Advocates welcome promised pay equity laws in N.B., but warn some will be left out

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.