Closing gender pay gap, creating national drug program priorities in Liberal budget

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This article was published 27/02/2018 (2944 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau unveiled a federal budget Tuesday aimed at getting more women, Indigenous people and youth into the job market, even if it means pushing the country deeper into debt.

“With a strong and growing economy in place, we believe that now is the right time to focus on the deeper challenges that hold our economy, and our people, back,” Morneau told the House of Commons in his budget speech.

The budget aims to bridge the gender pay gap, improve education for Indigenous people, coax more men into taking parental leave and study the viability of subsidized prescription drugs.

To that end, the Liberals have projected this year’s deficit at $18.1 billion, which should gradually drop over the next five years but there is no timeline for balanced books.

The Liberals’ 2015 election campaign pledged to run $10-billion deficits for three years, followed by a balanced budget in 2019. Instead, Tuesday’s budget doubles down on debt, which Morneau says is about “making sure that every Canadian has a real and fair chance to work, to contribute to our economy, and to succeed.

“This is important not just as a matter of fairness, but as a way to ensure Canada’s long-term growth.”

The government is also implementing "take it or leave it" parental leave of five weeks for spouses of primary caregivers. That means that husbands of women who take maternity leave will be offered five weeks of paternity leave, which they cannot transfer to their spouse.

It means adding an extra five weeks to the existing 35 weeks of parental benefits, which can currently be used in total by just one spouse. The idea is to lower the disproportionate rate of women opting for parental leave, who then fall behind in taking up management roles.

The benefits will cover up to 55 per cent of a parent’s earnings; a similar Quebec policy covers 70 per cent. Ottawa’s plan will cost $1.2 billion over five years.

Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the pay gap is particularly important in the Prairies, with cities such as Winnipeg attracting a disproportionately high amount of young families.

He said the national policy could give provinces the data and popular will to implement their own policies and avoid union grievances. "Finally, we’d be able to close the gap, and it would not be a litigious process," Yussuff said.

The government is elevating Status of Women Canada from an agency within the Heritage Department into its own, full-fledged department that goes beyond leading roundtables and issuing grants for non-profits.

It will now be tasked with eventually closing the gender pay gap in federally regulated workplaces. Nationally, that gap amounts to women making an average 12 cents less per dollar than men.

Ottawa will task federal departments and agencies with targets, mandatory reporting and a new online system that better discloses federal wages and gaps (though the Privacy Act would obscure an individual employee’s salary).

The Liberals hope the changes it makes to the sectors it oversees — such as the military, the Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg and airport security — will prod provinces to follow suit.

The vast majority of workplaces in Manitoba fall under provincial regulation, and the province has not followed Ontario and Quebec in pledging legislation to monitor or reverse the pay gap.

Craig Alexander, the Conference Board of Canada’s chief economist, said the budget is “a very constructive approach” to insulating the country from looming blows caused by the aging baby-boomer generation, by getting more Canadians working.

"I think what the government is struggling with is… the pace of economic growth is going to slow on a trend basis, and the reason why it’s slowing is because of demographics."

Alexander said the government previously tinkered with tax rates to get more revenue out of high earners, and may now find more success by getting more people into the job market.

"I would argue the most effective way to deal with income inequality in Canada is to remove barriers to opportunity," he said.

The budget held off on demands to boost child-care funding, and posted $50 million over five years for journalism upstarts, amid calls by some legacy media for assistance. It does put up funding to get more women into science and trades, and to improve Indigenous education.

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The Liberals have uncorked $3.2 billion over five years for Canadian scientists, and another $1.3 billion in that time period to meet a United Nations goal to protect 17 per cent of land and inland waters.

Meanwhile, the government is also forming an "Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare," though Morneau said he wasn’t sure whether that would mean a tangible proposal in next year’s budget, or even next October’s election campaign.

The New Democrats have long pushed for a national policy to protect the estimated one in 10 Canadians who can’t afford the drugs they’re prescribed.

Selkirk-area MP James Bezan said Manitoba is still waiting to see tangible results from the Liberals’ past two budgets, such as infrastructure upgrades.

“This is another big-spending budget that is not actually getting any results,” the Tory MP said. “I think it’s extremely high-risk to keep piling on the deficit.”

But Morneau fended off criticisms that the Liberals have broken their pledge to balance the budget by next year.

“We’ve shown to Canadians that making investments in them, making investments to allow more Canadians to be working, has exactly the positive impact that we want it to have,” he told reporters.

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dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca