement of the job? Is that really necessary? The ESR would go back to the job departments and say, we don't think that's a necessary requirement. That sort of detail is crucial.

“Our people feel really uncomfortable around persons with disabilities.... They risk spoiling the close team spirit we require in this organization to get the job done.”

“Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” This is a local manager when told he must hire a person with a disability.

Á (1145)

In order for real change to occur, negative attitudes and behaviour must be dealt with.

Perhaps I could come back to the Hong Kong Bank, just to show you that the audits are having a positive impact. We're particularly pleased and honoured--actually jumping for joy--when we see something like this. I'm just quoting from a press article. This is by the person who is in charge of human resources at Hong Kong Bank.

Beginning this month...all HSBC managers must complete at least two diversity-related activities over the next year.... These actions will be included in their performance reviews.... One option is to refer qualified female employees to a commercial banking management-training program.

That's the way they get ahead.

Other options include inviting a guest speaker to dispel the myths and fears about working with people with disabilities....

That is so rampant in our workforce, and it's systemic. People don't know they're doing it, they don't realize it's there, but it is there, and it comes out very clearly.

They've also made 10 jobs available for aboriginal persons and persons with disabilities outside the normal complement, and they've now hired 30 persons over the space of 2 years in this special program. So things are starting to move. It's not all negative.

We have given members a copy of the discussion paper on which we are presently consulting. What we want is reactions to some of the changes that we would like to bring to the act. Do members want to go through this now? If you've read the paper, perhaps you would like to ask us questions at this point.

Have I exceeded my 45 minutes?

Á (1150)

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Including the time I took to install myself?

The Chair: You have a minute or two left.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Okay. You have the document. Our intention is to provide you with recommendations for changes to the legislation, to the approaches, around the end of March, after we've had a chance to consult about 30 groups on the issue. So maybe we can just skip through this part, so that you have a chance for questions.

The Chair: Perfect. Thank you.

We have a list started. Given that we have another meeting that follows this, we'll start off with five-minute rounds, beginning with Ms. Skelton, followed by Monsieur Bellemare, and then Madame Guay.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: The commission's consultation paper recommends that the act include Parliament. Is this recommendation intended to apply to the Library of Parliament, or was it intentionally left out?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I don't think it was intentionally left out. I wasn't here, I wouldn't know. But employees in Parliament don't report to Treasury Board or HRDC. It could be done through a protocol. The act wouldn't have to be changed in order to accommodate this. I'm sure we could make arrangements with the Speaker to report directly to the chief commissioner--I'm just thinking out loud right now. But I don't believe it was intentional. I think they're just not part of the Treasury Board population or the legislated private sector population.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: I'd also like to know whether this would include MPs' offices?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: You would have to decide that. We would like to include as much of the workforce as possible.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: So our offices would be covered.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Yes. They are part of the workforce that reports to the Speaker, right?.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: That's correct.

Although the Employment Equity Act includes the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the application of the law to these federal institutions can only accrue by an order of the Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Treasury Board. Has this occurred yet? If not, why is the matter not raised in this paper?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Unfortunately, it has not. The matter has been raised in all our annual reports since the start of the program. We have deplored this issue. We are told now by the Treasury Board and HRDC that the Order in Council is ready to go and that it might be coming through by mid-March. But it's just not acceptable that it has taken this long. You're quite right.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Why should we abandon the emphasis on persuasion and negotiation as the key drivers in obtaining compliance?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: We don't want to do that. Where did you get that impression?

Ms. Carol Skelton: Just from reading and through research and stuff.

Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I think the price we pay for this is that we have to wait a long time for employers to become compliant, but it's a good price to pay if you're going to get results at the other end. I equate persuasion and collaboration with the opportunity for employers to put themselves in compliance after we get there. If it weren't for that, we'd be in enforcement 98% of the time. I don't think this is something anyone could sustain. We wouldn't have good results with that. So persuasion and cooperation are effective tools in the act.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: The basis for this question was recommendation 12: “That the second part of Article 22(2) dealing with the requirement to take enforcement action only as a 'last resort' be deleted from the legislation.”

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Right. Maybe I'll ask Andrea Wright to address that one.

Á (1155)

Ms. Andrea Wright (Legal Advisor, Legal Services Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission): The fear with the last resort language is that it will unduly lengthen the amount of time an employer is given by a tribunal in a prospective ruling to comply with the act. Our thought is that the words “persuasion and negotiation” that are there and the spirit of the act in general already serve the purpose of achieving a collaborative regime with employers, and that the addition of the words “last resort” could unduly lengthen the amount of time an employer is given to comply or increase the number of measures for delay an employer can invoke in complying.

The language has not been adjudicated by a tribunal yet, so we don't know what the content of “last resort” is. Our thought is that “last resort” was first put in the act because when the act came out--you saw the little cartoon Nicole had in her presentation--employers surely said, wow, there's so much here to comply with we barely understand it. I think the legislators hoped the commission wouldn't drop in with a parachute and start enforcing the obligations of the act. So the last resort language was put there to make sure everyone stood back, used persuasion, and collaborated with the employers to get there.

So the idea is that last resort probably isn't needed. Persuasion and negotiation we still like, it should be so. With last resort, the fear is that it may be adjudicated some day by a tribunal as having content the legislator never intended.

The Chair: That is your five minutes.

Monsieur Bellemare.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa--Orléans) Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Chénier-Cullen, is your commission compliant with the act?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Yes. We asked for an outside audit. We hired an independent consultant to audit our commission. Yes, our commission is in compliance, and all the designated groups are fully represented.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: We are starting off on the right foot.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Yes, indeed.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Are you in violation of any provincial acts?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: No.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: If a company in a province tells you that the provincial representatives have just visited it and that they found a problem and that the company does not want you to find a problem as well, what do you do?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: This could indeed happen, especially in relation to the federal contractors program. These companies are subject to many more provincial regulations than those companies governed by federal legislation. These types of comments are very rare. However, we do not deal with organizations which are governed by the province on the same points as us. This does happen sometimes in the federal contractors program.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Have some companies come to you to say that they have a problem with the trade unions, and as such, already have their hands full? Consequently, have they indicated to you that your idea of hiring people in all categories is impossible to implement? Have employers indicated to you that trade unions are putting a spoke in the wheels and are trying to protect their members? Have they told you that these people are not a part of a designated group?

If they have, how did you react?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: The process was fairly positive. We were not surprised to see that, during our consultations, many stakeholders called for greater trade union involvement. We have often witnessed disputes between trade unions and employers. The program is fairly flexible because hiring is protected under collective agreements. We found that the trade unions viewed the program very positively and wished to participate in it.

There are some areas of the legislation which required cooperation with employers, because the commission doesn't have the mandate to deal with these issues. However, in terms of union consultation, we are generally satisfied to see the extent to which trade unions are interested in the program. If an employer points out a major problem to us, we will undertake an assessment to see what can be done.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Does your definition of “a disabled person” included physically or mentally disabled people?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Both physically and mentally disabled people are included.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: It is possible that former psychiatric facilities residents may be included in the mentally disabled person category. Are employers under the obligation to hire these people or does your definition of “disabled persons” merely refer to persons with learning difficulties?

Â (1200)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: This category covers people who have qualifications enabling them to work. As stated in the legislation, employers are under no obligation to hire those people who are not qualified. Consequently, workers are required to show that they possess the necessary qualifications for the particular position.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Who is responsible for testing these people?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: The employers.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: What happens in the case of a person who doesn't meet these standards of the industry or the particular company?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: In cases of this type, employees are not qualified for the particular position. There are many mentally handicapped people who are very productive. However, they are employees who, just as any other employee, have passed the tests. They possess the qualifications enabling them to work. Once they have passed these tests, employers hire them. If they are not qualified and if their handicap prevents them from working in a particular position, they are not qualified.

As I said earlier, the legislation stipulates that employers are not required to hire those people who are not qualified.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: In some industries, rednecks—and I'm not talking about my colleagues across the way here—but rather... roughnecks are employed on oil platforms...

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Roughnecks.

[English]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I apologize for any disparaging comment I may have made about your group. It's roughnecks.

With oil rigs, usually you have to hire some pretty rough looking characters Is that a problem, if the people responsible for the rigs say, look, it would be impossible for us to hire people with certain disabilities. Come and take a look, try to handle one of these long pipes. We see them in the news, movies, and so on, and they swing a chain around these oil rigs and the pipes are moving around. I assume some of those pipes must hit workers.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I'll let my colleague demonstrate.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: What do you do in a case like that?

The Chair: We're will have to leave those questions unanswered for a moment, because we have to move on, but I'm sure we'll find an opportunity to come back to them.

Madame Guay.

[Translation]

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): I would like to congratulate you on your presentation. It was very interesting, but very short. We do not have much time to really get into much detail on the topics. It would have been better to have more time. That being said however, we have to be disciplined here. I'm sure that if we do have any further questions to ask, we will be able to get hold of you.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: [Editor's Note: Inaudible]... if you have questions.

Ms. Monique Guay: Mr. Bellemare asked whether there were any problems of overlap. I know that we in Quebec are not the only ones to have employment equity legislation. I think that apart from the issue of contractors, the two jurisdictions target different areas. Here, we are really targeting the Canadian public service, whereas in the province of Quebec, workers under provincial jurisdiction are targeted. I think that that is quite clear.

I would just simply like to make one brief comment. Yesterday, I attended the opening night of a play in my riding, which is geared to encouraging young women to participate in non-traditional type employment programs. It was very interesting. This program was set up by Quebec to encourage young women to find better-paid employment. These women are trained, together with boys, in non-traditional professions. This is a great play which will be touring my region. It will be playing in schools for example. I found this play fascinating. Nothing of this type is being done at the federal level.

Last Thursday, we met, among others, university representatives from all over Canada and their watchword for us was “Marketing, marketing, marketing.” The federal government is not doing its job on this issue. I would like to hear what you have to say on that topic.

You have said that in the majority of cases, it takes up to three years for employers to be declared compliant. This is a very long process. Do you have a shortage of staff? Do you need extra staff?

I have one last question. You said earlier that the commission does not have the legal power as such to impose financial penalties. Did I understand correctly? Only Human Resources Development Canada can do that. Don't you think that it would be necessary in the long run for the commission to be able to impose penalties?

You also stated that it was too late to overhaul the legislation; however, we are currently doing just that. Your statement worries me, because in my opinion if we want to make amendments, we have to do it now. If we do not do it right away, we will have to wait five years or even ten years before we can open this legislation up again. Consequently, we must take prompt action.

Â (1205)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I shall begin by answering the fourth point that you raised concerning changes to legislation. I said that in our opinion, it was too late to suggest substantive amendments to the legislation. Having said that, we do of course want to suggest that the law be changed in some way, in particular, to clarify employer requirements. These are currently not clear in the legislation.

By substantive changes, I am referring to the definitions, and this type of issue. No, it is not too early to make further changes either. In terms of the experience that we have had to date, it is indeed too early to make substantive changes, because we have not yet had sufficient time to undertake audits or follow-ups of employers who are in compliance, to assess whether they have progressed. It is far too early to undertake this process.

The issue of financial penalties is a recurrent one. I am not sure that the ability to impose financial penalties would get us very far. We need to look into that issue. In our opinion, a particularly problematic area is the slow court process. It takes between nine and 12 months to get a hearing. During that time, the employer has had the time to become compliant and the hearing has to be cancelled. That is a problem. We need a way of taking employers to court much more rapidly than is currently the case.

Do I think I need more staff? I would never say no, however, additional staff would not enable us to reduce the time it takes for an employer to become compliant. This is quite simply a reflection of the time that is needed to implement a good program and an appropriate approach which gives good results.

The auditing process takes nine months. Employers sign commitments and have a maximum of 12 months to set up their program. Then, we undertake further audits. That takes us between eight and nine months. If an extension is needed, that takes three months. That gives us a total of three years. If, at the end of this three-year period, we get good results, and an environment which is positive for employment equity, then I am satisfied. This is the price that we have to pay for negotiation and that's the only way we can do things. We do not have the necessary tools to enable us to have a major impact on the implementation of the legislation.

As regards marketing, nothing would please me more than to be able to boost our marketing. Personally, I believe that it would be a very useful exercise for someone to look at the program and the approach as a whole that is needed to assist employers. Currently, 50% of employers are being audited. Of these, the majority will be deemed compliant. Could the HRDC consultative role be developed to include a greater education and marketing aspect for employers and could it be developed to set out a specific way of assisting employers to hire more neglected designated groups, i.e. aboriginal or disabled people?

This is perhaps a role that could be developed. However, until we have an employment equity commission which covers all of these areas, our commission will not be able to look at this type of topic. Having said that, it would be extremely important to do so.

Ms. Monique Guay: Is it possible for the government to give the commission money for marketing? Is that a possibility?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Yes, we should look into that.

[English]

The Chair: All things are possible if we have enough will.

Mr. Tonks, Ms. Davies, and then Ms. Neville.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): I wanted for a moment to pursue part of the question that was asked by Mr. Bellemare with respect to the audit being directed at unions or employer groups who would be applying equity solutions to the designated groups in their training programs, how you bridge from the analysis in your audit to the prognosis for action, particularly in respect of training, and particularly if it is in the area, say, of apprenticeship training and so on being funded by a public entity, such as HRDC.

Â (1210)

Mr. Rhys Phillips (Director, Policy and Legislation, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission): The type of programming that might be required in employment equity will depend on the nature of the gaps, where the gaps are. For example, in the technicians area or the skilled workers area there may be a gap in regard to women. So we're looking at the extent of the gap? If the gap is not that large and can be accommodated by the hiring processes over the next three, four, five years, there may not be a need for extensive special measures. If we find that maybe only half the expected rate of representation is there, there may be a special training program or apprenticeship program. It's not uncommon for employers to initiate an internship program, where they will bring in members of the designated group. Sometimes it's open to everyone, but it specifically assists groups. For example, if you create a mentoring program, it often assists women, because they have been excluded from informal mentoring processes. Some companies may develop a mentoring program for women because they have been excluded.

It is different from employer to employer and union to union, because they work out whatever is the best relationship. In a number of cases unions have sat down with the employer and established a special training program or worked very closely with the employer. In one case, where there were quite strict union rules about bringing in new employees, a certain set of positions were put aside in northern Ontario that would go through a separate process. That was used to increase the level of aboriginal recruitment into the organization. The level and the extent of the programming and the extent of the union involvement are going to differ from company to company, because the plan has to reflect the environment within the company.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I have a short supplementary to that concerning a specific example, the building trades. There was an absence of women engaged in a proactive way in the apprenticeship training program. Would the audit make reference to that and advise a course of action appropriate to that?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: As Rhys did so well on the first part of the question, I'll let him answer the second part.

Mr. Rhys Phillips: To be the true bureaucrat, let me pass it over to Joan, because she is the person who does most of the work with the data in determining the appropriate rates of availability against which you measure your own performance.

Ms. Joan Bishop (Director, Statistical Analysis Unit, Employment Equity Branch, Canadian Human Rights Commission: The employer, in deciding whether he has a shortage of women in those areas and his workforce, would be looking at census data HRDC puts together, which tells them the people who are qualified. So if there's a shortage that precedes that of people getting a certain kind of education or getting into a certain kind of apprenticeship program, that responsibility doesn't lie with the employer. He's only expected to hire people who are fully qualified.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I understand that.

Ms. Joan Bishop: But those things can be addressed by the training programs HRDC and other government agencies have.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I understand that. It's meeting the designated index, if you will, and seeing that there's follow-through in access to the apprenticeship, to meet the index's objective.

Ms. Joan Bishop: I think as well, now that some of the employers who are in compliance are starting to make requests of apprenticeship programs or of marine officer training programs, for example, non-traditional areas, they're starting to ask for designated group members. I think that also feeds into those programs through their looking for candidates in a different way as well.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Do you monitor that? Do you try to connect that through the audit?

Ms. Joan Bishop: Only where it's a very particular situation affecting a specific employer.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Okay. Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much for coming today. I've got a ton of questions. There won't be enough time.

First, I was very happy to see you are suggesting that Parliament itself should be covered. I'm sure there will be a thousand reasons why this shouldn't happen, but at the end of the day, I think it's very important that we should be covered, if we believe in this program.

The things I want to focus are extending the scope of the program, resources, and the issue of compliance. First, I think it's interesting that you've pointed out that compliance does not necessarily mean you hit the jackpot and you're represented in all the designated areas. It means you're in compliance with the process, you're monitoring it, and all of that. So I'm wondering whether you think there actually should be more emphasis on the outcome with enforcement. If you're saying 215 are audited, 73 are in compliance, which means 142 are not, it seems to me we have a fair way to go.

Which brings me to the next issue, the resources. I think we'd all agree that there's a huge amount of education that has to be done, both in the broader community and within the departments, whether it's the public sector or the private sector. Who monitors the resources that are required to do that? Do you guys have any mandate to say to Treasury Board, look, you can't do this on less than a shoe-string? If you don't have it, should you have that mandate, to actually look at the resources that are required to do the job?

Finally, with extending the scope of the program, we know there are the designated groups, but there are issues, for example, with multiple grounds. We can look at your numbers, but if we factor in women who have disabilities, people of colour who have disabilities, or aboriginal people, and so on, the numbers begin to plummet. So is that an issue we should actually be looking at? Because I believe it's not covered now. We've also had some information about including sexual orientation. And there's also the matter of older workers.

Then finally in respect of extending the scope, I find it very interesting that the private sector is doing better when it comes to visible minorities. Is that because they can draw from a broader pool, where people don't have to be Canadian citizens, which under Treasury Board you do have to be? Is that something we should also be looking at, removing that requirement?

Â (1215)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I hope my colleagues can help on the questions.

The Chair: You've under two minutes to respond.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Okay. With more resources you can do more, for sure.

Ms. Libby Davies: Who monitors it?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: We actually went to the Treasury Board one year into the program to ask for additional resources, and we did get additional resources, but that was tied to the fact that at the beginning the commission had made a commitment to audit all employers in full in the first five years, and we knew we couldn't get there. So they gave us additional resources. They also recognized that there was a really important role for education, but that did not help out in the way you would like it to help out. There needs to be more marketing, as Monique Guay was saying before.

So yes, with more resources, we could do more, and we could monitor what resources we need, but it has to be tied in to what our mandate is in the act. We could say, okay, we want to extend the mandate, but if there's anything in the act or there's another arm of government that does that, we shouldn't be approaching the Treasury Board on something like that.

As for the employers who are still in the stream, but are not yet in compliance, it takes three years. We've only been doing this for four years. I expect that in the next two years a lot of them are coming up for compliance. That's only a factor of the time it takes before we start the audit and the employers achieve compliance. So within the next two years, by the time we're into year five or six, we should have an awful lot more employers in compliance, and some very important employers are now in the stream, all the large banks, for instance, so that will be important.

What was one of the other questions?

Ms. Libby Davies: Broadening the scope, people who are covered.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: The issue there may be that we don't have the data to figure out how to handle that sort of issue. How can you tell what gaps there are if the census does not give you the data by which to make a comparison on availability?

Ms. Libby Davies: Is that something you're looking at, though? Who is looking at that, anybody?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: That would be HRDC, which is the master of the act, but I'm not sure they are looking at it. That's probably a better question for HRDC.

Joan.

Ms. Joan Bishop: Statistics Canada is also looking into gathering information on sexual orientation, but it would be some way down the road.

Ms. Libby Davies: What about age? We've heard this several times, and the issue of multiple grounds seems to be something that is pretty glaring, and yet there is nothing in the process that deals with that.

Â (1220)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: There's no question that women with a disability are at a disadvantage. That would be a fundamental change to the act, which would require a lot more research and I can't give you a well-researched answer at this point. I'll be glad to meet with you, if you'd like, one on one. We could explain some of these questions to you.

With the visible minorities, you mention the Treasury Board.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: They don't include Canadian citizens. They took Canadian citizens out of the act, which is a sore point for us. They took it out.

The Chair: At that we're going to have to--

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: They took permanent residents out of the visible minority count for the public service availability.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Rhys Phillips: The answer is, yes, it's a problem.

The Chair: In our final round you'll have to be very brief.

Ms. Neville, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Malhi, three minutes.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Actually several of my questions were touched on by Ms. Davies, but I have two very specific ones right now.

What triggers a company into a tribunal? What ultimately takes you over that hurdle?

And I'm concerned about the whole issue of disability. As I look at the examples you gave, I think attitudes have come into play in other areas, particularly women in non-traditional areas, but the area of disability is a huge one. Disability communities are organizing, becoming more active. Is it simply education? What does one have to do to overcome the barriers for persons with disabilities, put in workplace accommodations? I don't know.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: For persons with disabilities, I think the government really needs a comprehensive strategy. The Employment Equity Act will, if administered properly, and if employers do the employment system review properly, enable persons with disabilities to enter the labour market and be productive members of the workforce. However, there are other issues that enter into play that other federal government departments should really make a decision on in order to allow persons with disabilities to enter the labour market without penalizing their benefits, which is something this commission doesn't have a mandate to look at. However, we are doing some research. Our our director of policy is sitting here. We are doing some research on persons with disabilities this year. It's one of our priorities over the next three years to see what can be done not only in helping them be integrated into the labour market, but seeing how they can best become productive members of the workforce.

Ms. Anita Neville: And are you working with communities across the country as you do this research?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I presume we will. In our own consultations we have spoken to several groups representing persons with disabilities, and we do know what the issues are there.

What triggers an employer into tribunal is the fact that they haven't lived up to their promise to fulfil the undertakings that would lead them to compliance. So if the CEO says, I'm going to do these 12 requirements and I'm going to have them implemented in 12 months, if they don't do that, the commission issues a direction. We give them enough time to come into compliance under that direction, and if it's not done at the end of that, the tribunal comes into play--but the tribunal takes another nine months.

Ms. Anita Neville: That's what you said earlier, that you use persuasion as much as possible.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Persuasion during the first audit, if we go into an audit, the employer is not fully representative and does not have a good employment equity plan in place, but there's a lot of good faith, there are a lot of good measures. That part of the persuasion is crucial, that we go in and the employer be able to come into compliance with an employment equity plan in a positive environment that is conducive to good employment equity planning. But if they haven't done that at the end of 12 months, that's where we start having issues.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

I'd like to ask if, in the panelists' perception, they are having a positive effect on the workplace with the methods they're advocating. Obviously, the answer is yes, and if that's the case, I'm wondering why you want broader scope and stronger enforcement abilities. What's the reason for needing that?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I gather you'll be speaking to some of the groups who are disadvantaged, so they might be able to give you an even better answer than I can give you. The broader the scope, the more justice there will be across this country, and the less discrimination there will be, quite frankly. I'm not going to preach, and it's very hard for me not to be more persuasive on this question. If you were to broaden the scope of the Employment Equity Act, you would capture many more people who are currently disadvantaged in the workplace and make more jobs available to them.

Your first question was what?

Â (1225)

Mr. Dale Johnston: Well, I think you answered my question.

I'm wondering what is being done to help employers train or retrain people with disabilities. I'm thinking about an employer in my riding who needs people to run things like robot welders, computer operated lathes, that sort of thing. What kind of incentives are available to that employer to train or retrain people with disabilities, for instance, to do that kind of work?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I think I should start by making it clear that if you hire a person with a disability, the act requires that they be fully accommodated to do the job. So if you're hiring a person with a mobility-enforced impairment, your workplace has to be accessible. You have to make that accommodation for persons with disabilities.

Mr. Dale Johnston: What I'm suggesting is that the employer would be willing to do that, but the employer probably wouldn't be willing to completely train this person without some sort of incentives. Are there any incentives for him to train this person?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Through HRDC, there should be some incentives to do that. There are many programs.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I think a program like that would be more beneficial than these numerical goals or the quota system we have set up now.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: I think you're talking about two different things, but yes, the training would be crucial, it would be very beneficial.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Obviously, I am talking about two different things, training and the quota system.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Remember the slide where there's no quota?

Mr. Dale Johnston: We could debate that too. But I think that there would probably be a greater incentive for employers if there were some aspect of training for the specific skills the job required, if there were some incentive, some tax break perhaps, or something to give the employer an incentive to hire these people, to train them for a specific job.

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: There's no question that this, along with other comprehensive measures to educate the workforce on attitudes, myths, and fears and to help employers recruit persons with disabilities, would be critical in ensuring that we have success in that area.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I have one quick question.

The Chair: You're over, that's three and a half.

Mr. Dale Johnston: You have to remember I'm a roughneck.

The Chair: I understand. That's why I let you continue.

Mr. Malhi.

Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea--Gore--Malton--Springdale, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

My understanding is that two long-serving cabinet ministers in Quebec were recently dismissed because they were too old. The current act covers women, aboriginal people, persons with a disability, and visible minorities. Serious consideration should be given to adding older workers as a new group covered by the Employment Equity Act. What is your opinion about that?

Ms. Joan Bishop: I'll ask Rhys to answer that.

Mr. Rhys Phillips: When the act was last reviewed, we had a study done of that very question. What employment equity in Canada has always attempted to do is deal with groups that have suffered from three things, higher unemployment rates, lower occupational status, and lower income levels. What we found from the study is that older workers, if they become unemployed, will have much longer periods of unemployment, but in fact, older workers, on average, have the lowest unemployment rate, the highest occupational status, and the highest incomes. So our response has usually been that it's an issue that needs to be dealt with, and through the Canadian Human Rights Act itself, which doesn't allow age discrimination. It should be dealt with through that process, but it doesn't really fit into the key areas we're trying to respond to under employment equity. And employment equity cannot, indeed should not, be seen as an appropriate response to all issues of discrimination.

Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Second, in the last six or seven years roughly 1.4 million people migrated to Canada. Many of them know the part of visible minorities in Canada, and many are also highly qualified professionals, doctors and engineers, who cannot get work in their fields, in spite of employment equity programs and laws. The problem is that they have difficulty obtaining certification, because of the red tape of provincial and other professional associations. The Canadian Human Rights Commission monitors and enforces the Employment Equity Act. Is there any chance it should also monitor the certification standards and the procedures of professional associations?

Â (1230)

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: That is really an issue provinces have to deal with. I have a substantial background in immigration policy from some 15 years ago. That was an issue then, and it still is an issue now. It's an issue that has to be resolved by the provincial governments, because licensing is a provincial requirement. Other than that, I'm not sure how I could comment on your question.

Mr. Gurbax Malhi: What are some of the organizations that come under the federal laws?

Ms. Nicole Chénier-Cullen: The organizations under the federal programs?

Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Yes.

Nicole Chénier-Cullen: Transportation, communication, banking, and others, which includes museums, wheat boards, that sort of thing, and then the federal public service and the separate agencies. So it does capture a lot of professionals, it does capture a lot of engineers, who would probably, if they are newly arrived immigrants and are not licensed, suffer under that type of requirement. But it really is something the provinces need to address, the issue of licensing.

Ms. Andrea Wright: It's important to remember that visible minorities have the protection of both the Canadian Human Rights Act and the provincial human rights acts. So if an individual were ever discriminated against or believed he or she had been discriminated against on the basis of race or national or ethnic origin or colour by a provincial board, for example, they might have access to their provincial human rights code as an individual.

The Chair: Thank you. I regret that we don't have more time, but we are under major time constraints.

I want to thank those of you who have come from the Human Rights Commission. I note that you're undertaking your own review of this, which has caused us some difficulties with witnesses who want to wait until they see your report. We're encouraging them to come to us. Unfortunately, we can't wait until you're finished before we schedule those other witnesses. So if you're talking to people, encourage them to keep their commitments with us. Speaking to us doesn't preclude their speaking to you. We look forward to having your review and recommendations as quickly as possible, so that we can include them in our deliberations.

I thank you, and I know we'll see more of you in the future.

We have notice of a motion that was received in compliance 48 hours prior. Mr. Crête, I will give you the opportunity to put your motion and make a very brief statement on your intent.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup--Témiscouata--Les Basques, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

The motion reads as follows:

That the Committee invite Mr. Michel Bédard, Chief Actuary of the Employment Insurance Plan, to appear before it to discuss the report that for the past few years he has made a practice of tabling in the House every autumn, which has not been made public for 2002.

Let us not forget that in this report, the Chief Actuary made an estimate of the premium rate that would be appropriate for the following year. From year to year, he told us, for example, that there were so many billions of dollars in the fund, that the expected unemployment rate was such and such a percentage, which meant, at the end of the day, that we should have such and such a premium rate. As his analysis is based on the needs of the system, and not the government's needs, there was often a gap between his recommendation and the government's decisions.

As for this year, I realized at the end of 2001 that the report had not been produced. I wrote to the minister to ask her when we would have the report. The first reply I received—I have these letters on file—was that no report had been produced this year.

Three or four days later, I received a new reply, this time signed by the deputy minister, Ms. Morris, telling me that there was a mistake made in the last letter and that what they could give us was more or less the document that has just been distributed, but which is not the Chief Actuary's report. It is a report that was produced in the service, but it does not enable us to obtain the information we need to evaluate the relevancy of the government's choice regarding premium rates.

We know that in Bill C-2, responsibility for determining the premium rate was given to the government. But that does not take anything away from our responsibility to analyze the relevancy of the premium rate for the Employment Insurance Plan that the government administers and that, in accordance with our mandate, we must monitor.

So, out of concern for transparency, it seems to me to be quite relevant for the Chief Actuary, Mr. Bédard, to appear before us to tell us exactly what his perception of the state of the Employment Insurance Plan is, and what his projections are for the coming year. Without this information, we are deprived of something that always existed in the past.

I have tried to obtain either the report or information on it from the department, and I have been told that the report had not been produced. However, I know that the Chief Actuary prepares one every year and that he could have prepared one this year. It would have been useful to have one.

So it would seem relevant for us to meet with this person so that we can ask him questions and determine if in fact the government has the necessary information for setting an adequate contribution rate.

Â (1235)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Crête.

Mr. Bellemare.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Madam Chair, I would like to say that I oppose the motion and explain why. First of all, we must bear in mind that we adopted bill C-2 not that long ago, a bill which deals with employment insurance, covers procedures for establishing employment insurance rates.

There were two commissioners: one commissioner who dealt with employees and another who was responsible for what employers thought. It was decided that the government, through the Governor in Council, would, for this year and next year, set the designated rates for employment insurance, in other words, the rates employers and employees pay. A decision was made to use this approach while the government worked on coming up with ways, by consulting employers' representatives and employees' representatives, including the unions, of determining what rate should be established.

It is a job that, I think, may take a year and a half or two years. As regards Mr. Crête's request for information, it was a good idea to request the report as he did. A departmental official told him on January 18 that the report no longer existed. That person was obviously going on the fact that the Chief Actuary no longer needed to prepare the report given the study that we are in the process of conducting, and the decision that the government would establish the rates for this year and next year.

When the letter reached the deputy minister's office, she realized that a mistake had been made, that in fact, the Chief Actuary had presented voluntarily and that the report was even on the website, and I am sure that Mr. Paul Crête has access to the Web in his office. I have been told that a copy of the report was sent to him. It is not as complete as the ordinary reports, but it does provide several details and information that a member of Parliament would like to have at this point in the context of Bill C-2, that has been adopted.

The minister replied to him, and the government is now looking at the best method for establishing the rates, through the two commissioners I mentioned. So now that we are familiar with the process and there is a report, if the aim of my colleague's motion is to call the Chief Actuary because he has not presented a report, it is not necessary, because the Chief Actuary has presented a report. So what exactly would he come here to tell us?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Â (1240)

[English]

The Chair: Madame Guay.

[Translation]

Ms. Monique Guay: I support my colleague for several reasons. First of all, it is a report that is issued every fall. Not issuing a report for two years would be creating a precedent. We absolutely need the information, Madam Chair, in order to work.

We know that there is a surplus in the Employment Insurance Fund. We are not presently in difficulty; we need to know where we are going. It would be in the government's best interest to be transparent and allow Mr. Michel Bédard, who is currently the Chief Actuary of the Employment Insurance Plan, to appear before the committee.

Secondly, Madam Chair, it is entirely possible to invite Mr. Bédard to the committee. All we need to do is set aside a meeting, and invite him to appear before us to table his report and explain it in detail. That does not pose a problem at all, I don't think, for the opposition, because it is a priority. This is the Human Resources Development Committee; we're not just any committee, and it would be important to do this. We have the time. Moreover, a little later on we will be discussing the committee's future business.

So I think it would be possible to set aside a meeting to hear from Mr. Bédard, to allow the government to be clear and precise, to show its hand and to be conspicuously transparent by allowing us to have the report and assess it here in committee.

[English]

The Chair : Thank you, Madame Guay.

Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: Thank you.

Very briefly, I support the motion. In fact, I don't know why we wouldn't have the chief actuary come before the committee. If the report is available and Monsieur Crête or any one of us can get hold of it, that's fine, but having that person here at the committee and having a discussion and questioning I think is something quite different.

This committee has actually done a good job of trying to stay on top of the whole issue of EI and to monitor what's going on. I think that's what we should do, it's part of our mandate. I know we have a very busy agenda, and I'm sure that's a concern, but I was thinking that in some ways, in a very broad sense, the whole EI program, how it's developed, and how it's applied to people is very much a question of equity. It's dealing with people's livelihoods and workers who are not getting covered. So I think to have the actuary here for explanations and discussions.... Why would we not use that opportunity if we've got the ability to do it? So I would support the motion.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Davies.

Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I would speak in favour of the motion as well. A lot of the points I was going to make have been made by my colleagues, but I would just like to add that this committee has been working, I think, in a very cooperative spirit, and it would be just reasonable to have the chief actuary come before us, so that we can have a free exchange of information and an opportunity to pose some questions to him.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Marcil.

Mr. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois--Salaberry, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, I find the motion as such somewhat premature in that Mr. Crête says that there is no report, whereas it would seem that there is one.

What I would propose instead would be to deal with the motion and request the report, which is supposed to be published. So, beforehand, I would like us to receive the report here in committee, and after that we can examine the possibility of inviting witnesses to comment on it.

Â (1245)

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Bellemare, very briefly.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: A report has been presented. Those who are technollogically aware know that the government now posts reports on its website. Contrary to what Mr. Crête is saying, I have the report in English and French. It is a report prepared by the Chief Actuary and he addresses the

[English]

“current status of the EI account”. He goes into great detail about the employment premium rates from 1993 to 2001. He talks about the cost benefits, the cost of administration, the whole works, from 1993 to 2001. As he usually does, he talks about revenues, the billions of dollars people keep talking about, the surplus and the deficit. Then he goes into the general outlook for premium rates, and there's a whole page of information on that score alone. Finally, he talks about the accounts forecasts, and they're all put there for 2001 and 2002. I won't repeat the things that are there, but it's a full page of accounting details on forecasting.

So, Madam Chair, I would ask that you call the question on my recommendation.

The Chair: I have Ms. Skelton, and then, Mr. Crête, as mover of the motion, I'll give you the last word.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: I would just like to say that I would like to see Mr. Bédard come. If he has issued his statements and everything, I think it would be proper procedure for us to question him on the report he has given to us.

The Chair: Mr. Crête, the final word.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I would just like to correct some of the information that Mr. Bellemare has provided.

First of all, in his first comment, he stated that Bill C-2 led us to entrusting the government of Canada with the responsibility for setting the rates for the year 2002-03. I am fully aware of that. That is why we voted against the bill. It was part of the rip-off that continues today.

I agree that the government should determine the premium rate for the year 2002-03, but at the same time, Human Resources Development Canada must continue to monitor the plan, because after 2003, unless they are trying to pull another fast one on us, the plan will return to the employment insurance fund. If we do not properly monitor what occurs in 2002 and 2003, it will be a smokescreen. That is how they will be able to hide what they are doing with the employment insurance surplus. So the department has to continue to monitor the rate.

I would like to tell Mr. Marcil that I am very happy to see that his position is different from that of Mr. Bellemare. If the report was in fact produced... I would be very surprised if there were a report produced by the Chief Actuary that had been prepared prior to today's date. If we followed your proposal, someone would be given a mandate to write one very quickly, because the Chief Actuary never wrote a report. The report tabled here comes from the department, but has nothing to do with the report that is planned each year, the content of which is much more significant and relevant than this four-page rag that we have been given and which is in fact the official version of what the government wants us to swallow.

This year, we are going to be facing an economic slowdown, with a $4 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund. This year, money should be needed to help the unemployed. Instead, the government is going to amass a $4 billion surplus, and use it to bring down the debt or to reimburse other expenditures. That is what the government is trying to hide.

I am prepared to strike from my motion everything that comes after the word appear, in other words “... before it to discuss the report that for the past few years he has made a practice of tabling...”. If ever there is consensus, I am prepared to do that as long as we agree to call Mr. Michel Bédard, the Chief Actuary of the Employment Insurance Plan, to appear before the committee. When he is here, we will not debate whether or not there is a report. We will discuss the employment insurance premium rate. Is it relevant or is it not?

That is a proposal that I am prepared to examine with all of you if Mr. Bellemare or the other members on the government's side are prepared to consider it. Of course, I am leaving my motion on the table until we can see if there is another compromise that we can reach, because in my opinion, it is clear... You have seen the position of all of the opposition parties here. It is very clear that we are going back to the fundamental question concerning what is being done with the money in the employment insurance account. The Chief Actuary is the person in the best position to tell us what premium rate should be set to ensure that we have a balanced plan. At present, as parliamentarians, we do not have that information.

Â (1250)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Crête, are you amending the motion?

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Madam Chair, I would like to know what members have to say about my suggestion to try and find an acceptable compromise, in other words, we would amend the motion to say that the committee invite Mr. Michel Bédard, Chief Actuary of the Employment Insurance Plan to appear before it. Is there any interest in that option among government members?

A voice: There is not.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Madam Chair, Bill C-2 made changes. We are in a transition period and a report by the actuary is not necessary, but one was nevertheless provided on a voluntary basis. The Government of Canada is currently conducting studies to determine, in accordance with projected revenues and expenditures, how it will establish employment insurance rates. The office of the actuary, with the commissioners, is currently consulting employers and employees to determine what the best method would be.

Madam Chair, I want us to vote on the motion as it stands, and I want us to vote against it.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Tonks, and then Mr. Crête.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Madam Chairman, thank you very much.

I congratulate Mr. Crête for consistently desiring to focus on the essential, larger, and more strategic issue, and the issue from the government's perspective, which involves many of the policy changes that are implied in Mr. Crête's continuously raising this issue. However, when we passed the bill, Mr. Crête, as he has pointed out, voted against it because the government's position was that it was not yet ready to deal with the larger policy issue, it wanted to undertake a very substantive review. And so I think Mr. Crête, by not voting in favour of that, has made it clear that he wants to deal with the issue now. The government's position has to be consistent with the arguments that were brought forward at the time we were dealing with the bill. We want to have a major review of the way a surplus is accumulating and the disposition of a surplus, once we have come to our conclusions as to whether it's a bookkeeping entry or whether it actually is a massive surplus. The issue to which Mr. Crête is referring is really a subset to the issue, and that is, pursuant to what we agreed on, the Orders in Council are setting the rates. That is the subject of this report, and the actuary has given the reasons the rates have been set as recommended.

So, Madam Chair, both aspects of Mr. Crête's concerns have been covered from the government's perspective, the short-term matter, carried out as was agreed on in the bill, which Mr. Crête voted against, and the longer-term one of major policy, which Mr. Crête continually wants to bring onto the table. I congratulated him for that sort of tactical approach, but the government has to stay, Madam Chair, with its strategy in dealing with this major issue. That's not to obfuscate, but to deal with it to the extent that it is necessary. And I've asked Mr. Crête to consider this a major policy issue the government is attempting to deal with it as the committee does look at ongoing issues with respect to transitional workers, seasonal workers, and so on, all those issues that were raised at the time we dealt with the bill.

So I'd ask him just to reconsider in view of why the government is staying with its strategy.

Â (1255)

The Chair: Mr. Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Bill C-2 was adopted. Even though it has become law, we still have to ensure that the employment insurance fund is adequately monitored. If we do not do it, two years will be shrouded in darkness. We won't know any... In two years, I am sure that the government members will tell me that we can no longer refer to what happened before, because for two years, the department was responsible.

So before you put the question, I would simply like to know if the Liberal majority is prepared to consider my suggestion to amend the motion to say that the committee invite Mr. Michel Bédard, Chief Actuary of the Employment Insurance Plan, to appear before it. Are people prepared to consider this proposal so that we can reach a compromise? If not, the debate is over, unless people have additional arguments to make.

[English]

The Chair: I don't see anyone prepared to do that, but....

Monsieur Marcil, very briefly.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Madam Chair, I do not want to debate employment insurance for the time being. The act was initially adopted by the previous government and subsequently amended. I want to avoid having additional meetings where we question people and then say that the government is stealing, as Mr. Crête has often done publicly in the House. There's stealing, stealing—

I believe I have the floor. That has always been your line.

At present, Madam Chair, the employment insurance fund—

Mr. Paul Crête: Point of order, Madam Chair. I have never said in the House that the government is stealing; the Speaker would have surely prevented me from doing so. So I want Mr. Marcil to withdraw his comments.

Mr. Serge Marcil: I withdraw my comments.

Mr. Paul Crête: I have never said that in the House.

[English]

The Chair: This is sounding more like a debate.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: I withdraw my comments. I apologize.

What I mean, Madam Chair, is that I want to avoid going back to a debate like that when we know that it is an existing program. There is no employment insurance fund. Everyone knows that there has only been a surplus in the fund for seven years, whereas it ran a deficit for dozens of years. Premiums have gone down year after year.

When I hear people say that all the government is doing is accumulating... We know that the surplus goes into the consolidated revenue fund just like the 1% tax on poverty and on wages that is imposed on companies at the Quebec government level. That goes into the province's consolidated revenue fund. There is no designated fund for that. People then use the money to establish programs.

In that sense, Madam Chair—

[English]

The Chair: Okay, I think we're beyond the scope of--

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: I want us to deal with the motion right away, and to request that the report be tabled here first. After, we can see if we have to invite new witnesses to discuss it.

[English]

The Chair: We've gone beyond the scope of the original motion, which concerned whether we wanted to hear Monsieur Bédard or not. I'm going to allow two more, and then we're going to call the question.

No more? Mr. Johnson, was there anything else?

A recorded vote has been required.

(Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 4)

The Chair: I will now suspend and we'll go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]