Advocates welcome promised pay equity laws in N.B., but warn some will be left out
Not all workers will be covered by Susan Holt's pay equity campaign promises
Advocates are welcoming a pledge from New Brunswick's first female premier to enforce pay equity in the private sector, but also warn that it isn't a silver bullet.
Johanne Perron, executive director of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity, has been calling on government to make the change for about 30 years.
"This is a really important step forward," she said in an interview. "We will work with the government for sure to move this forward as soon as possible."
Perron and Kerri Froc, an associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of New Brunswick, both applaud Holt's promise, but say the effects won't reach everyone.
That's because, typically, pay equity laws in Canada are meant to apply to larger companies, Froc said.
"The models that we have of pay equity are really about ... employers that employ 10 or more employees," she said in an interview.
She said roughly 75 to 80 per cent of workplaces have fewer than 10 employees.
"So this is about bigger workplaces that can, you know, have the resources to engage in a pay equity exercise."
She said that means some of the most vulnerable workers won't see any benefit from pay equity laws.
"You're going to have people that are employed by small businesses where they don't have access to this," Froc said. "In these smaller workplaces, this is still going to be a problem."
Holt has yet to table legislation, and Froc said New Brunswick could take a different approach from other Canadian provinces.
However, the Liberal platform says it will borrow from models in Ontario and Quebec — both of which only apply pay equity to employers with 10 or more employees, said Perron.
To account for the gap, Froc and Perron say government should consider implementing pay transparency alongside pay equity.
"We see that it makes a big difference, too, for people from different minorities — racialized people, immigrant people, people with a disability," Perron said.
In neighbouring Prince Edward Island, pay transparency laws have been in effect since June 2022, said Froc.
"This really isn't something that is high cost to government or business. It really is about changing behaviour," she said.
"Putting pay bands in your advertising, making sure ... you have non-retaliation for workers that discuss their salary, making sure that you don't ask questions about someone's previous salary when you're interviewing them because that can perpetuate pay inequalities."
Pay transparency doesn't just help women, said Haley Flaro, executive director of Ability New Brunswick.
"Ability New Brunswick has seen examples of individuals hired for a position that we find out later the salary bracket was actually quite higher, but they were started at a lower compensation because they had a disability," she said.
"With lots of different diverse populations, unfortunately there can be an inequity where people are started at lower salary brackets for whatever reason — a stereotype, an assumption."
Froc noted pay transparency is a much less resource-intensive practice for businesses than pay equity is.
"It's mostly about what the employer is not doing. Don't retaliate, don't ask people about the income they're currently ... earning," she said. "Again, very low-effort, low-cost kinds of things that we could implement relatively quickly."
How resource intensive pay equity will be for businesses is top of mind for Louis-Philippe Gauthier, Atlantic vice-president for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
"How many businesses is it going to affect, how many employees, what is going to be the administrative burden, what types of measurements are going to be asked from businesses?" Gauthier said, listing his questions about the plan.
"Is this going to generate a brand new industry of consultants that'll have to work with businesses, smaller businesses, to achieve the paperwork requirements?"
Gauthier says that's what happened when pay equity was introduced in Ontario and Quebec. However, he noted Holt's background could make for a different outcome.
"In this case, we're fortunate to have a premier that has a lot of experience with small businesses," he said.
"How much of the common sense of dealing with small businesses, and the realities of small businesses, will find itself in the act and the regulation itself?"
Holt reiterated the promise shortly after winning a majority on Oct. 21, but said this week her government has yet to determine when it will table the legislation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
