Pay Equity committee  Out of the 300 or so programs that we did in Quebec, only a couple had to go through a mediation process. The parties agree at the end of the day. It is technical, but it's not as complex as it seems.

Pay Equity committee  One part of the proactive system is that there's a date limit, after which interests accrue. It obviously helps parties to move forward quickly, to meet often, and to agree quickly on the value of jobs. On information gathering, part of the Pay Equity Act in Quebec makes it an obligation for the employer to provide training to the members of the pay equity committee, as well as relevant information for them to do their work.

Pay Equity committee  The Bell Canada case lasted very long. We went all the way to the Supreme Court on various preliminary issues about which comparators could be used. After all these years, we don't have a conclusion in that complaint.

Pay Equity committee  Is your question, what is effective?

Pay Equity committee  What is effective is the joint committee working toward achieving pay equity in a collaborative process, rather than adversarial. What's effective is the obligation to achieve a result. If you ask the parties to talk about pay equity at the bargaining table, there is no obligation to achieve it.

Pay Equity committee  Right now the maintenance provisions in the Pay Equity Act should be improved. What happened is that in 2009 the Quebec government amended the Pay Equity Act to improve monitoring of pay equity maintenance, but in so doing a number of mistakes were made. First of all, it only allows for prospective pay equity maintenance, so there are periods of immunity that are granted that were actually considered unconstitutional by the Superior Court of Quebec.

Pay Equity committee  Thank you. I'll be making my short presentation in French, but I'll be ready to take your questions in English and answer as best I can in my second language. I'll try to be as precise as possible. Thank you for the invitation and for agreeing to hear from CUPE. My name is Annick Desjardins.