Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in, please.

Mr. Handley, please introduce your witnesses, for the record.

Mr. Chairman, from my left is Mark Aitken, director of the legislation division, Department of Justice; Lew Voytilla, secretary to Financial Management Board; and, Shaleen Woodward, manager of equal pay with FMBS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. I will open the floor to general comments. Mr. Krutko.

General Comments

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of concerns with regard to this bill. We just passed an NWT Human Rights Act which talks about ensuring that we have equal pay for equal work and also to avoid discrimination based on race. My concern is more in line with the whole idea that we have a public service that provides services to the NWT, but we also have people within the public service who are not part of the union system or who are not totally under the department's authority. We have people there that carry out responsibilities of this government being discriminated against today despite the equal pay aspect of our human rights legislation.

They are being paid less for providing a public service in small communities than they are in large municipalities or larger centres. I feel that that is discrimination. If we think that we are going to pass an act strictly to deal with one class of employees and not deal with all our employees, for me, that's discrimination. I feel that the government is trying to find a way to get away from the Canadian Human Rights Act by ignoring the whole reason that we are here, dealing with pay equity. Now we are dealing with another inequity, the rights of people who provide public service in our small communities. Currently, these people provide a public service but are being paid less than people in the public service that provide a similar service. For me, that's totally uncalled for. What was the intent of passing human rights legislation in this legislature if the government comes back with this legislation discriminating against employees who provide public services in small communities? I cannot see the justification of that. We have an opportunity here to amend this legislation to allow for a definition of who an employee of the public service is. We need to allow for those employees who provide our income support services in our communities, our mental health services, our economic development officers.

These are all public services provided to the residents of the Northwest Territories. Yet, Mr. Chairman, what really gets me is that the seriousness of this issue doesn't even seem to faze this government. We are providing a government service in a lot of our communities through a government policy or procedure called offloading. We are offloading our responsibilities and offloading the money that is going to be needed to carry out these programs. We are paying people less to provide the same service as if they were government employees or they were in a larger centre.

For me, that's what human rights is all about, to ensure equity is there. You provide a service, you should be paid for that service. I feel that the government is offloading these responsibilities to communities by providing them with the resources to deliver programs and services at a lower cost than government has to pay in other communities and other regions.

As a result, people who live in small communities are receiving a lower level of service than most people in the larger centres. There, again, is an inequity on programs and services being delivered.

What we have is people in our communities who are classified as less valuable than people who are providing the same service in a different location. When you pay someone a lesser amount than someone who has the same qualifications, same classifications and provides the same program under this government's guidelines to deliver that program, for me it is a question of equity. Inequity is what put us here in the first place. The challenges that were put forth in a court case on pay equity under the Canadian Human Rights Act is why we are here today talking about this. It took a court case for us to deal with it. Now we are bringing this thing before this House and not resolving that problem. We are simply saying we will take care of this class of people, but we are not going to take care of that class of people. For me, this unjustly undermines the whole principle of human rights legislation.

In order to resolve this problem, I would like to ask the Minister if he is prepared to consider amendments to the definition of employees in the public service under schedule A of the Public Service Act, so that we can deal with this unfairness and inequity, so that it will include all those people that provide a public service for this government regardless of whether they are employed through a separate contract or employed indirectly for that purpose. For me that is where we can resolve this inequity.

We have the problems right now with the Minister of Health and Social Services who is trying to bring our alcohol and drug workers and mental health workers in line with other professions within the healthcare system. What does it take for us to realize we have people on the front lines, such as our mental health workers or alcohol drug workers or even our income support workers, who are providing a public service and being paid less than the government employees in social services or education or wherever?

So I would like to ask the Minister, will you consider looking at the definition and see if there is a possibility of bringing in some sort of an amendment to allow for employees in our communities providing services through those contractual arrangements to know that the resources to cover their salaries and their benefits will be properly allocated to our communities so they can be paid fairly? They are providing a public service which is no less valuable than in other communities. So for me it is a question of human rights that we have agreed to through our human rights legislation, but also ensuring that this government is fair to all people that provide a public service in this government.

I would like to ask the Minister if he will consider the possibility of defining the language that is presently in this legislation to allow for those people who provide services on behalf of this government, whether they are employed through a separate contract or employed indirectly.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say first of all that this piece of legislation applies to all government employees regardless of where they may work. In terms of which size of community or anywhere in the Territories, it applies to all government employees. The issue that Mr. Krutko is referring to is really an issue of wage parity and I am not sure, in fact I would say that this is not the right piece of legislation to be able to achieve what he wants. If what you want is to address an issue of wage parity -- and by wage parity we mean having comparable wages with municipal governments, with boards, with other agencies as we do with government employees -- then that is a very complex matter to deal with because we are beginning to get into the employer/employee relationships that other agencies have, whether it is a board or a municipal government or whatever it may be. It is one that I think we could undertake if there is a will to do it, but I would say that we should not go there unless we have done a thorough assessment of what the issues are, what the extent of the impact would be and what the best means of addressing it is. It may mean that labour standards would have to change, that municipal legislation might have to change. Or it may mean that we would have to fund other governments or other agencies differently than we do right now.

So, Mr. Chairman, I am not saying we should not do this, I am just saying that if we are going to do it then it is complex. It may be the amount of money we provide to other agencies and governments. It may be their own legislation. It may be the relationships and arrangements that they have with their employees. But it is much more complex than this piece of legislation. What legislation would we have to put in place in order to do that? I am not sure. It might be municipal legislation. It might be some sort of labour standards act. But it certainly would be beyond just doing a simple amendment to this piece of legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. The chair will recognize Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. I did not hear a specific question there. Does the Minister want to respond?

Yes, Mr. Chairman, let me say again that I understand the issue that Mr. Lafferty is raising along with Mr. Krutko. It is a good question, but it goes far beyond the purpose of this legislation. Let me say again that the government employees, the Government of the Northwest Territories employees got the right for equal pay for work of equal value through the Canadian Human Rights Act. They have that right. We then passed our own Human Rights Act. The committee took it out to consultation and in that Human Rights Act we agreed to a provision that was different. We agreed to a provision that basically said people would get equal pay for the same or similar work with the same employer.

The purpose of this legislation we are looking at today is simply to do a couple of things. First of all, to put into our Public Service Act the right our employees already have, which is the right to equal pay for work of equal value and, second, to enable us to have an exemption from the Canadian Human Rights Act. Section 66 provides for that, so that our Human Rights Act applies to everybody in the Northwest Territories. That is bringing home the responsibility and the rights of our people, including government employees, to our legislation.

Further on Mr. Lafferty's comments, he mentioned the Dogrib Community Services Board. The employees who work for those boards, the teachers, the health workers and so on, are government employees, and there may be a few exceptions, but I think they are all pretty much government employees. They are covered by this legislation because they are considered to be public servants.

If we want to take on the whole issue of wage parity across the Northwest Territories, it is very complex. Because when we do that we would possibly have to start imposing compensation regimes on other employers, saying here is what you have to pay. Job evaluation systems, here is how you evaluate your jobs, the same as the government does. Hiring qualifications and practices. Labour relations systems. It is not easy just to declare through an amendment that we are going to have our pay system apply to everybody else. That is what I am saying.

The purpose of this legislation is very simple. The task that Mr. Lafferty and Mr. Krutko are referring to is a big task. I am not saying it is wrong, but it is a big task and it goes far beyond the purpose of this legislation. We could not include that with just a few amendments. It would change the purpose completely. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. The chair recognizes Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, all employees, all workers in the Northwest Territories have their rights protected. Everybody is protected under the Northwest Territories Human Rights Act with the exception right now of a couple of groups. One group is the Government of the Northwest Territories employees. They still fall under the Canadian Human Rights Act. So what we want to do is change that so they are covered by the Northwest Territories Human Rights Act so they are the same. They will be covered the same way all other workers are. I did not at all suggest that people do not have rights. We all have rights and it is under the Northwest Territories Human Rights Act. The only groups that still fit under the Canadian Human Rights Act and, therefore, they have pay equity as well, rights to equal pay for work of equal value, would be federal government employees. If this legislation goes through, it would be federal government employees, employees of federally regulated corporations and agencies and band council employees. Band council employees are still considered to be under the Canadian Human Rights Act. So they, in effect, already have equal pay for work of equal value. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. The chair will recognize Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I answer the question, I just want to point out a couple of things. What this is doing is, in a sense, protecting government employees in the sense that they have a right already through the Human Rights Act. So it's protecting them on that front. There is no differentiation between frontline workers and headquarter workers. If they are government employees, they are all protected.

The band employees, as I mentioned, are already protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act and we can't impose our legislation on them. The health and social service board employees are covered now, with the exception of Hay River, but the ones in Lutselk'e are covered by this. They are considered to be public servants now. So it does have a much wider application than what some Members may think it has. It covers anyone who is defined as being a public servant under the provisions of this act and that includes a lot of people in small communities, as well as in larger communities.

Will we get an exemption to section 66, yes. Last week I spoke to Minister Cauchon and he has assured us that the Department of Justice is happy with the legislation and they are prepared to issue us a section 66 exemption. No questions on that one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The Minister has acknowledged the fact that wage parity is a separate issue and it goes a little bit beyond what this bill can accomplish, but I will ask the Minister for comments. Mr. Handley.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. You're right, a lot of the issues Mr. Nitah is raising are issues around wage parity. We cannot guarantee that, if this is passed, it would somehow apply to all employers who take on responsibilities from the government. It may be that some employers will want to take on services that are currently provided by the government, but want to do it with their own employment regime. They don't want to pay their employees with the same system as the government and that's their choice. We can't, through this kind of legislation, force them to keep all their employees on the same wage system as we have here. So there is no 100 percent guarantee if an agency takes over a service provided by a government that they would have to do this. That's something that would have to be negotiated with them. They can choose to do that if they want to, or if they want to have their own system, then that's a choice that they have the right to make.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say, as well, for further clarification, when I talked to Mr. Cauchon, he agrees to our legislation not just as it is here, but with the amendments that we have before us today. We had to talk about those, as well.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not disagreeing with the issue of wage parity at all. It's just that it is a separate issue. If our government wants to undertake that, then that's a big issue to take because we're again getting into discussing things that have traditionally been left to each employer. We should also point out that it would be very difficult to have legislation in the Northwest Territories that would guarantee that an employee driving a truck for Joe's Water Service would get the same wage as someone driving a truck for BHP. Employers can set their own levels of pay, depending on their own situations, their own compensation packages. I think that would be going quite far to say that we have to have equal pay right across the board for everybody in every situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. The chair will recognize Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of questions for the Minister. Mr. Chairman, I think the report by the Accountability and Oversight committee makes mention of the fact that the Union of Northern Workers does not support this bill, because equal pay for work of equal value should be included in the Human Rights Act and not just in this bill. That would mean that only the employees of the GNWT will be able to get protection under this bill. I would like to know if the Minister, the department and the government have done research into this, and what was the basis on which the government decided that it will not go that far. I would also be interested in knowing what the current state of the law is in that area. Are there, for example, other jurisdictions in Canada that have that sort of legislative provision? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.