I want to go back to the issue of pay transparency and pay equity. They were coming up on the anniversary of Equal Pay Day, April 16—and that day represents how far into the next year women have to work to earn what the average man earns in the previous year. So we have a long way to go when it comes to closing the gender gap, and this bill does not help in any way.

In fact, I would like to say that the Equal Pay Coalition had this to say at committee—and you were at committee: “Bill 149 does not advance these protections” for women. “It leaves women vulnerable to employers lowballing their pay while the fig leaf of Bill 149 shields their actual discriminatory pay practices from view.”

So I also would like to know why this government has not enacted the legislation or why this government thinks that women don’t see that this is simply just fluff when it comes to their real need to increase their real earnings to put real food on the table for their real children in this province.