Michael Ignatieff Wants to Make Pay Equity for Women a Human Right

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has made pay equity for women, not just a priority; but wants to make it a human rights issue. This is the Michael Ignatieff I know and love.

He also reminds us again that a child care plan is a must. As a nation we must continue to move forward, and Mr. Ignatieff will do just that.

Liberals call for recognition of pay equity as a human right
December 9, 2009

OTTAWA – Equal pay for work of equal value is a basic human right that should never be subject to negotiation, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said today as debate begins on his private member’s bill.

“The Harper Conservatives very clearly used their 2009 budget to impose their ideological opposition to pay equity for Canadian women,” said Mr. Ignatieff.

“They took a fundamental right that existed under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and turned it into something up for grabs at the bargaining table. This bill will immediately reverse the changes they made and treat pay equity as the human right that it is.”

Mr. Ignatieff made his remarks as the House of Commons began debating Bill C-471, his bill to repeal measures in the Conservative budget that effectively reclassified pay equity as a labour issue for members of the federal public service, the federally regulated private sector and Crown Corporations. The Conservative measures removed the authority of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to adjudicate pay equity complaints.

“The government has left pay equity to be negotiated during collective bargaining, ignoring that it is first and foremost an issue of fundamental human rights and gender equality,” he stated.

The bill calls on the government to implement the recommendations of the 2004 Federal Pay Equity Task Force – with strict timelines to bring about change – and proposes a new Federal Pay Equity Commission to address complaints.

“Everyone agreed the pay equity regime needed overhaul, which is why the Liberal Government in 2001 appointed this task force to undertake broad consultations and to make informed recommendations on how best to do that,” said Mr. Ignatieff.

“But instead of looking to these recommendations, this government chose to make changes that fit their narrow view of women, a view that amounts to an attack on equality and womens’ economic security,” Mr. Ignatieff said.

Mr. Ignatieff was joined at the press conference by members of the Liberal Women’s Caucus, including Chair Maria Minna and LaSalle-Émard MP Lise Zarac. Also joining him to lend their public support for the bill were representatives from the Canadian Federation of University Women and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

“The Liberal Women’s Caucus is supportive of this bill every step of the way, and pleased that it addresses the recommendation in our Pink Book to reverse the Conservative attacks,” said Ms. Minna.

Ms. Zarac said everyone agreed the existing federal pay equity system needed reform “but what the Conservatives did was unforgiveable. Pay equity cuts to the very core of women’s equality, and I would hope all MPs support this legislation.”

Liberal Status of Women Critic Anita Neville pointed out how under the Harper government, the gender gap in Canada has grown.

“We are now shamefully ranked 25th in the world in terms of female participation in economic and political life,” she said. “This is a result of the systematic dismantling of women’s rights and equality by a Conservative government that continues to view women as ‘left-wing fringe groups.’

“We need action now to reverse this trend and ensure women in the public service are always paid the same as their male colleagues for work of the same value. I encourage all MPs to support this bill – and the government to honour it,” she said.

Facts about Women in Canada
Pay Equity Backgrounder:

What the Conservatives did:

• The 2009 Budget Implementation Act included a stand-alone section entitled the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act (PSECA).
• This free-standing legislation altered the federal pay equity regime so that it no longer exists under the rubric of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and removes the Canadian Human Rights Commission as the forum for adjudication of complaints.
• Complaints must now be filed with the Public Service Labour Relations Board.
• This board has a narrower mandate focused generally on adjudication of collective bargaining disputes and grievances. It does not have the expertise nor a sufficiently broad scope to examine pay equity complaints from a human rights perspective.
• In other words, it leaves the fundamental right to pay equity in the hands of employers and employees at the regular collective bargaining table, leaving it subject to negotiation.
• PSECA also forbids unions from representing their members in pay equity disputes and even threatens fines of up to $50,000 for doing so.

What Liberals will do:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s Private Member’s Bill, C-471, based on the key 2004 recommendations of the Federal Pay Equity Task Force entitled Pay Equity: A New Approach to a Fundament Right, will:
• Repeal the measures in the Conservative budget that effectively classified pay equity as a labour issue to be negotiated during the regular collective bargaining process, ignoring that it is primarily an issue of fundamental human rights and gender equality;
• Create a Federal Pay Equity Commission charged with overseeing a proactive pay equity system within the federal public service, the federally regulated private sector and Crown Corporations by a firm deadline in 2012 – one that will return the pay equity regime to the human rights realm;
• Characterize new stand-alone, proactive pay equity legislation as human rights legislation;
• Support this new legislation with adequate human and financial resources so that participants in the pay equity process have access to advice, information and training;
• Carefully consider this new legislative scheme in relation to other policies and practices aimed at the elimination of discrimination based on gender.

Do Tories Really Hate Children or do They Just Not Care?

The title of an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail got a bit of attention 'Why do Tories Hate Children', but maybe that's what we need to shake people out of their stupor. Those of us who were living in Ontario during Mike Harris's regime, remember just how horrible it was. And the new Cons leader Hudak, is a Mike Harris clone, so I suspect he will be just as bad if not worse, if we ever gave him the keys to the kingdom.

And Stephen Harper is certainly no different, though they all speak to the neo-conservative movement. Margaret Thatcher said 'There is no such thing as society', and neo-cons are driven by dollars, not humanity. Their message: Don't blink!

They also firmly believe in a social Darwinism, where universality is the enemy. In 1994 at an awards dinner for the National Citizens Coalition, Stephen Harper prided their work on this issue: "Universality has been greatly reduced; it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy." He took pride in that.

I was so glad that Michael Ignatieff came out and said that he was putting a national child care plan back on the table. Despite the recession we have to continue to move forward. Dalton McGinty is doing the same.

The Reformers may hate public education but at least we have two leaders who still believe in the importance of early childhood education for all Canadians. Good work guys.

Why do Tories hate children?
Conservatives of every stripe would deny all Canadian kids, including their own, the kind of early schooling that would set them on the path to success
Gerald Caplan
Special to The Globe and Mail
November 04, 2009

If it weren't for Mike Harris and his followers, Ontario would have begun receiving the blessings of early childhood education 15 years ago. I know. I was in the middle of the debacle.

As it tumbled towards inexorable defeat, Bob Rae's government created a Royal Commission on Learning. I was co-chair. We reported in early 1995, bare months before the doomed government was turfed out. One of our key recommendations was the introduction of early childhood education (ECE) for all Ontario children. The idea was swiftly embraced by the provincial Liberals, a significant development since they were clearly the government-in-waiting. I knew the key Liberal players and was confident they intended to implement our scheme.

Then there was Mean Mike Harris, the leader of the third place Progressive Conservatives at Queen's Park, a man whose bigotries and furies always trumped his knowledge. When asked about our ECE proposal, he replied that it was the stupidest idea he had ever heard. This was really something coming from a man who worked with the Tory caucus. Harris had a fine old time ridiculing the idea of 3-year-olds spending long days behind desks, demonstrating his complete ignorance of what ECE was really about. Soon after his surprise victory he slashed funds for existing JK and SK, not so subtly underlining his incomprehensible scorn for anything related to early childhood development.

But Harris was not alone. To our considerable surprise, ECE was considered a dangerous bogeyman by a large number of Canadian conservatives, not least those who yearned for the good old school days that never were. As one wit had noted, schools weren't as good as they used to be and never had been.

During our extensive public hearing, the paranoia about ECE hadn't been much in evidence. On the contrary. The research had demonstrated that the multiple benefits of ECE to all students, regardless of background, were so palpable that its introduction seemed a no-brainer.

The reality emerged in a series of phone-in shows I participated in soon after our report was released. I'm not easily shocked, but this time I was. ECE was seen by innumerable callers as some kind of plot to steal the minds of tiny children before they could think for themselves. Who were the plotters? What nefarious purpose did they have? To what end would helpless toddlers be brainwashed? There were no really good answers to these obvious questions. But in general, all ECE was seen as some kind of socialist/communist plot to forge Ontario's children into mindless little reds. (Obama's hearing the same nonsense)

Nothing, but nothing I could argue about the benefits of ECE and the lack of ulterior motives of any kind could sway this motley collection of paranoids. (I was not surprised to learn how many were also creationists.) It appeared they were getting ammunition for their wacky fears from organized conservative groups, some of them in the back-to-basics school movement. They made it easier for Mike Harris to deep-six ECE for many years to come.

A sidebar: One of the great unsolved mysteries of the Harris years was his later commissioning of Margaret McCain and Fraser Mustard to study early childhood development. They predictably recommended major investments in the early years of a child's life. Harris virtually ignored their report. No one, including McCain and Mustard, could ever explain Harris's actions.

A few years later Harris's federal kith and kin entered the picture. In his short tenure as prime minister, and after doing nothing about the issue as finance minister, Paul Martin began the task of developing a national child care system that would include early childhood development. But his early defeat left it to Stephen Harper to scuttle Martin's entire system and to introduce instead an allowance for parents of young children that is not remotely enough to get their kids into child care that doesn't exist.

I confess the entire tale baffles me. I want ECE not only for my family but for every child, including the children of Conservatives. Yet they would deny all Canadian children, including their own, the kind of early schooling that, research and experience confirms, would make them eager to go to school and learn, that would make them better learners, that would put all kids at a more equal advantage, that would keep them in school longer, that would make them more competent and help them to cope better, that would compensate for dysfunctional families (and heaven knows privileged families can be as dysfunctional as less privileged ones).
Why? What do these conservatives know that a generation of education researchers don't? I've been racking my brain over this one for almost 15 years now and still have no sensible answer.

So I can only say: Good for Dalton McGuinty.

Michael Ignatieff Makes Moral Commitment to the Family

"The test of serious moral commitment to the family is a willingness to spend public money. Effective child protection, universal access to health care, affordable child care, first-rate primary and secondary education - these are the building blocks of the protective arch that society must raise over its families. This institutional arch doesn't come cheap, but those exponents of family values who won't stump up for it are just engaging in cheap talk." (The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, Michael Ignatieff, Anansi, ISBN: 978-0-88784-762-2, pg. 111)

I was glad that Michael Ignatieff was brave and bold in announcing that the Liberals would re-visit a national child care program, when the economy allowed. I was so angry with Jack Layton when he voted to topple Paul Martin's government before it could be initiated. For all his bluster about wanting to help families, it just made him a hypocrite.

Instead the Reform-Conservatives squandered our 13 billion dollar surplus and though Harper promised thousands of daycare spaces, so far he has not provided a single one.

Those in the political movement known as the Religious Right, are probably spinning out of control, speaking in tongues and foaming at the mouth over this; but as Mr. Ignatieff states; 'family values' is just cheap talk if you're not willing to make a sound commitment to working families.

A national child care program does not mean a free child care program. Payment will be based on income, enabling many to remain in, or enter the work force; without the worry of how they can afford to pay for their children to be looked after in a safe and secure environment.

The trouble with the Reform-Conservatives is their ideology. They believe that a woman's place is in the home. That's fine if she (or he) chooses and can afford to. But unfortunately, many parents have no choice.

I hope that the Liberal leader will continue to just say what's on his mind, and to hell with the self-righteous. Maybe he should call it the 'Karl Marx Plan', just to get their goat. I'm so sick of their holier than thou attitude, that I just don't care any more. If we don't start fighting back we are going to be eaten alive, and Canada as we know it will cease to exist.

Any legitimate Christian would put families first, not corporate interests. If they want to believe that personal wealth is the key to salvation, fine. But don't pretend to follow the teachings of Jesus, because his philosophy was the exact opposite.

Go Michael and to hell with the polls. They don't mean much at this stage of the game anyway.

Ignatieff commits Liberals to national daycare
But timing of program would depend
October 20, 2009

OTTAWA – A national child-care program is among the top priorities for the Liberals in the next election platform and any future government, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff vowed this morning.

"It's a clear commitment," Ignatieff told reporters after a visit to an Ottawa daycare centre. "If you have commitments, you don't have 20. You have three or four and this is one of them."

Ignatieff acknowledged, however, that delivering on a national child-care program will be difficult if Canada remains mired in deficit — a condition that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has already forecast to last another five years.

"How you phase it in depends on what these guys leave in the till — and they've spent the cupboard bare," Ignatieff said. "It's a very clear commitment... It's a legacy issue for the Liberal party."

Ignatieff declared the child-care promise after spending the morning at an Ottawa daycare centre, reading to four-year-olds and touring the facility, which has a waiting list of 900 children vying for rare spaces.

The Liberals were in the midst of delivering on a $5-billion national child-care program before they were thrown out of power in the 2006 election. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives came to office, that program was abandoned, in favour of the $100-a-month cheques to Canadian parents known as the Universal Child Care Benefit.

Ignatieff said that if the Liberals are returned to government, that money will keep flowing to parents, but a national child-care program will also be phased in, as soon as the budget can handle it.

"They give the money to families, fine. Anything that helps families is a good idea. But there aren't the spaces. If you don't create the spaces, families don't have a choice. That's what we're saying."