SCYR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH AT RISK OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, April 5, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): I now call the meeting officially to order. We have to have three members in attendance, one of whom has to be in the opposition—we actually have two. Others, I hope, will join us.

With that, because we must take advantage of the time we have, let me welcome Gay Stinson and her colleagues.

I'm going to let Ms. Stinson introduce her colleagues, but let me say that we're undertaking a mini-study of this issue of family and work for reasons Ms. Stinson will remind us of in a moment. It's a commitment of this government to do something about this.

Here's what we're doing in these sessions. Last week we had somebody in from the Conference Board of Canada to remind us of what's happening in the larger world of the business community, how companies are dealing with family-work issues. Today we have representatives from Human Resources Development Canada, and next week we're having people from the Treasury Board, because the Treasury Board is in effect the employer of all government civil servants. They have a real interest in how we treat our own government families, so to speak. Then we'll figure out after that where we go from there.

What we're really trying to do right now is get a bit of a picture of where we are now on this issue.

Without saying anything further, I welcome you, Ms. Stinson, and ask you to introduce your colleagues.

Ms. Gay Stinson (Director, Policy Development, Labour Program, Department of Human Resources Development): Thank you.

Actually, I'd like to change the order slightly. The assistant deputy minister, Warren Edmondson, is here and he would like to give brief introductory remarks, following which I will give the presentation for which we brought the deck.

The Chair: Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Edmondson.

Mr. Warren Edmondson (Assistant Deputy Minister, Labour Program, Department of Human Resources Development): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll be very brief to allow Ms. Stinson to go through the deck. I don't have a written presentation, but I thought it might be somewhat useful, before we get into the details of the presentation, to perhaps frame the role of the labour program in Human Resources Development Canada, because the role is somewhat unique. Given particularly the fact that we have a very close working relationship with Minister Bradshaw, the Minister of Labour, who is the minister responsible for the bulk of the legislation we administer as part of the labour program at HRDC, I thought it would be perhaps valid to take five minutes to outline just what those responsibilities are.

Our mission in the labour program is to promote in the federal jurisdiction fair, safe, healthy, and cooperative federally regulated workplaces. Of course, by federally regulated workplaces, we are referring to industries such as the banking industry, the railroads, the airlines, longshoring, interprovincial trucking, telecommunications, many of the key infrastructure industries in the country. Notwithstanding the fact that we would have approximately 700,000 working Canadians regulated by the Canada Labour Code, we regulate approximately 10% of working Canadians.

As you know, the Canada Labour Code is the primary piece of legislation, although we have numerous pieces of legislation for which we are responsible. Fundamentally, the Canada Labour Code is broken down into three parts.

The first piece deals with industrial relations, collective bargaining, and collective bargaining rights, and how unions and companies we regulate do business.

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The second part deals with occupational safety and health, in other words, the workplace safety of all employees in the federal jurisdiction.

The third piece deals with labour standards. It's this piece to some extent that we're going to touch on here today. These are the kinds of labour standards, minimum conditions of work, to which all employees working in the federal jurisdiction are entitled. That would include things like minimum wage, certain vacation entitlements, maternity leave benefits and so on, which are the absolute minimum conditions required by law that employers pay employees in the federal jurisdiction. Normally of course you would find people who have elected to join unions and be engaged in the process of collective bargaining. It would not be abnormal to expect the working conditions of those people to be somewhat higher than those that you would find in the labour standards.

We're extremely proud of the work that we do in the program. Our profile is relatively low, generally speaking, except when we happen to be involved in the resolution of major industrial disputes. If we happen to have a strike on the west coast or a strike in an airline, quite often we happen to be on the front pages, but in the normal course of our day's business, we have a fairly low profile.

However, I think that an important element of the way we do business, which I think is a key to our success, has been our ability to facilitate dialogue between our business and labour partners. Those of you who are familiar with the legislation that recently was passed through the House amending part I of the Canada Labour Code and the legislation that is presently in the House affecting occupational safety and health, are aware that the legislation moved reasonably swiftly through the parliamentary process because of the degree of consensus that existed between the business and the labour community, represented primarily in our jurisdiction by the Canadian Labour Congress on the labour side and by an organization called FETCO, federal employers in transportation and communications, on the business side. Together with the Canadian Bankers Association and other organizations like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, we find that through our extensive consultative process we're able to achieve a fair amount of consensus.

So it's with that history of in-depth consultation in mind that I basically introduce and frame the kinds of things, which Ms. Stinson will outline for you, that we have been doing and are in the process of doing in attempting to address some of the issues of the day related to work and family pressures.

Perhaps with that, I'll simply ask Ms. Stinson to take us through the deck. I think you'll get a fairly good idea of where we are and where we're positioned at the present time, and we'd be most pleased to answer any questions.

Ms. Gay Stinson: Thank you.

I'm the director of policy development in the labour program looking particularly at emerging issues in the workplace. I've brought with me Laurent Quintal, who is an expert working in the same field in my office.

What you have is two decks for the price of one in each language. I'm going to make the presentation based on the deck called “Improving Work-Family/Life Balance For Working Canadians”. Behind it is one that is called “Balancing Work and Family Life Background”. Because I think that some preparatory work has already been done and a lot of statistics were outlined for you by Judith MacBride-King last week, I'd like to focus my remarks on where we're at right now in considering this issue and developing an approach that we can take with the Minister of Labour and from the labour program.

First of all, I'd like to quote my minister. When she was addressing her provincial colleagues, ministers of labour from across Canada, she said:

Governments across Canada are very concerned about supporting working families and providing the best development for children. Working people help to create the wealth of our country. Working parents are raising the next generation of our society. We need to work towards creating working environments that enable them to do both.

I think that really fairly sets out what the objective of having a work-family approach within the labour program is out to do, to foster productivity in the workplace and to enable working parents to work very well at work and also to be able to meet their family and personal life responsibilities.

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As the chair has already mentioned, this commitment is in the Speech from the Throne from October 12. The Speech from the Throne kind of laid out the overall obligation, indicating that while parents admittedly have primary responsibility for care of children, raising the next generation is everyone's concern and it certainly is a concern expressed by the federal government. The government is giving as a commitment their wish to give children the very best start in life. That is the best investment we can make in Canada's future.

To do that, the government is committed to working jointly with provinces and territories to support early childhood development, providing targeted assistance for low-income families with children, and fostering family-friendly workplaces. Today in my remarks I will be centring only on the last section, which is about what we can do to foster family-friendly workplaces.

The federal workplace agenda I'm outlining here is an agenda for the labour program and the Minister of Labour. It includes the following four elements: a way to support the changes that are being made in parental benefits under employment insurance; to focus on federal jurisdiction workplaces and look at possibilities available for legislation; to look at possibilities available in what is called a promotional agenda, an education, awareness, and promotion kind of agenda; and to work together with provincial and territorial ministers with the responsibility for labour. I'll be going over each one of these elements and letting you know where we're at to date.

The first element is what our role is in terms of supporting the changes that are made to employment insurance. As you know, that change is intended to take effect by January 1, 2001. It is to extend the total period of time available up to one full year for the combination of maternity and parental benefits, and in particular to extend the period for parental benefits from 10 to 35 weeks.

The implication for us in the labour program, because we are the administrator of the Canada Labour Code, is that we would therefore commit to amending part III of the Canada Labour Code, which has labour standards and which has the current provision for access to parental leave and job protection during that leave. We would like to amend that particular section in the code and extend the period of parental leave from the current amount of 24 weeks to 37 weeks, which, in combination with maternity leave that is available, has the period of leave that is available for which there is job protection provided as one full year, to parallel the availability of benefits.

In addition to that, our minister has commenced discussion with her provincial colleagues, suggesting that we in the federal government are doing this in our legislation and indicating that provincial ministers of labour might wish to look at their own provincial legislation and look at the kinds of provisions they have for maternity and parental leave.

On the next page there's a brief description of the kinds of things that are already part of the Canada Labour Code and what we talk about when we say labour standards and the minimum standards, which we establish by legislation, that need to be followed by employers within our jurisdiction. Mr. Edmondson has already outlined generally our legislative mandate there. I don't think I really need to repeat it.

If you just look at the middle point, it gives you an idea of the kinds of ways that, as legislators, we're already influencing the structure of the working life and the kinds of benefits, entitlements, and provisions and protections that are available for employees by having such things as minimum age for employment, minimum wages, hours of work, overtime pay, annual vacation, maternity and parental leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, and protection from sexual harassment.

What more might we do as legislators? We have commenced a process with our direct clients. As Mr. Edmondson explained, we have a long tradition of working in concert with our clients. In fact we have a formalized committee structure that enables us to consult them on the design of legislation and possibilities for amending legislation.

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So where we're at right now is we have convened this group, called the Labour Standards Client Consultation Committee. They've met with us a couple of times over several days now to look at what kinds of things we might be able to do in amending part III of the Canada Labour Code and what kinds of things there would be a level of consensus or agreement or acceptance on, so that we would have an idea of what options are available and so that we'd be able to report to our minister, probably within a week or two, the views of our clients about the possibility of going a little bit further with our legislation.

A couple of particular items have been discussed at some length with our employer and employee members. One suggestion is the possibility, for example, of introducing a new category to respond to work life balance issues, which would be a family care leave. This would be the first time such a leave would be included in our legislation. Another aspect we have discussed is to provide time off in lieu of overtime pay, since we know one of the key issues is the amount of overtime worked and one of the issues for parents is needing time at home.

We've also looked at a couple of ways in which we can enable our young people to work and yet provide protections for them by not having them work in certain dangerous conditions. This is already in the Labour Code, but we're looking at perhaps adding some elements to that.

So in this legislative process, as I say, we are well along in consultation with our clients. Following that, we'll make a report to our minister about what kinds of things are possible and about the views of our clients. That will enable the minister, and subsequently government, to make a choice about whether or not we should pursue a legislative amendment.

When we move to the potential for non-legislative action—this is what I've entitled here the “Promotional Agenda”—we recognize there's a need to stimulate and enable the dialogue directly in workplaces with workplace partners; in individual workplaces between employees and their managers; between employers generally and us, as policymakers; between employers generally, among each other, to find out who's doing what and what works; and between employers and their unions.

One of the main things we can do is raise awareness of the issues and raise awareness of the needs of workers, in particular workers with family responsibilities, primarily family responsibilities for younger children but also potentially for their own parents.

Also, there's a need to provide opportunities for employers, employees, and unions to share information; to discuss jointly; to look at what possible solutions there might be, individual solutions at the workplace level and also broader solutions; and to develop new ideas. And we need to encourage the adoption of successful policies and practices through sharing best policies and what works best in that kind of dialogue.

All of these things we would continue to do in close consultation with our clients.

If we move on a little bit more to ask what specifically we might do around that, we're at the fairly early developmental stages of considering specific activities, but they include the following things.

The first one is to produce a guide or at least an assembly point for information on how to implement what we would recognize as family-friendly workplaces. What is the array of policies and practices? Who has used it? What works best in what kind of setting? What have unions been doing? What collective bargaining wording exists? If you're a manager, how do you support your employees? If you're an employee, what kinds of options might you ask for for flexible working time? This is to bring together the latest research and the best examples and to put this in some kind of venue where we can promote it and make it available to all of the people who might reasonably want to have this information in order to move on.

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The second one is having group discussions of various kinds, having seminars or workshops, bringing together employers, unions, human resources practitioners, and front-line people to share information, to put together the latest research and the best practices, and to work together. This is a very positive thing we can do.

Also, we can continue to research and do a number of other things, such as tracking public opinion on this, tracking the issue and the emergence of this issue, and looking at the kinds of projects that work and the models we have available. We can look at awards, and some awards we already have, that celebrate some of the best examples. And we can have focus group testing to drill a little bit deeper about really what needs there are and what solutions we might find.

What follows is a little bit more detail on each of these things, and I think I may just go rather quickly over that.

A number of elements could be included in the “Guide to Work-Family/Life Balance”. The main point here is that, on page 11, we've had a preliminary meeting with a number of people. We've talked to our labour standards clients, for example. We've also pulled together a group of employers, unions, human resources practitioners, some NGOs, and some private sector consultants in work life balance just to talk about what the needs are out there. Is this idea of information, research, best practices, and dissemination valuable? Is that what we as the federal government should be doing? Generally the answer is a resounding yes. There seems to be a well-expressed need and there seems to be strong evidence of willingness on the part of all of those various partners to work with us.

Similarly, on the notion of seminars and workshops, we have in the last year or so already been working somewhat in this way. The Canadian Labour and Business Centre, for example, is a joint labour and business organization, and they've been putting on seminars looking at workplace issues, particularly work life balance but also aging workforce issues, and bringing together local models. We're looking at the possibility of doing more things along that line.

On research and best practices, there are number of ways in which we can do research. Of course, as a labour program, one area of research we have—and we can put this together and make it available—is the best wording in collective agreements for certain features of benefit plans that unions have bargained for.

I would like to note one item in particular, relating back to remarks you heard from Judith MacBride-King from the Conference Board last week. She said we need to know more about what policies and practices there are; about what employees need and how they work; about the benefits to employers to do this sort of thing—What kind of cost benefit analysis is there? What do we know about productivity?—and about how accommodating these needs at work will benefit individuals, parents, and their families.

A major research project is now underway, led by the Department of Health, and we are a partner in that, to examine these issues by making a survey of 20,000 employees across the country. As you may know, Linda Duxbury, who is a professor here at Carleton University, is an expert in this field and has done similar work. This will be the broadest survey of its kind, and it will be making the links between people's home lives, the conflict and stress they experience with their work lives, and what the implications are for their performance at work and their personal health and health costs. That information should, over the next year, inform us considerably about some of the costs and benefits involved in taking this approach.

Finally, I did mention that our minister has already met with her provincial colleagues, and our minister opened the subject of work-family balance as an issue of mutual concern of all governments, and particularly of all ministers who have the responsibility for labour. This did strike a responsive chord. There were presentations at that time from the ministers from Saskatchewan and from Quebec on things they're already doing. There was a very positive environment for a collective process to think about how collegially, recognizing a mutual concern at the ministerial level and at the departmental level, we might be able to collaborate in some kind of promotional agenda.

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The next step in this is that the deputy ministers of labour meet twice annually. Their next meeting is in May, and at that time this item will be on the agenda to start talking about that kind of collaborative and promotional collective activity might result.

As I've gone along, I have emphasized one of the opening remarks Warren made: we do tend to work in a very collaborative way, first of all keeping in direct touch with our workplace clients, and also working with others in the field. I've tried to make reference to that as we've gone along. So there are certain things we see we can do in terms of research, best practices, facilitating discussion and dialogue, and increasing awareness. We also see that it's by working in partnership with others and having other people also playing their role that we're more likely to start devising the kinds of solutions that work in individual workplaces and for working parents.

The Chair: Thank you very much. That's a very useful set of opening remarks. I'd just ask one clarifying question before I turn it over to my colleagues for more detailed questions and comments.

When I look at the commitment in the Speech from the Throne about fostering family-friendly workplaces and the role the federal government can play in doing this, clearly there are two big pools to play in. There's the federally regulated sector, which you've talked about, and then there is the issue of our own employees, which is a pretty considerable number of folk as well. I gather from your presentation that it's the Minister of Labour, Ms. Bradshaw, who is responsible for the former part. Is she also understood to be responsible for the latter part, or is that a Treasury Board function?

And I have a really naive question, which I should know the answer to. You deal with federally regulated industries and so on, but does that apply to government employees?

Mr. Edmondson.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: It's an interesting question with a somewhat complicated answer.

We actually do regulate the federal public service in one area only, and that is the area of occupational safety and health. The employment standards, if you will, that apply to the federally regulated private sector in fact do not apply to employees of the federal government. Another set of terms and conditions of employment regulations flows out of the Public Service Employment Act, if I recall, which ends up being the responsibility of the President of the Treasury Board.

The short answer is, on these issues, employees of the federal government would be the responsibility of the President of the Treasury Board.

The Chair: So if we were looking for a coherent government strategy to fulfil this promise in the Speech from the Throne, we would expect a minimum of two ministers would be involved: the minister responsible for the Treasury Board and the Minister of Labour.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: Absolutely.

The Chair: Just checking.

[Translation]

I do not know whether it is Ms. Gagnon or Ms. St-Jacques who would like to speak first.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I can go first. I thought that you were coming here today just to explain to us the rules that apply to federal government employees.

The Chair: No, on the contrary, we are not talking about federal employees.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: All right.

The Chair: We are talking about people in industries that are federally regulated.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: In my view, the parental leave policy that the Minister is proposing does not go far enough. The newspapers reported this morning on a study by Monica Townson, from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who said much the same thing as Ms. Bradshaw about the balance between work and family responsibilities. Ms. Townson also made an observation about self- employed workers, who are being left out, it seems to me. The new policy on parental leave does not take these workers into account, and thousands of women cannot take advantage of it. They are excluded because of all sorts of irritants, in this reform that the government has not managed to bring in, even in the last budget.

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The number of hours required for part-time workers is too high, with the result that they are excluded. That number was increased from 300 to 700 hours, and then reduced by only 100 hours.

Moreover, there was no reduction in the two-week waiting period before a worker can receive parental leave benefits. There is no provision for mothers and fathers who are self-employed. It is very difficult to gain entitlement to these benefits. As long as self-employed workers are not recognized, thousands of women will be excluded. Who will be eligible for these benefits? Only full- time workers with stable jobs will be able to treat themselves to parental leave at the rate of 55% of their salary. Quebec would like the plan to be much more generous and provide recipients with up to 70% of their salary.

You mentioned to us that you would be creating working groups. I have nothing against working groups, but all these issues are already on the table. All the studies done by various groups in Quebec and Canada should be looked at. I will not get into partisan politics here, but it seems to me that this puts Quebec in a strange situation because its parental leave policy is part of its overall family policy.

I do not know whether you can move forward on these issues. Although we raised them in the House, I hope that you will pass on our concerns to the Minister and help push her parental leave reforms much further.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Edmondson, could you comment on that?

Mr. Warren Edmondson: I'll attempt to. I really can't comment on EI coverage simply because the employment insurance legislation is not the responsibility of the labour program or of Minister Bradshaw.

However, the issue of self-employed and contingent workers and the changing workforce is something we have been monitoring. In fact, we've been monitoring it for some time. There are certainly some concerns and many of these concerns have been expressed by people who represent workers, such as some of our trade unions.

Ms. Stinson, in her deck, explained that we are really engaged in a two-phase consultation process. There are some issues related to work and family that we are dealing with in the immediate term, in the short term. Yet we anticipate a longer-term consultation issue on a host of items, which we would expect would be brought to the table by business and labour and government. That may very well include some of these things.

Again, I will only stress that the success we've had in the federal jurisdiction as a regulator in establishing good relationships with our social partners, with business and labour, in large part is due to the nature of the consultation exercise, which has been a tradition in the federal government in engaging all of the partners. It does take time, but again if you consider the kind of legislation we have in place, the acceptability of that legislation to our business and labour partners, it actually has allowed us to develop a legislative framework that meets the needs of the parties out there.

When you look at the federal jurisdiction, we have a wide range of diverse groups of people that we regulate, from those employees who work for large corporations like Air Canada and CP Rail and CN to employees of very small companies like small trucking companies, employees of the first nations, and of course employees who are in fact unionized, others who are non-unionized, and some who would be also self-employed.

There's a wide range of issues that need to be addressed and understood. I think it's through the consultation process and through some of the monitoring that Ms. Stinson talked about and some of the promotional activities we're proposing that we will be better able to define some of the issues and come up with some possible solutions when we better understand the dimensions of the problems that exist out there.

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The Chair: Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Since you have done studies and come up with proposals, you must be aware of labour market conditions and the difficulties of balancing work and family responsibilities. Workers have told me that even if parental leave were doubled, they would not be able to take advantage of it. It would be very nice to be at home for a year, but few parents can afford to do that. Groups that were very representative of society have told me that they would prefer to have a shorter period of leave during which one parent would receive higher benefits.

Another pressing problem that arises after the parent has temporarily left the labour market is that of child care. Parents want low-cost child care. Quebec has a balanced approach in that area. This proposal to double the allowable parental leave goes somewhat against the thinking that has developed in Quebec. We recognize that our policy is not perfect, but we consulted people to find out what the real needs of families were. Are you hearing the same thing when you do your consultations? I would like to influence the Minister and urge her to change her mind to provide for greater flexibility.

[English]

Mr. Warren Edmondson: You'll have to bear in mind that as administrators of the Canada Labour Code, working in the labour program of Human Resources Development Canada, our primary responsibility deals with the workplace. Issues like day care and child care certainly are of interest to us, but our role and our responsibility and our curiosity really relate to what's going on in the workplace.

There is a variety of practices out there—and I'm well aware of what happens in the province of Quebec and how Quebec has addressed the issue of child care—but our concern in the labour program goes beyond the issues of government responsibility and also addresses the question of what employers and unions are doing. For example, some of you may be aware of the recent negotiated settlement between the CAW and the big three auto companies, which received a fair amount of attention not too many months ago, where the big three auto companies decided to put a fair amount of money into the issue of subsidizing employee child care.

So there's a whole range of activities and practices out there, some of which involve employers and unions, which we're trying to get a handle on to see what it is that employers and unions, or employers that are non-unionized in fact, are doing. That is our area of expertise and our area of policy concern in the labour program.

The Chair: Gay, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

Ms. Gay Stinson: There is one thing I might draw your attention to. In the background deck on page 9, there's an indication of some of the things that are available in collective agreements and—

The Chair: This is the second deck, number 9.

Ms. Gay Stinson: Yes. There's the background or the one

[Translation]

“Guide to Work-Family/Life Balance”.

[English]

Is it page 9 in French also?

[Translation]

The Chair: It is the second document.

[English]

Ms. Gay Stinson: I'll just mention that there are partnering solutions, that the federal government is doing certain kinds of things at a broad policy level with EI, and then if you look at the last dot, it says that 36% of major collective agreements, covering 50% of workers who are unionized, provide top-up to EI. So that's another way in which there is some recognition that in order to enable people to take time off, the state has made a certain level of provision, and then unions, representing the interests of their employees, have recognized an increased level of need and have bargained with the employer for it. So that's another model that is available.

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Under the CAW agreement, you have yet again a different model in which the employer is providing a certain amount of money, up to $10 a day for a total of $2,000 in a year, to assist in child care arrangements—preschool, before and after school, and other sorts of things. They also have provided other kinds of things to assist employees—leave for elder care and so on. So that is another model that we can see is also working in some places, as people are looking for solutions to these things.

[Translation]

The Chair: One moment, please.

[English]

I think we had an informal consultation about whether we would mind bending our rules to allow a film crew to film Madame St-Jacques hard at work here, because they're following her, and you could say that these are all admirers of Madame St-Jacques who follow her to every meeting, if that's helpful. If no one has any objection to helping Madame St-Jacques out,

[Translation]

we will allow them to go ahead and film her.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: If they want to film Ms. St-Jacques, there is no problem.

The Chair: Fine.

[English]

Okay. I just thought, in case you were wondering whether it was Frank magazine or something....

[Translation]

Now it is Ms. St-Jacques' turn.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, PC): Good timing, good timing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question deals with your program to raise awareness. You mentioned that you intend to give seminars and workshops in the regions. We know that SMEs drive much of the economy. How do you plan to approach those companies, which are often stretched to their limits, have little time to deal with these issues that seem very secondary to them and, despite their good intentions, have neither the resources nor the means to make commitments in these areas? Have you thought of how you could reach those people?

[English]

Ms. Gay Stinson: Yes. The tools available to smaller employers are in some ways more limited, and in other ways they have the capacity to be even more flexible. We recognize that there are huge differences between what an organization like a bank can do and what a smaller employer can do with few employees. The idea of flexible leave and people coming and going, certainly for a small employer, creates a very particular problem.

So, first of all, we very much accept your point and say, yes, we've heard that, and we're talking to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business about the special needs of small employers and how they too can make some accommodations and so on. That's the first thing, to acknowledge that that is the case.

Therefore, second, when we want to put together materials that are available and to stimulate discussion and awareness and good ideas, one particular focus we would have is to have a cluster of good examples of leaders in flexibility in small workplaces to show how they have implemented that, how it works best, how they have handled those very real operational problems. Indeed, we already have found some solutions, and really, we're seeing that there are leadership endeavours being taken all over the place. But we don't have a way to share this knowledge, and that's what we're looking at when we're saying we need to provide a vehicle and find a way to bring it together, to share it, to let people know there are ways they can do this and to look at some examples and apply it to their own situation.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: You have told us that these companies were showing greater flexibility, although their resources were more limited than those of the banks, for example. When a bank has to give leave to an employee for family responsibilities, it can ask another employee to replace that person, whereas a small business cannot consider hiring someone for a half-day. SMEs have more limited means. Although they manage to find solutions, it seems more complicated.

You have consulted people here in Canada. I was wondering whether you looked at positive experiences in other countries that could perhaps be implemented here. Did you go beyond our borders or did you consult people only across Canada?

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[English]

Ms. Gay Stinson: Well, there's nothing to limit us except our own time to do this. I think probably the most comprehensive study that's been done has been done by CPRN, and that was partially at least presented to you a couple of weeks ago when Judith Maxwell was here. They did that quite comprehensive study, their eight-country comparative study, on that, so we of course would benefit from their research.

I think it's less likely that we would do full comparative research. What we would prefer to do is centre on those international examples that seem to be particularly interesting, where new models are presented, and to make that material available for people's discussion and to stimulate their thinking and ideas.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Okay. Merci.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: I would only add that we also are the body that represents Canada at the ILO, at the International Labour Organisation. We have access to their research and their data. This issue of work and family balance is taking on a priority in many other countries as well, so it's an evolving issue.

I know that in the United States, for example, a fair amount of attention has been paid to this issue. In recent years it has had a higher profile and a higher concern than perhaps in other countries, but for example, in Europe it's an issue that's been given attention for some time. In the international community, at the ILO, more attention is being paid to this and more research is being done. And to the extent that we have resources in the program, and they are limited, we attempt to follow those activities.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Lowther.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Canadian Alliance): Okay, I have a couple of questions to the witnesses. I guess we'll back up and go at this from a higher level of philosophical...not really so much philosophical, but maybe just what has been happening out there in the last twenty or thirty years in the workplace.

You're focusing in on the workplace, and your report here talks about high levels of work and family conflict negatively impacting or affecting family and marital satisfaction. How much of this is just the third wave, the new technology-driven workplace?

I don't know if you're familiar with Alvin Toffler's work. We went from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and now we're changing from an industrial one to an information age. Is what we're trying to address here the symptoms, with the root of this really driven by the fast pace of change and technologically driven stresses and all that kind of thing?

Mr. Warren Edmondson: It's a valid question, and I wouldn't want to hypothesize, but I think your concerns or your observations speak to the need, again, for the kind of consultation we're engaged in. We are somewhat cautious about taking a cookie cutter approach, either legislatively or from a policy development perspective, to these issues without understanding them extremely well. Because economies are changing and workplaces are changing, we need to understand them well.

The workplace today is considerably different from the workplace of a few years ago, unquestionably. We've been seeing in recent years more part-time work, more contract work, more contingent work, and yet now we're seeing perhaps another change developing whereby there is tremendous competition for highly skilled workers, and in my experience those employers are now looking towards more long-term employment as opposed to contingent work or contract work.

So things are changing, and it's very important for us to monitor these things very carefully to make sure that when we develop policy or legislation, we get it right.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Along the same lines as we're talking about, family and work stress.... But, you know, even people who don't have families are more stressed in the workplace than they have been for a long time, because of the whole keeping up.... A lot of training is obsolete by the time you get it. You're learning on the floor, a lot of times. Things are moving very quickly in the workplace.

We hold up numbers, saying that people are feeling there is more stress, and we're assuming this is managing children and managing families, and we're bowling all the stress into that as the core reason. But I guess I'm just thinking part of it might have nothing to do with the family. Some people may be just stressed at work, and they come home and are just on overload because of the workplace. They come home, and the family really hasn't changed; it's just that the workplace is changing.

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Mr. Warren Edmondson: The research that the Conference Board of Canada and others have done certainly indicates that the public is saying this is an issue. There are demographic issues, of course, as well. We have an aging society. More of us are required to look after parents. There are various issues people see today that are affecting workers and workplace productivity.

Employers are also paying a lot of attention to these issues because they're concerned about absenteeism and loss of productivity. They need to attract and retain skilled workers, so they're paying a lot more attention than they perhaps did in recent times to the human resources investment, to the value of working people.

They're very concerned about these issues, and in some cases from a very pragmatic point of view. The productivity issues and absenteeism issues are important to them, plus the huge trading dollars they place in investing in the kinds of skilled workers they need in the workforce today. So I think enlightened employers are in fact paying attention to these issues in their own ways, and many of them in different ways, because different industries will have different issues to address.

People working shift work will have different issues, as opposed to people working steady days. People working in the high tech field will have different issues perhaps than those working in the service sector in lower-paid jobs. So again, there's a wide range of activities out there that we're trying to understand and get a handle on.

Mr. Eric Lowther: The changing workplace is driving a lot of the stress load. I guess that's my point—and I see you nodding. On page 5 of your second package, you have some breakdowns that I often see presented to this committee and other committees. On why the problem has worsened, you have some numbers on dual-earner couples. In 1976, it was 34%; in 1997, it was 56%.

I think I looked into these Statistics Canada numbers on this before, and that number implies that 56% in 1997 were full-time dual-earner couples. In fact, when you look at the numbers, my impression is that's not the case. In only about one-third of couples are both partners actually working full-time. In fact, the last time I looked at Statistics Canada numbers, in about one-third, both partners worked full-time; in one-third, one worked maybe part-time or worked out of the home and the other worked full-time; and one-third were single-income families.

I guess I just take exception to this repeated presentation that implies they are all full-time dual-earner couples. On page 7, maybe you're trying to address this, but I'm not sure. Only 33% of employees hold typical jobs, i.e., full-time.

I guess I'm not really looking for a response, but it's important for this committee to note that in 56% of dual-earner families, both people are not working full-time. Many of those couples are giving up time for family commitments, and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

Ms. Gay Stinson: You said you weren't exactly looking for a response, but I would just pick up one or two things about what you say. What you're pointing out is certainly correct. The changes we're seeing in the workplace are of course reflections of changes in families and family structure, the nature of work itself, economy and globalization, and new technologies. There's a convergence of a whole number of things that are really changing our families, our societies, and our workplaces.

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The second thing I wanted to point out is that in the dual-earner couple, that statistic is actually a combination of all workers. This information is here not really to prove anything in and of itself. It's here just as a general indication of trend and to pick out a few of those things that say the proportions of things are changing. The proportion of families who have both people working is greater now than it has been. The proportion of families who have people working more or less within the school day, plus time at each end, is less, because a lot of that work is taking place very early or very late or on shift work.

One of the other points you made you're quite correct to point out. In a lot of the cases when there are dual earners, one of the parents is working either shift work or extended hours or part-time in order to accommodate the family responsibility. That's part of the subject of Linda Duxbury's research actually, looking at that exact issue, which raises different issues about quality of family life. So you have a physical presence of a parent, because they're splitting, with one parent working 9 to 5 and the other parent working night shift, but that creates different stresses on the parents as individuals and on the family members themselves.

So this isn't a single-issue problem, nor is it a single-solution situation. It's a combination of all of these factors that are changing.

What we're really saying is we need to work more at assisting workplace partners to be aware of the kinds of things that are happening, to tap into their own workforce and what those issues might be, because of the structure of their own workforce, the profile of their own workforce, and to develop joint solutions that will work for that workforce.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I just admonish you, if that is in fact what you're trying to do—and I believe it is—you would have done it more completely if you had broken down the 56% number in 1997. In how many of those 56% are both parties to the couple working full-time as opposed to one full-time and one part-time, or as opposed to one full-time and one out of the home? Those statistics are available, but we never seem to present them in this committee.

The Chair: Let me just ask this question, though, which is a follow-on. The labour force survey is done through Statistics Can, but you're the client, so to speak?

Ms. Gay Stinson: We're one of many clients.

The Chair: Okay. If I look at again the famous page 5, if I had the breakdown—and I don't object to what Mr. Lowther is saying at all—would I assume that the statistics for between 1976 and 1997 were being gathered on a consistent basis? In other words, just as Mr. Lowther might say of the 1997 crowd, “Well, they're not all two full-time people working; there's a third, a third, a third”, presumably to have a real sense of the trend, you'd want to do the same exercise for 1976. In other words, you'd say in 1976, of all types, whether they were part-time or full-time dual income, that was it. Clearly 66% were only one-income families.

You make the point that it's the trend we want to know. We may be interested in the sub-composition of the trend, but the trend is in fact echoed by the next line down. You see that being picked up. So one can quibble about—

Mr. Eric Lowther: I take exception to that, John. I take real exception to what you're implying there. We don't know what the numbers would show. Right now, if you look at dual-earner couples where both parties are working full-time, it's about 34% full-time, if you break it down. So what may have in fact been the increase is more part-time or working out of the home, which wasn't there in 1976 but increased between 1976 and 1997, which would be consistent with some of Ms. Stinson's comments.

To imply that conclusions can be drawn from an incomplete representation of the numbers is one of the problems I have with the approach of this committee. We seem to be moving towards a goal we have in mind, and we use the numbers to take us there. It would be far better to look at the facts and then see what works.

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The Chair: I guess I was working in the same direction, wondering simply—and this is not your main...you're not Statistics Canada—if you think it's possible to find out through your research whether it's possible to break it out for both the 1997 cohort and the 1976 cohort in a way that would answer both of our questions. I'm not making any assumptions one way or the other. I'm just offering an hypothesis. Is that knowable?

Ms. Gay Stinson: I think you're pointing out some very real issues around the data. I don't think the census is identical over the 20-year period we're trying to compare.

Nonetheless, I think it is possible for us to provide quite a bit of a breakdown along the lines you're suggesting. We do have quite a lot of information. Some information was published a year or two ago by the Vanier Institute of the Family, for example, in their publication, From the Kitchen Table to the Boardroom Table, where they talked about numbers of parents working and hours and so on. That's not a comprehensive survey like a labour force survey, so we have a couple of different sources.

What I think we can undertake is that we could provide information for the committee on breakdowns that are available through Statistics Canada labour force surveys and perhaps provide additional material to augment that, coming from sources like the Vanier Institute, for example, and like Linda Duxbury's work, which is based on surveys that are not total labour force surveys. They're sample surveys, of course, but they augment our understanding.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I'd also suggest that if you look at the detail in the national longitudinal study, there is some breakdown that also goes to full-time as opposed to part-time work or work out of the home. That's where I'm drawing my numbers from, that particular study.

The Chair: Any help you can give us would obviously be appreciated.

Ms. Gay Stinson: Yes, I'm sure we'll be able to provide additional information.

The Chair: And maybe just a little commentary, a little exegesis on the text, so to speak...?

[Translation]

Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I would like to come back to the breakdown of these figures and the comment made by the Canadian Alliance member about part-time and full-time workers. The figure given for the benefits was 56% of the income of the working couple. Are you aware of the fact that when both spouses are working, men are less likely to take parental leave because, at 55% of their salary, their family would suffer too great a drop in income? At least that is what I have seen with people I know. Studies have shown that, on average, women make 72% of what men make. If the man earns $70,000 a year and his wife earns $22,000, she will take all the parental leave, otherwise the financial hit will be too hard on the family. Have you heard criticisms and frustrations as to the percentage of income available for parental leave benefits?

[English]

Ms. Gay Stinson: Insofar as the question relates to practices and policies in the workplace, I think I would have what I would call anecdotal evidence that the usual practice is that the parent.... Well, there are several usual practices. I think you're looking at a combination of issues that are driven by economic needs and other issues that are driven by cultural, societal, and gender understandings and expressions of where people are. By far the norm tends to be that it is the mother that stays home with children, as it is that it is the wife in the family that tends to take leave to care for elders and, on a voluntary basis, to take care of members of the extended family. That's one tendency.

I guess the other tendency has to do with who has which job at what economic level and looking at it from a straight economic point of view, therefore sharing the parental leave or splitting the maternity leave that is of course available, for physical reasons, for the mother, and under the parental leave, being able to share that with the father, to have the father be the one to stay home, depending on where those workers are in their careers and life cycles. If one has a higher-paying job or one has a job that is the promoting job.... There are a number of other factors.

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So there are a variety of different ways, as we hear it, in which people make those kinds of decisions. Having parental leave available for either parent, both the benefits available under EI and also in the Labour Code, which ensure that it can be either parent who can benefit from that period, enables that kind of choice according to that family's understanding.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. St-Jacques.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Although we have been talking about parental leave, we should be aware that an increasing number of people are looking after elderly parents. In Quebec, we call these people who stay at home to look after their parents “natural care- givers”. Have you looked into that issue? Have you found solutions so that we can support these people who need to take care of their elderly, ill parents, or even sometimes their sick children as well?

[English]

Mr. Warren Edmondson: There's no question that because of demographics and an aging society this is an issue that's of greater concern today, to workers and to unions that represent workers. They have made that very clear to us in the consultation process and are looking for some kind of more flexible provision in the labour codes that would allow people time off not just to look after children—

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Their parents—

Mr. Warren Edmondson: —but to look after aging parents. That's something that's still the subject of active consultation and something—

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: But no solution—

Mr. Warren Edmondson: —that I think even the business community is actually sympathetic to, as are we. So we would hope that we would be able to move that issue forward in the not-too-distant future.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Thank you.

[Translation]

I have no other questions.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Lowther.

Mr. Eric Lowther: It might be outside the scope of what you folks deal with, but I'm thinking that if we're looking at families in the workplace and at people in the workplace, the fact is that a single-income family that has a family income of $50,000 pays 100% more in taxes than a dual-income family. We talked about incentives and about penalties of getting out of the workplace and those kinds of things. Certainly it's a huge penalty for single-income families that they pay so much more in taxes than dual-income families.

The other thing that tends to send a signal that there's a penalty for being out of the workforce is this: as a basic deduction, the spousal deduction is lower for the stay-at-home parent than for one who's in the workplace, sending another message that if you choose to stay home there will be tax penalties for doing so.

Third, there is currently no child tax deduction, no basic deduction. Yes, we have the child tax benefit, which is nice, but the problem with it is that it's one year out of sync: you file your income tax and the following year after you've filed is what determines what's going to be your child tax benefit, whereas a straight child tax deduction would come off your cheque in the month you earn it, to pay for the bills for your family.

When I look at those three things, there are substantial tax penalties for those who wish to care for their own children, whether they're working part-time or otherwise. It would seem to me that if we want to make it equitable or at least give parents a neutral choice as far as tax treatment goes to decide on what works best for their family, a number of these things need to be addressed so that parents can make neutral choices about what works best for them without huge tax penalties for doing so.

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Can you comment on that from the point of view of the Department of Human Resources Development?

Mr. Warren Edmondson: I'm afraid I can't. I've spent the last 30 years of my life trying to bring business and labour together to resolve various disputes, but not on tax matters, unfortunately. I'm absolutely no expert, and neither is the program. I don't think this department is actually the forum at which these issues normally would be raised.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I guess the only point I'd have, then, is with regard to the last page of your second package, page 13, “What Helps Working Families?” You say here, “Adequate income—whether at work or on leave of absence.”

Adequate income is hugely impacted by personal tax policy. If you're going to put that in as one of your recommendations or suggestions, I would say the impact of personal tax policy that penalizes certain types of family choices needs to be part of your package of considerations.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: I take your point. Our concern at the labour department would normally revolve around such issues as compensation and the compensation package, including what constitutes a minimum wage.

Mr. Eric Lowther: So we put the burden on the employer, but we don't apply the same test to the federal government, which I think—

The Chair: May I say that I think it's perhaps unfair to ask witnesses to deal with aspects of federal policy that fall on the shoulders of others.

I think the very important point you're making, Eric, is that children and family policy are horizontal issues for government. Clearly, to have any coherence, we need to combine the work these folks are doing with all sorts of other work being done elsewhere across the government. Governments, being the 19th century creatures they are, don't deal well with these horizontal issues. They don't deal very well with them when they cross provincial constitutional boundaries, so to speak.

I'm mindful of the time and the obligations our colleagues have, but I'd like to ask just a couple of questions to end, perhaps, unless there are other burning issues.

Our colleague Mr. Young, the researcher, reminds me that there are actually three ways in which we can have an impact on family policy. We've mentioned the first—that is, Treasury Board directs employees. Second, you've talked to us about the whole question of federally regulated industries and the Labour Code and so on. The third one, which we actually have used—and I think it's the part of HRDC that deals with labour matters—is contract workers. We've used this for employment equity.

My first question would be whether that is something you have thought about or whether that is a policy issue yet to be resolved such that when we read the words that are in the Speech from the Throne, we might use that additional instrument, which would cover.... You probably have some notion of the number of employees implicated in that, since you've already had to apply it for another relevant policy.

Perhaps I can give you these questions, then, and you can knock them off seriatim.

Second, back in 1987 the first ministers got together and declared themselves to be in favour of improving workplace issues and so on. Can one actually say that as a result of those activities precise things flowed in terms of changing the Labour Code, or did it just happen by evolution, regardless of what the first ministers thought they were doing?

Finally, given the time it takes to change labour codes, if you want some early victories—the low fruit, or whatever it is you call it—are we going to get it through those kinds of changes in legislation or through more of the promotional advocacy or whatever else you might call it? What's the most effective way to go fastest?

Those are two biggish questions.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: Certainly I think making amendments to legislation, Mr. Chair—and you're more familiar with this than I am—is probably a slower route than the promotional route in encouraging and moving employers and workers in the right direction.

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I don't think you can underestimate the value of sharing best practices. I think one of the members of the committee mentioned that small or medium-sized enterprises, while they may have some flexibilities, don't necessarily have the value of human resources practitioners and resources available to them. They may not be aware of the kinds of innovative things happening out there, and there are some very innovative workplace practices out there.

As we said earlier, I think one of the things we need to be able to do through our promotional program is to try to find ways to have that information shared, because many small and medium-sized businesses that want to do well and want to be successful are really looking for this kind of information. So certainly the promotional program is one that moves quickly.

I have to say, however, that certainly in the federal jurisdiction we have moved at amending, at this point, two parts of our legislation in relatively short order, and looked at the Employment Equity Act as well. With respect to federal contractors, Minister Bradshaw recently put in place fair wage schedules. A lot of things have moved, and have moved fairly quickly. They've been fairly responsive.

I think that in large part as well, in the federal jurisdiction—and this may be somewhat unique—is due to the degree of cooperation and consensus we manage to draw through our consultation process out of labour and the management community.

It's been extremely valuable for us, both as an information source and as a way of our expediting and moving legislation in a legislative framework that actually makes sense to them. They are the workplace partners. They need to know that they have a framework that they can live with and that, while it may be the subject of some compromises, will work for them. We've been successful at doing that.

Gay, I don't know if you want to add anything more to that.

So I think we've moved in all those areas. I think Minister Bradshaw has amended part I of the Labour Code and put in place a new labour board. She is now before the House of Commons with amendments to part II of the legislation, safety and health, as I said earlier, which we would hope might move swiftly through the process. We are now looking at amendments to part III that we may be considering, once we finish the consultation process, in the not-too-distant future.

The Chair: Let me just be clear on something. On the issue of whether you might use the contractual relationship to focus on family-friendly workplace policies, that's not been resolved? It may be the case, it may not be, or it's too early to say?

Mr. Warren Edmondson: When you say the “contractual” process, you're talking about...?

The Chair: In other words, it's when you have federal contractors, as you've done with employment equity, where you're using that contractual relationship. You're not there yet?

Mr. Warren Edmondson: We're not there yet.

The Chair: Might you? I mean, it's not excluded; it's in the realm of the possible.

Mr. Warren Edmondson: It's not really too visible on the radar screen at the moment.

The Chair: All right. Fine.

Unless there are any other concluding comments or questions, or things that people feel were left unsaid or misunderstood or whatever else, I think we will thank you very much for coming and sharing with us. This advances our work.

Next week we will talk directly to the employer of...well, to your employer, actually—Treasury Board.

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.