OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says equal pay for work of equal value is a basic human right that should never be put up for grabs at the collective bargaining table.
To that end, he introduced Wednesday a private member’s bill aimed at reversing a controversial measure in the 2009 federal budget.
The budget essentially reclassified pay equity as a labour issue to be negotiated in collective agreements, stripping the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its authority to adjudicate pay equity complaints.
Ignatieff’s proposal – his first private member’s bill since becoming an MP in 2006 – would return pay equity to the human rights realm.
It would also create a federal pay-equity commission charged with implementing an equal-pay regime in the federal public service, federally regulated companies and Crown corporations by 2012.
Ignatieff acknowledged his bill would result in some additional, unspecified costs for the government but said the principle is “definitely worth it.”
Ignatieff said pay equity is really about gender equality, noting that women, on average, still earn only 72 cents for every dollar earned by men for the same work.
He said he chose the issue for his first bill because it’s emblematic of the Liberal party’s core belief in equal opportunity for all.
Treasury Board President Vic Toews pointed out that Ignatieff’s Liberals supported the budget, including the pay equity measures, and questioned why they’re suddenly reversing themselves on the issue.
He insisted the Conservative government supports pay equity and maintained the changes were designed to replace the complaints-driven human rights process, which was adversarial, costly and time-consuming, with a more collaborative regime through the collective bargaining process.
