Anything but legislation
The Office of Women and Gender Equality (WGE) appears to be considering any measure to improve the province’s gender wage gap except pay equity legislation, according to documents obtained by Saltwire Network.
Saltwire filed an access to information request on May 4, 2022 seeking any emails sent or received by Minister Pam Parsons; deputy minister Judith Hearn; and manager of economic policy Andrea Barnes which included the phrase ‘pay equity’ between June 1, 2021 to May 4, 2022.
The records were sparse up until March 15, 2022, after which point there were many.
March 15 was the first day of the spring sitting of the House of Assembly, when Parsons received media attention for saying rate mitigation funds “would go a long way to help with issues such as pay equity.”
The emails show that on Oct. 4, 2021, the pay equity talking points provided to Parsons included just three short bullet points, but by the evening of March 15, Parsons was emailed “updated messages” for pay equity — a document with 13 detailed bullet points.
On March 18, Barnes emailed Hearn documents for a meeting of the Interdepartmental Committee on Pay Equity on March 21. That’s the only interdepartmental meeting mentioned in the records. Other than that, in January there was a Skype meeting about pay equity organized by Barnes, but only Hearn and a secretary were listed as attendees.
The agenda for the interdepartmental meeting allocated time for introductions. Documents for the meeting included a backgrounder on pay equity which provided basic information, such as the definition of pay equity; a diagram describing the responsibilities of each department as it relates to pay equity; and a copy of the pay equity jurisdictional scan.
The agenda also included time for discussion, but it specified the “focus should be on what approaches or alternatives to pay equity legislation are possible from committee members’ perspectives.” phrase which Parsons has also used publicly on this topic) to closing the gender wage gap.
The emails obtained by Saltwire also indicate the pay equity committee is expanding.
Hearn sent an email to John Cowan, deputy minister for Industry, Energy and Technology, on April 29 requesting representation from that department.
Other departments on the committee are WGE, Treasury Board Secretariat, Environment
and Climate Change (Labour Division), and Justice and Public Safety.
ONE EMAIL FROM PARSONS
In all of the records provided to Saltwire, only one email was sent by Parsons. On May 2, someone whose identity was redacted wrote Parsons to express their disappointment in her comments on pay equity.
“Frankly, your comments are just unacceptable and are a human rights issue. With respect to blaming Muskrat Falls for the lack of money, that would best be described as the craftsperson blaming their tools for shoddy work,” the person wrote.
They said to Parsons that she is a minister, and has a lot of power.
“Yes, you can proceed your current path as ‘you don’t have authoritative legislation to implement pay equity’ or, you can use your power to make that change. You can use Prime Minister Truedeau’s term when asked why he had a gender balanced cabinet. Because it is 2015. It is now 2022. It is called leadership.”
Parsons forwarded the email to Hearn.
“Judith- pls respond to this,” Parsons wrote.
Hearn then forwarded it to Barnes, and asked her to draft a response for Parsons’ review.
Saltwire requested an interview with Parsons to discuss the information contained in the records, but a WGE spokesperson said she was not available for an interview, and instead provided a statement. Saltwire asked to do the interview another day.
“At this time there is nothing further to add beyond today’s statement, along with previous statements. We can certainly revisit this in the future and arrange for an interview if developments arise,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The statement provided in lieu of an interview did not say anything new.