Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The unions have always taken the stand that they believe in the policy of equal pay for work of equal value. When this government last year passed the Human Rights Act, we, as a government, decided in our Human Rights Act that we would have equal pay for the same or similar work. This legislature made that decision. We did that when we put it in the Human Rights Act. So the issue that the union has is really with the provisions in the Human Rights Act that we passed last year, not with this bill.

Even where there is a system of equal pay for work of equal value, it only applies for each employer as an entity. It doesn't apply across the board. So if they went to an equal pay for work of equal value regime, then the employer in Fort Simpson would have to pay his employees on a scheme that ensured that every employee that worked for him was paid relative to the other employees. Another employer down the road in Fort Providence would have to do the same thing for the employees that work for him, but it could be quite different than the one in Simpson. So it's not guaranteeing that everybody has exactly the same pay for the same work.

Who else has a regime which allows for equal pay for work of equal value? The only other ones are the larger provinces and the federal government. Ontario, Quebec and the federal government have it. But even where they have it, they have run into some difficulties in compliance because the scheme is so complicated it's beyond the ability of most employers to be able to do the job evaluations, assessments, ratings and so on and keep up with it. So the delinquency rate is high in the other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Yes, I do remember that debate during the Human Rights Act. The concern and grievance that the Union of Northern Workers has on behalf of the labour movement, is that in the Human Rights Act the way we did that equal pay for work of equal value provision -- we might have said something similar such as equal value for work of similar value or something, I can't remember -- the union is saying it's not broad enough. I was wondering whether the government has engaged in the research to figure out whether it was doable or not, and I suppose the government has concluded that we couldn't provide that kind of infrastructure and support system needed to implement that sort of thing. While I appreciate that, I think there are concerns that while this initiative is positive, that it is regrettable that we cannot find a way to make it apply to at least some of the major employers in the Territories, although not maybe the mom and pop shops or small businesses, or in the smallest towns where it would be quite a burden on the business. But I'm wondering if the Minster could advise us as to whether or not a consideration was given to see if this could apply to some of the major corporations. We know that we do have a number of big corporations here. I'd like to be assured that the government addressed its mind to it, and that it reviewed its information and then came to the conclusion on the basis of the information that they had. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think again the issue that Ms. Lee is referring to is one that's a question we had to look at when we were considering the Human Rights Act. At that time, we did look at the issue of equal pay for work of equal value, as compared to equal pay for similar or same work. A decision was made that it wasn't doable in the Northwest Territories for our small employers. We have some large employers who might be able to handle a very complex equal pay for work of equal value scheme but, looking at other jurisdictions, the compliance rate is so low that we decided it wasn't workable, and this Legislative Assembly approved the Human Rights Act accordingly. This legislation doesn't deal with that issue. That's a different issue.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

I thank you for reminding me that these are two pieces of different legislation, but the Minister introduced this legislation by bringing up the Human Rights Act and so on, so I think that's fair game for discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I have another question on section 66. I don't know if the lay people that might be listening to this discussion understand what that clause means and why is it that we as a legislature are being encouraged or forced or we're making a decision to pass this law to comply with that. Can the Minister advise as to why compliance with that section 66 is so important?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, section 66 is a section in the Canadian Human Rights Act that makes specific provisions for the exclusion of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut should they develop the same legislation within their own jurisdiction. The Yukon had their own Yukon Human Rights Act a number of years ago, and they have applied for and received an exemption from the Canadian Human Rights Act through section 66. We're going through that process, now that we have our own Human Rights Act. Some day Nunavut might. So that section is very explicit, very clear, very limited to the territories opting out of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't get a clear answer there. Why is that we got exempted in the first place? I do believe there is an expiry date on this, by which time we have to get our legislation in line if we want to still stay on that exemption list. So could the Minister indicate why the territories of Yukon, Nunavut and NWT got an exemption in the first place, and why is there an expiry date on this exemption that is forcing us to do this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, we do not have an exemption right now, we don't have it yet. This legislation is to get that exemption. We have our own Human Rights Act. There is a provision in the Canadian Human Rights Act to allow us to do what we're doing here, which is basically to transfer the rights our government employees have under the Canadian Human Rights Act to our own legislation. So we can do this and we apply for an exemption that allows or enables our employees to be protected under the NWT Human Rights Act. So as soon as this legislation is passed, then we will apply for the exemption. There's no time limit on it. I don't think there's any time limit. But we would expect that we have our own human rights legislation we want to apply to our people, so we would make the application right away. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Before I go to the Members for a second time, I'd like to just remind Members that we are dealing with the Public Service Act, as the public service is defined right now, and I would like to encourage Members to stick to the contents of the bill before us. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the way the act reads it says its purpose is to ensure that male and female persons in the public service continue to be protected against systematic wage discrimination through the recommendation and exercise of the right to equal pay for work of equal value, and that whereas the provision of the right to equal pay for work of equal value in the public service, and further sets out the leadership role of the Government of the Northwest Territories on employment equity issues among employees of the Northwest Territories. My question is in regard to the last statement where it says among employees of the Northwest Territories. Through a contractual arrangement with communities, public funds are being expended to provide a public service, and we are paying a person less to provide a public service. For me, that is totally the opposite of what this statement says. I feel that the government has a contractual arrangement with communities to provide services such as mental health services, economic development officers' positions in communities, income support positions, they also have positions in municipal services that we have under contract. So through these contractual arrangements with this government, those contracts violate not only this legislation, but the human rights legislation that we passed. Right now the contractual arrangement that this government has gotten themselves into undermines the fair equity practice of ensuring that we have no discrimination in wages. But this government knows that positions in the communities, such as a mental health officer for instance, have been paid somewhere in the range of $50,000 for the last five years. They haven't seen an increase. That's the total amount to run that position. Yet when a similar position is taken on by a government employee, the government pays that position in the range of $75,000 to $80,000. Government employees have seen increases based on the fact that they're part of a union.

Right now the communities are giving back contractual agreements and not signing them on the basis that it's inequitable. So I'd just like to ask the Minister, in light of the Human Rights Act and this legislation, does that mean that the contractual arrangements we have with communities to provide public services are going to be considered discriminatory based on the question of providing public services and also ensuring that equal pay for work of equal value is taken into account when we have these contractual agreements to provide public services?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no, there wouldn't be discrimination in this case. The provisions of equal pay for work of equal value only apply to government employees. We can't impose our arrangements with our employees onto other employers. We can provide a leadership role -- and that's what this clause basically says -- but we have no authority to impose it on other employers.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's my point. My point is that we have a contractual agreement to provide a public service. If those contracts were not in place, we as a government would have been providing that service and those people would have been protected under health boards or protected under the Public Service Act as it stands today. But because a contractual arrangement is with a party, regardless of whether it's a hamlet council, a community council or whatever, it's still a contract. Does that mean that this government can undermine our legislation that we passed in this House, the Human Rights Act, and now bring in this act knowing that it discriminates between persons regardless of how the contract reads? Because if you're paying somebody to provide a service for $50,000 knowing that a person doing similar work will cost you $80,000, that's discrimination on the basis of equal pay for work of equal value. So I know you've been trying to say if we do this, we're going have to do it to the whole Northwest Territories. I'm asking that we consider those people that provide a public service under a contract arrangement with this government and be considered as such under legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, if the employer in these kinds of situations who is providing a government service through a contract wants to enter into that kind of arrangement, then, yes, we could. But we have a lot of situations in the past, and we will in the future, where contractors take on responsibilities that the government has been providing; for example, forest firefighting services. We can't, though this, force them to pay their employees at the same rate with the same benefits and so on as we would in government. They're a separate employer. We, of course, would want to advise them that if they do that, they may be doing their employees out of some benefits they would have -- and I think a lot of employees recognize that they lose their pension, they lose other things -- but we can't force an employer to do it.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Well I believe that when the government that is spending public funds to provide public services, knowing that they are receiving the service at a lower cost than if you were running it yourself, that is where the inequity is. You as a government know what the cost of running that program is. When you pay income support workers in communities $32,000 a year knowing the cost of that similar position in a larger centre is $55,000 there is definitely an inequity there. It is public funds being expended to provide a public service. For me, that is where the question of fairness is. It is government contracts that we as a government control. We as a government tell communities, well, we will download this program to you, but this is how much we are going to give you to run the program, all the while knowing that cost is less than what we would pay if we were running the program ourselves. So for me that is the grey area that has to be dealt with here.

I think as a government we have a responsibility to ensure that we do not find ourselves in the courts because we are breaking our own rules that we are trying to impose on other people. For me, this is exactly what this is going to do. I think that all those contractual arrangements we have that pay someone to provide a service at less cost than if we provide it as a government is breaking our own rules.

So we have talked about the question of parity and also the legislation clearly identified the right to equal pay for work of equal value. It is public contracts that we are talking about here. Contracts that this government has gotten themselves into knowing those public services are being provided with less value or less dignity to people in small communities knowing that if the government was doing it it would cost a lot more. Yet people providing the same service who may be part of the health board or part of the education board or part of the government itself are paid a heck of a lot more than those people that provide a public service by way of a contract.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. We are still dealing probably outside of this bill. I will ask Minister Handley if he would like to make a short comment.