You’d think a law aimed at eliminating the gender wage gap in Ontario by allowing men and women doing similar work to compare their compensation would be a self-evidently good thing.

And not just for women, who currently earn on average close to a third less than men, but for their families and the economy.

So why then, just in time for International Women’s Day, has the Ford government handed women a lump of coal by announcing it is delaying the introduction of the Pay Transparency Act?

The reasons given by Labour Minister Laurie Scott are many. But none of them holds water.

Indeed, it appears more and more that the Progressive Conservatives are delaying women’s access to fair wages simply because they’re willing to throw women under the bus to curry favour with their friends in business.

First, Scott says the former Liberal government passed the legislation without consultation, so now the PCs must do it.

In fact, the Gender Wage Gap Steering Committee, established by former premier Kathleen Wynne, held year-long consultations on the legislation that included 14 town hall meetings across the province plus “meets” with local businesses, organizations and experts before issuing a detailed report and recommendations.

How Scott could forget that seems strange, considering she was one of the PC representatives on the Standing Committee on Social Policy which, itself, held hearings on the Pay Transparency Act.

Second, a quick glance at the PCs’ consultation questions suggests they are designed to elicit what the Ford government wants to hear so it has an excuse to water down the legislation.

After all, the “consultation” is not asking women: “How does earning 30 per cent less than a man impact your ability to pay bills, educate your children, pay for housing and retire?”

Instead it is asking business owners questions such as: “How many hours do you anticipate pay transparency reporting will take in total?”

(Not many, as it turns out. This is basic payroll information that every employer has at their fingertips, Fay Faraday of the Equal Pay Coalition points out.)

Third, Scott professes concern that the act, as it stands, may be too “onerous” for businesses (as if trying to pay bills while earning 30 per cent less than men isn’t onerous for women). After all, she says, the government wants to send a message “that Ontario is open for business.”

In fact, the reporting requirements for Ontario businesses — which, even as it stands, won’t fully kick in until 2021 — are far from onerous compared to those in some other countries.

For example, in Iceland, a country where the pay gap is a mere 5.7 per cent, legislation actually puts the onus on employers to prove they are paying men and women equally. If they aren’t, the government will shame them.

Further, businesses in other countries that have already adopted pay transparency laws, such as Australia, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the United Kingdom, have managed to adapt. Is the Ford government suggesting Ontario businesses aren’t as nimble as their counterparts in those countries?

Fourth, if Scott is truly concerned about the impact the Pay Transparency Act will have on business, as she says, she need only take the time to review studies that suggest closing the pay gap would actually boost the economy. This is far from a new thought: a 14-year-old report from the Royal Bank, for example, found closing the gap would generate $168 billion (some $213 billion today) in new economic activity every year in Canada.

The reality is the Pay Transparency Act would boost the economy, not “burden” businesses, while simply giving women a tool to enforce their right to equal pay for the same work.

It would do so by requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings and track wages by gender and diversity. Most importantly, employers would have to post annual reports of the tracking results online, where employees could find them, and submit them to the ministry which would also make them publicly available.

In other words, employers paying men more than women for the same work would be outed.

That simple move is expected to rapidly cut the wage gap by half, based on experience elsewhere in the world.

That’s not too shabby, considering the gap has been stubbornly stuck at around 30 per cent for the past 30 years.

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The gap hasn't budged even as women achieve higher levels of education and increase their numbers in formerly male-dominated job categories. In fact, even in career fields dominated by women, such as nursing, men still make more.

What is patently clear — apparently to everyone outside of the Ford government — is that nothing short of full transparency will close the gap.

In 2019 it’s time to give the go-ahead to the Pay Transparency Act and prove Ontario is open for business, but not for discrimination.

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