With barely 48 hours notice, Freedom Party president Robert Metz and vice-president Lloyd Walker were on their way to Queen's Park in Toronto to present their prepared brief to Ontario's Standing Committee on Administration of Justice.

The subject? Ontario's controversial Bill 154: "An Act to provide for Pay Equity in the Broader Public Sector and in the Private Sector."

Unprecedented in the western world, Ontario's pay equity law is intended to force employers to take the initiative in implementing "pay equity," which is defined strictly in sexual terms and along arbitrary categories created by government bureaucrats and politicians. Personal fines of up to $2,000 and corporate fines of up to $25,000 are the coercive tools that the government intends to use to create an economic illusion that Ontario's three major political parties are hoping will translate into votes in the upcoming provincial election.

As a consequence of that political objective, Ontario employers will now be expected --- or rather, forced --- to place their values on the jobs they create, not on the people they employ.

To those affected, the Act will prohibit the valuing of individual employees, and instead force employers to treat them all "equally" by predetermining the "value" of the jobs they do and paying them all the same rate for a particular function or job.

Under Bill 154, individual worth and initiative will be replaced by a bureaucratic, impersonal, costly, and wasteful system that ultimately has only one objective purpose intended: state control of private business and of the economy. Pay equity's logical, and eventually necessary extension will be price equity.

For female employees in particular, Bill 154 is bad news. By virtue of their sex alone, Bill 154 will place them in a precarious economic situation: Potential employers now know, that in addition to the many concerns, considerations, and headaches already associated with being an employer in this province, that in hiring female employees, they will be faced with the additional threat of personal and corporate fines should their judgement not happen to coincide with that of the government's.

Like the minimum wage laws that keep those whose objective labour value is less than minimum wage unemployed, pay equity laws will begin to place undue political and economic pressure against women, since their employment represents an additional threat to those who employ them. This will, of course, eventually lead to the necessity of government-enforced quotas in the hiring of women, and it shouldn't be too hard to see where that will eventually lead us.

It is with these concerns in mind that Freedom Party took its case against Bill 154 to Queen's Park on February 23, 1987.

Metz opened up with the charge that Bill 154 was entirely based upon an unsupportable premise by addressing the Act's preamble, which reads: "Whereas it is desirable that affirmative action be taken to redress gender discrimination..."

"The goals" (of Bill 154), argued Metz, "are (admittedly) the consequence of a desire, not the consequence of a condition of injustice or of a violation of rights or of any such nature.

"The questions begging to be asked are: desirable by whom, discrimination by whom, towards whom, and with what unjust effects, and supported by what objective evidence? Since when has simple desire become justification for violating individual rights and denying individual freedom of choice?

"How is it that the mere existence of 'economic inequality' proves gender discrimination?" challenged Metz. "The fact that this bill is even being seriously considered by our legislators verifies that, for them, the end justifies the means, even if those means violate our individual rights and freedoms to a terrifying extent."

Where Metz dealt with the basic philosophic and political premise of Bill 154, Walker dealt with the economic and social implications it would have. His presentation focussed on the unintended but natural consequences of Bill 154 and similar government legislation ranging from rent controls to free trade.

"To put it bluntly," insisted Walker, "government controls, like the road to hell, are paved with good intentions, but good intentions are not enough. No matter what good is intended, a law must be judged on its treatment of all citizens and the results of that treatment."

Walker demonstrated how Bill 154 would give employers good reason not to hire women, and thus would make women victims of the very legislation that was intended to benefit them. His argument was based on the realization that relatively free individuals, when faced with government restrictions and controls, will find and create alternatives to get around government legislation (i.e., investing in something other than rental accomodations when faced with rent controls), which in turn would contribute to the creation of consequences opposite to those intended by legislators.

It was clear that the consistent, rational arguments put forth by Metz and Walker caught committee members completely off guard. Chairman Andy Brandt (MPP, PC), recognizing the philosophic consistency of Freedom Party's position, challenged the party's position on minimum wage laws and used an entirely Marxist-based assumption that employer-employee relationships that are not government controlled are situations of exploitation, irrespective of any voluntary agreements or arrangements that may privately exist between employers and their employees. Brandt seemed particularly confident in his assertion that "exploitation", which he blatantly avoided defining, has "been looked upon by all three of our parties as being totally unacceptable to us."

If nothing else, at least that answered the question about whose desire it was that affirmative action be taken to equalize wages paid within certain job classifications. All three parties were obviously in agreement on asserting their mutual "desire." But it was Brandt's concluding comments that verified Freedom Party's assertions and fears:

"The question is," said Brandt, after dismissing any objective standards to determine employee value, "where do we evolve to from here? That is what Bill 154 is all about."

Where do we go from here?

It's fairly obvious where the government is heading --- towards state control of the labour market, and Bill 154 is but one piece of legislation in the over-all process.

For Freedom Party, and for those committed to the principles of individual rights and economic freedom, the task is a formidable one. It begins with education and ultimately, in the best interests of all, must end with a political victory on the side of freedom of choice and freedom of association.

YOU can help.

Copies of Freedom Party's 13-page submission to Ontario's Standing Committee on Administration of Justice are available by contacting us at our feedback page. Help spread the word. Send financial contributions. Tell your friends and aquaintances about Freedom Party and about our web site. Get involved. Make the commitment to support your principles.

Free minds. Free Markets. Freedom Party.

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002