HUMA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

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The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.))

Professor Linda Duxbury (School of Business, Carleton University)

The Chair

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King (Associate Director, Research, Centre for Management Effectiveness, Conference Board of Canada)

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Mr. Brian Pallister (Portage—Lisgar, Canadian Alliance)

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

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Mr. Brian Pallister

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Mr. Brian Pallister

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The Chair

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

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Ms. Diane St-Jacques

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Ms. Diane St-Jacques

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Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Lib.)

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Mr. Ovid Jackson

Ms. Judith MacBride-King

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Ovid Jackson

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Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Tony Ianno (Trinity—Spadina, Lib.)

Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Mr. Ovid Jackson

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Mr. Tony Ianno

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Tony Ianno

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Mr. Tony Ianno

Ms. Judith MacBride-King

Mr. Tony Ianno

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Ms. Judith MacBride-King

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

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Mr. Brian Pallister

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Mr. Brian Pallister

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Mr. Brian Pallister

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Mr. Brian Pallister

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Ovid Jackson

Prof. Linda Duxbury

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

Mr. Brian Pallister

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Prof. Linda Duxbury

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 043

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2nd SESSION

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37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order.

    I'd like to welcome everyone to the 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

    We're studying the work-life balance in the federal jurisdiction.

    We are most pleased to have with us today arguably two of the leading experts in this area. With us are Linda Duxbury, who is a professor in the School of Business at Carleton University, and from the Conference Board of Canada, Judith MacBride-King, who is the associate director of research for the Centre for Management Effectiveness.

    Today is a difficult day here on Parliament Hill. Many committees are sitting, and some of them are dealing with legislation that's at the final stage. They've called on a number of members of our committee to assist. What you're giving us today will be on the public record and will be reviewed very carefully by those not in attendance.

    So without further adieu, I will turn the floor over to Ms. Duxbury.

    Professor Linda Duxbury (School of Business, Carleton University): Judith and I are debating who should go first. We know each other quite well. She has a nicely prepared text, but I'll just go on.

    The Chair: Now that you've given me that warning, at what point would you like me to cut off your microphone?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Not at all, actually.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    The Chair: At 10 minutes I'm going to cut you off.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I have only one page. But anybody who has heard me before knows that one page won't hold me back.

    I'm pleased to be here, but I'm hoping that the attendance doesn't reflect how important this subject is to the members of this committee. But as I told the clerk yesterday, I'm extremely cynical, unfortunately, and I do believe that the number of people in the room and the representation from the different parties are a reflection of how important this issue is to politicians. I'm sorry but that's my impression, and it's my right to give my impression.

    The Chair: Yes, it is. It's fair to make an observation.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Unfortunately for you, it's not just my impression. I would say it's an impression shared by the Canadian public.

    This issue of balance is not something that appeared recently on the agenda of Canadians. It has been around for quite a while. If we look at trends, we'll see that things have gotten significantly worse over the past two decades. There has been a lot of rhetoric around this. We are starting the millennium in far worse shape than we were a decade ago and a decade before that.

    I speak from facts, not from impressions. I have been researching this area since 1989. In 1991 we collected data on 37,000 Canadians from across the country, a geographically representative sample. In 2001 we were asked by Health Canada to duplicate the study. In the 1990s there was a lot of talk about balance, being the employer of choice, etc. But in the same time period organizations downsized, restructured, and re-engineered, and many of the employment practices actually went against balance as opposed to supporting it. We have interviewed over 10,000 Canadians within the last three years and over 25,000 Canadians altogether. So I am speaking on the basis of a lot of data.

    In terms of our research, we look at four things when it comes to the work-life conflict. Overload is having too much to do in the amount of time you have to do it in. Interference is having to be in two places doing two different things at exactly the same time, and with interference, work can take priority or family. We look at caregiver strain, which is a new kind of imbalance associated solely with eldercare, and we look at spillover from work to family and from family to work. We know that most spillover is from work to family and that most of it is negative, with fewer than 5% of Canadians ever reporting positive spillover, about 40% being neutral, and close to 60% reporting negative spillover.

    We've done a number of reports. We did a CPRN report a year and a half ago that looked at trends over time. I can tell you unequivocally that Canadians felt more overloaded.

    In 1991 I said, “We're in trouble in Canada. People can't balance. People are stressed”. This is my cynicism. Everybody said, “We'll deal with it”. Since that time, the percentage of people who were overloaded has gone from 40% to 60%. We had one in four with high work interference with family. That has gone up to 35%. We had only 3% saying their family interfered with their ability to do their job. That is now up to 12%. We have gone from virtually nobody with elder caregiver strain to 25% reporting it weekly or more and 15% reporting it daily. We had 30% of people with negative spillover from work to family, and we're up to 55%. In the same time period, in terms of perceived stress, we went from about 45% to close to 60% of people being stressed and one in ten reporting high levels of depression to one in three. When it comes to standard things, such as commitment and emotional attachment to the job, we went from 70% of Canadians committed down to 42%. I could go on. I've given you the documentation from our most recent study. I have a right to be cynical, as do most Canadians.

    From the Health Canada study we produced a report on demands. I can tell you that in 1991, 47% of the workforce worked a 37½-hour week. Now fewer than one in ten are doing that. In 1991, 10% of Canadians worked a 50-hour week or more. It's now up to 27%. Your typical manager is now doing 31 hours of unpaid overtime a month, which is four days of free time donated to work. Similarly for professionals, there are three days of unpaid overtime a month. So work has gone up, as have demands at home.

    We have also produced a report called “In the Voice Of Canadians”. I understand that you had testimony from HRDC. Of the 33,000 people who filled out our survey, almost one in three wrote comments. That report contains some of the things they had to say.

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    We just produced a report on the link between work-life conflict and negative impacts on work, society, the family, and the employee.

    I can give you the websites for all of these if you need them.

    The next one, which is due out in November, will be a political nightmare for many because it links work-life imbalance and costs to the health care system. It shows unequivocally that we are pouring money into the health care system, but maybe if we focused more on balance, etc., we would be able to reduce costs.

    Also, a report coming out on November 19 will look at which is the best and worst place to work in Canada. There are very strong regional differences. I assume, Ms. St-Jacques, that you are from Quebec. Quebec is stunningly better than the next closest province, which shows that social policy does make a difference. Where are the rest of the provinces and the federal government in terms of social policy?

    Next year there will be two more topics, who's at risk and what can be done.

    Over the decade things have gotten significantly worse no matter how we look at it. Work-life conflict is hurting Canada's ability to be competitive. It's hurting employees in terms of increased stress, increased depression, and lower satisfaction with their lives. We've seen life satisfaction decline by 12% over the decade. It's hurting families. Family well-being is associated with it, and that has declined. Family satisfaction has declined. It's hurting employers. We indicated in our most recent report that absenteeism, costing $6 billion to $10 billion a year, can be associated with just two forms of work-life conflict: overload and caregiver strain.

    There's a lower rate of commitment. We can make you come to work, but we can't buy your passion. People say, “If you don't treat us appropriately and you make us choose, we might come in, but we don't care about you”. The drop in commitment has been the strongest in terms of the federal government as an employer. Job satisfaction has declined. Retirement on the job is associated with work-life imbalance. That means I come in, but I don't give you my heart and soul. In terms of Canadian society, our data unequivocally show that health care costs are strongly associated with this, including the cost of hospital stays, visits to the doctor, visits to mental health practitioners, and drug use. Prescription drug use is strongly associated with an inability to balance.

    It's no accident that the birth rate in Canada is going down. For 20 years we've said it's your choice. The work-life balance is your problem. You decided to have kids, so you deal with it. It's not our issue. Now people are deciding not to have kids. The people who are deciding that are your managers and professionals. We just finished doing a study with 300 women on the decision to have kids. There's a very strong association there.

    It's no longer a women's issue, and I think we have to make that very clear. We've paid so little attention to it because it was a women's issue. But the biggest increases in stress and imbalance are in our male population. Women have been messed up for two decades now. With employment equity, we're working on screwing up our men, and we're actually doing a pretty good job. Not that I have opinions on any of this. But my opinions are informed. I want to be very clear here.

    The biggest increase is in eldercare. Eldercare is a major problem, and it's the tip of the iceberg. There are no supports out there to deal with it.

    The government's approach to balance, if it has one, has been on child care, early childhood education, etc. Our data show that it's a U-shaped function. Your maximum stress is when your children are young, but when you have teenagers, it's extremely stressful as well, and there's no support there.

    We also are seeing a phenomenon called the sandwich generation, as managers and professionals of both genders delay having kids until their thirties, and their own parents are older as well.

    So I want to make it clear that it's not women and it's not child care. Our data show that close to 80% of Canadians have either child care, eldercare, or both kinds of issues.

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    The Chair: I don't want to stop you--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I'm almost done.

    The Chair: --but before you finish, perhaps you could give us some thoughts about how we might improve things, particularly in the federally regulated sector. I would be very pleased to hear that.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I do want to establish that a lot of Canadians are looking to the government for something tangible. Many Canadians are very cynical. This is a huge issue for everybody. We can hand out a huge survey and get a great response rate, with all kinds of people giving comments.

    It's due to work. It's not due to home. Our data would suggest it's five times more likely to be work related than non-work related. If it's work related, it's due to three things. Workload is number one, and that's where you can play a role. It's also due to the management culture and working for a jerk.

    The Chair: We're not disagreeing.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: When we first started in 1991, we were looking for policies that made a difference. We found that policies don't make a difference in many cases, such as when you do in fact work for a jerk. You can work for the best company in the world. The federal public service has great policies, but it's the practice that's important.

    Not all forms of work-life conflict are equally problematic. The two that are the most problematic right now are overload, which includes the fact that work is out of control and the expectations of unpaid overtime, and eldercare, which is a very big issue.

    I think that policies are not going to fix it immediately. But without thinking about it too much, I can think of several that would make a difference. In terms of the federally legislated sector, I don't know if tax policy falls within your mandate.

    The Chair: Give us your recommendations, and we'll sort out whom they belong to.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: A lot of people would like their significant other to be able to stay at home for one or two years with young children. You can subtract day care costs. But if your spouse stays home, you're penalized in terms of your income. Many people say that's not right.

    In terms of legislation, we need five personal days a year. That's time people can take off, and they don't have to explain what it's for. I don't want it to be associated with child care or eldercare because that creates divisiveness in the workforce. I think we need to recognize that no matter what stage of the life cycle you are at, you might have something that will require you to stay home. If you have to go through your manager, you might not get it even though it's on the books, because there are a lot of barriers to getting it.

    I think we need to have a federally legislated referral service for both child care and eldercare. I think the government needs to pay as much attention to eldercare issues. Compassionate leave is a fabulous first step, but I think it should be expanded even more. It's going to be very problematic. I'm not sure that the amount of time is going to be sufficient to deal with the real nature of this issue.

    It wasn't until I looked at the data by province that I could see what a difference social policy makes. By the way, that should stay within the confines of this room because that information will not be released until next month.

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    The Chair: It has been released now. You're on the record. This is a public meeting.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I think it's important, though, in this context to recognize that social policy does make a difference. I would encourage the federal government to take a more proactive stand in terms of social policy.

    I also think we need to legislate pro-rated benefits for part-time work and guarantee that if people work part-time, after x amount of time they can come back into the workforce. Many people feel that if they go to part-time work, they'll never get back in in terms of full-time work.

    That took a bit longer than eight minutes, but that's as quickly as I can talk.

    The Chair: That's quite all right. I suspect you're going to have time to expand on some of those elements when the question period starts.

    Ms. MacBride-King.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King (Associate Director, Research, Centre for Management Effectiveness, Conference Board of Canada): Madam Chair, I have some formal comments, and I will build on what Linda has said. I think they're complementary, actually. You couldn't have planned it better.

    The Conference Board has been focusing on this issue for over 15 years. We began looking at the issue in 1988-89.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: In fact, you did the first study.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: Yes, and we raised issues that Linda talked about. In 1988-89 we talked about eldercare being a sleeping giant and about the changing demographics. We talked about the aging population and the implications of that, such as an older workforce and the sandwich generation. So I concur with what Linda has said.

    We were the first organization to undertake a national study on work-life from the perspective of both individuals and organizations. In terms of what we've seen in organizations over time, I'd like to share with you trends and also some suggestions in terms of the public service as an employer and what needs to be done.

    I have a list of various initiatives we've undertaken, which I will submit formally. I've provided them as a means of indicating our credentials and introducing my formal comments on some of the trends we're seeing and some of my thoughts on where we need to go.

    As you have heard from my esteemed colleague Linda Duxbury and will hear from Nora Spinks, Donna Lero, and others, Canadians are finding it more difficult to juggle their various roles. In 1999 we repeated a study we did in 1988-89, and we found the same sorts of things. Stress rates are up. Individuals are indicating they're having more difficulty juggling their various roles--their paid work responsibilities and their interests and responsibilities in their communities and at home.

    As Linda mentioned, for those who are overwhelmed and highly stressed, the consequence, as we and others have learned, can be ill health, sleeplessness, attention deficit, and feelings of inadequacy, all of which from an employer's point of view can turn to poor productivity at work, a greater level of absenteeism, more cases of long-term disability, increased errors on the job, and higher health costs. When we speak to employers, they tell us that their health costs are increasing anywhere from 12% to 15% per year. There are a lot of reasons for that. But they're also telling us that a key reason is increased utilization on the part of their employees as a result of an aging workforce and increasing stress levels. That's a message that resounds across the country. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, this isn't good news for individuals, their families, and their employers.

    We do an annual survey, by the way, of employers' practices. We ask some key questions in order to keep a temperature check on what employers are doing across the country with regard to work-life. It's this I'm going to draw on. These are data we have collected since our first study.

    At the 10,000-foot level, from where we normally capture our data, the organizational response with regard to work-life looks good on paper. We're seeing an increase in the number of organizations that indicate they offer some form of support to individuals with families and other responsibilities and interests outside the workplace. More today versus 10 to 15 years ago have implemented specific policies and practices that are intended to help Canadians better manage their paid and non-paid responsibilities. More offer alternative work arrangements of various types, and we can talk more about that. More offer child care support in some form. Information referral, because it's easy to offer, I would argue, has seen a huge increase. The percentage of organizations that offer that for child care is way up. The percentage of organizations that provide supports for those who provide care for elderly or infirm family members, paid and unpaid sabbaticals, and some form of proactive health-related support through broad health promotion and wellness initiatives is also up.

    Our survey also shows that for public sector organizations, particularly governments, it looks really good on paper. As employers, governments do tend to offer a number of initiatives, more so than organizations in the private sector, although I would say you're in a real race with the financial service industry and others because they also provide a number of benefits.

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    Yet it's also equally clear that programs and policies alone, while important, are only one part of the mix. These programs, I would argue, are merely the price of entry toward becoming an employer of choice, which is a term we're all tired of. This is important and will be increasingly important as the race for talent speeds up.

    The Conference Board has recently released its annual report card on Canada's social and economic performance. We talk specifically about the effects of an aging population on the workplace and having to look globally for talent in the future. This brings up the subject of diversity, which is another area we have been focusing on quite a bit.

    It has been our contention for several years now that organizations also need to focus on the work side of the work-life equation. It was quite sexy early on to focus on the family side, and then you did something quickly. As Linda indicated, a lot of organizations indicated that was child care, and it had to be an on-site child care centre. We've moved in lots of other directions. They need to focus on the work environment overall and the quality of the work experience if they want to ensure that people are and remain healthy and productive on the job.

    A quality workplace, a healthy workplace, a family-friendly workplace, or a worker-friendly workplace is not just about having policies and programs. It goes far beyond that. Building a healthy workplace is about focusing on how work and the workplace are organized, how work is delegated, how much control people have over what they do and where they do it, how people are rewarded and recognized for the efforts they expend on the job, and how well people are led, the quality of their leadership, which Linda spoke about. It's about fairness and respect.

    This will give you an indication of where I would suggest you focus. From my perspective, a first step toward the creation of a healthy, high-performing workplace is to get it right up front. That is, the creation of these highly desired workplaces begins with selecting the right staff for the right jobs, selecting staff with the appropriate skills and competencies to do the jobs for which they are applying or being considered. As Marcus Buckingham and his colleague wrote in their book First, Break All the Rules, casting is everything. Poor selection processes can mean higher stress levels for individuals and more time spent by them endeavouring to fulfill the job requirements where there's an inappropriate fit, where they may not have the skills and competencies to do the work they've been asked to do. This also translates into difficulty in juggling various responsibilities. It translates into job dissatisfaction, poor health, and poor outcomes for the employer.

    Second--actually, there is quite a list, but I've just zeroed in on a couple--it's essential that organizations focus on what really counts, the critical areas that will make a difference in individual and organizational performance and health and well-being.

    What does count? I want to answer that by mentioning some of the impressive work being done in Canada by Dr. Martin Shain of the University of Toronto and others. This work has its genesis in research carried out in the public sector in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, what's known as the Whitehall studies. Since the Whitehall studies, Dr. Shain and others have provided impressive evidence of the correlation between, for example, employee health and how work is organized, how it's carried out, how it's supported, and how it's rewarded and recognized. Dr. Shain and others have suggested that the balance between the demands placed on individuals and their ability to control those demands influences health. The balance between the effort people put into their work and the degree to which they're rewarded and recognized for what they do also impacts individual health. There's solid evidence to support that. The degree of support that employees receive in managing both those dimensions--demand and control, effort and reward--has an impact on people's abilities to cope with their lives and on their health.

    Through our extensive review of the relevant academic and organizational studies on employee engagement as well as from a group of organizations we're working with on that topic, we know that factors such as rewards and recognition; a perception of fairness and justice in the workplace; a perception that the organization is supportive of employees, including in the ways we are talking about today; and the quality of leadership and management are all significant predictors of employee engagement. This means keeping people excited and passionate about the work in the public sector, which is what you want to do. But these items I've just mentioned as predictors of employee engagement are also, as I've indicated, while borrowing from Dr. Shain and others, significant predictors of health. If you focus on the right things, you ensure productivity of individuals and a passion about what they do. It's a win-win situation.

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    I believe it's critical that organizations enter the employment game with a basic menu of work-life supports. That's the entry level. That's the ticket to get you in the door and to be attractive to anyone looking for work. But our work and that of others suggests very strongly that is not enough. If you do not do anything about the rest--the quality of the workplace, the work experience, and the work culture--you'll lose the battle for better health and a better work-life balance among staff. And, ladies and gentlemen, I would argue that you'll lose the battle for talent and for a more effective public service. So I do think it's important that you focus on those things that matter.

    I cheated. I took eight minutes. So on that note, I will close.

    The Chair: You took 11 minutes and 21 seconds, but it was riveting.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: That's good.

    The Chair: I only know that because I'm watching this clock.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Pallister.

    Mr. Brian Pallister (Portage—Lisgar, Canadian Alliance): Where to begin? Convince me that you've taken into account in these statistics you've cited the fact that our workforce is aging, the likelihood that people's ability to adapt to change may be somewhat constricted as they age, and that they're more likely to be sick as they get older. The morbidity statistics will increase as the population ages. Tell me that you've taken all that into account and that we're not overstating the problem.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The sickest group in the workforce right now, the highest users of benefits, and the group with the greatest absenteeism are those between the ages of 35 and 45, not older workers.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I will attempt not to dispute in any way, shape, or form the nature of the problem we're discussing, but I want to make sure we're cognizant of the reality of the circumstances we face as a country. We have the highest percentage of people retired from our workforce than we've ever had. I'm a 45-year-old guy watching my friends and family members retire, and they have a life of leisure over there on the side, which wasn't the case 25 years ago. I see that all the time, all that leisure out there. Isn't that likely to be a contributing factor to my sense of stress in the workplace? The challenges I have to face in balancing work and leisure surely increase dramatically when I see all my friends having more leisure than I do. Isn't there a reality here that our society is changing and the nature of what we used to find satisfactory and acceptable in terms of our work life is changing along with it?

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    Prof. Linda Duxbury: That's possible. But it used to be that people got a lot of joy out of their job. I get a lot of joy out of my job because I feel that I'm contributing and that I make a difference.

    We are seeing a phenomenon called retirement on the job. Statistics Canada has reported the same thing. We used to see that as you got older, your life satisfaction went down because your health was poor, you knew you had to retire, and you didn't want to, but your commitment, loyalty, and love of your organization went up. We are now seeing the reverse phenomenon. As you get older, your life satisfaction goes up, but your organizational commitment goes down. I am also supervising several pieces on generational differences in the workforce. When you talk to veterans, who are in their sixties, and to baby boomers, you hear people say, “I still want to make a difference. I've tried and tried, but I'm giving up in order to preserve my health”.

    While I see what you're saying, my experience and my data would suggest that in many cases people want to give something back, and they want to love their job. They spend a lot of time on their job. It's the work environment that has turned a lot of people away.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: But that contradicts what Judith has said, which is that the trends are positive in many respects.

    I want to give a specific example to clarify this, rather than get into generalities. You said earlier in your comments, Linda--and I am not trying to be trite here, so don't misunderstand me--that better managers, eldercare, less work, and more time off are things we could do to help.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Not less work, but a reasonable amount of work.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I agree. I think that's a fair observation.

    You mentioned eldercare as a major contributing factor.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It is.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: We have more people with parents they need to care for than ever before.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: That's right.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I want to be sure that the trends you're talking about here--

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: I'd like to speak to that. I'm not talking about the trends. From an individual point of view, our data support Linda's finding that people are increasingly stressed out. The more responsibilities they have in their community and at home, the greater degree of stress and the greater impact in the workplace. For example, those who have child care and eldercare responsibilities indicated higher levels of stress. Those with higher levels of stress had more health problems on the job, were more likely to have sleepless nights, and so on and so forth. So I think we're in agreement on the data on an individual basis.

    It's the organizational data where we've seen some difference, such as organizations indicating that they have some form of initiatives. For example, the percentage of organizations that indicate they have a flexible start and finish time with core work hours has gone up phenomenally. The percentage that allow telecommuting went from 11% in 1989 to almost 50% now. There are all sorts of reasons for that. When people use these by choice, they can be very helpful. What we learned is that while a number of organizations have these things on paper, they're not being translated into reality in the organization. I hope you understood that to be my point. There are increased pressures from the top to be more productive and from the bottom to be more flexible. Managers in organizations are feeling that pressure.

º  (1610)  

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I'd like to add something.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Let's say we answered this with that.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I want to go back to what you were saying. We live in incredibly different social times right now. You're 100% right. We have the dual-income family. The traditional family, where the male is the breadwinner and the wife stays at home, is the case for less than 10% of Canadians. It's because of this huge social shift that balance is a problem. We've had this social shift for 25 years, but we haven't seen the social policy shift to adjust to the differences in our society. We didn't have this eldercare issue. We had a wife at home to look after that. We're never going back to a traditional family structure. We have to change our legislation to reflect our workforce, not what used to be our workforce or what we think might be our workforce again. Right now there is a very large disconnect between what our workforce looks like and what our policies state.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Your 2001 survey--I'm not sure of the other one--is at odds with Statistics Canada's labour force survey with regard to the proportion of employees who actually work 50 or more hours. They're saying that went from 8.7% in 1991 to 9.1% in 2001. You're saying one in four.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Their workforce survey covers all employees. My study focuses on organizations employing 500 or more.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Thanks for that clarification. That helps me.

    Is there a reason you didn't deal with small business?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I didn't put it in here. We've done two big studies on work-life in small business. It's an incredibly difficult task. For 100 companies employing 500 or more, I can get a sample pretty easily. My small business sample was very difficult to get.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I understand that.

    We talked earlier about this. Would it be fair to say you found that generally there was somewhat more worker satisfaction in a smaller environment? I'm going back to Judith's comment about the sense of control that may come with a smaller team.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The small business sector is quite different. It all depends on who the owner of the small business is. If the owner gets it, it's the best place to work in Canada, unequivocally. If the owner doesn't get it, it's the worst place because there's no place to hide.

    The Chair: Thank you. I suspect we'll pick up on that again.

    Diane.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I listened to your comments and of course, you talked a great deal about statistics. For some years now, people have been talking about having more leisure time. However, I have the impression that people are working even harder these days.

    Talk to anyone in the public or even in the private sector. People are putting in long hours every week. It seems that there aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done. We plan our schedule but often, we barely manage to tackle 50 per cent of the tasks on our list.

    Quite apart from what you've said, I have to wonder if all of the new technology merely places an additional burden on people. First came faxes, and then computers. Before, we responded via mail. Now, feedback is instantaneous, and that's still not fast enough. Isn't it a fact that people are stressed out by the need to perform constantly? Do you take this into account when conducting your analyses?

º  (1615)  

[English]

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: Perhaps I could go first. I think Linda has more quantitative data. We've actually done quite a bit of work with organizations in looking at this issue in the public and private sectors. Increased workload or overwhelming workload is a problem in both the public and private sectors, as you know.

    One of the key areas has to do with increased technology. In some cases it has to do with the implementation of new technologies without giving people the proper training, so they're stumbling around and trying to learn. It has to do with the inappropriate use of that technology and an increase in our expectations. For example, I can send you an e-mail, but now I can attach five different things. My expectation is that you'll respond to me in 10 minutes, by 8 o'clock tomorrow, or whatever. The point is that our expectations as individuals have increased as well. We send an e-mail with lots of attachments, and often we don't give people in organizations enough time to review it and reflect and do what they need to do.

    In response to your question, I would say that increased technology, while it was supposed to save us, has in fact in many cases been a key problem. That's why lots of organizations are now focusing on that. They're looking at developing simple tools to help people understand how to use technology. They're trying to make sure their technology speaks to one another so that it doesn't cause a lot of useless work, if you like, or non-value-added work in the organization. They're developing protocols for e-mails, etc. So they're doing a number of things to try to deal with that. That's a very good question.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: In our most recent survey we included a question on that: do you have e-mails, cellphones, or laptops? If so, what impact has it had? The choices we gave were increase, no impact, and decrease. Almost everybody had it, and 72% said it increased their workload, and 70% said it increased their stress. But 68% said it had made their job more interesting, and 66% said it had made them more productive. A third said it had increased their balance, and a third said it had decreased their balance.

    We got funding, and we're now in the midst of a study called the work extension technology study, where we're looking at all of these things. In the document entitled “In the Voice of Canadians”, there is a whole section on technology, including some lovely quotes from people on technology and its impact. It's a big issue. It's part of the organizational culture that you're now available 24/7.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: You stated that in terms of the work force, Quebec was a model. You also spoke of the social fabric. Can you give us some concrete examples of things Quebec does better than other provinces?

    Surely you've also looked at studies of what's being done in other countries that have succeeded in enhancing people's quality of life, from both a professional and a personal standpoint. Are these examples that we could build on to find ways of improving the work environment in the public service?

[English]

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I don't want to get into that because that information has not been released. That was my stupidity.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Sorry.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It will come out in three weeks.

    The Chair: You will find out how well people are monitoring the work of this committee.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I do believe that because Quebec goes beyond talk to actual legislation, it makes a difference. I think that gives people permission to push back. It is an optic thing that makes a huge difference. The $5-a-day day care goes beyond talking about how important children are to concretely manifesting importance. Bringing up the four-day work week, while it didn't happen, gave people permission to discuss it. I think that makes a big difference.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Do we have any examples of initiatives that have been taken in other countries to improve the quality of life?

[English]

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: This is not just a Canadian issue. In the last couple of months I've been in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was just in Bermuda. They have 100% employment in Bermuda right now. They're concerned about how they will get additional people, and balance is one thing they're looking at. Balance is becoming a recruitment and retention tool. We know that balance is important to our knowledge workers and our younger generation. So it is becoming a competitive thing.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: What are they doing differently to achieve this success?

[English]

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Denmark has a whole different social structure. They have crèches. People are entitled to stay home for x number of years. When they come back, nobody says that they're lazy. It's a cultural thing. It's a matter of saying we're supporting them staying at home versus they're doing the important work of raising a child. When we pay day care workers in Canada less than we pay parking lot attendants, that tells you how much we value certain kinds of things. It's hard to change that, because it's a cultural thing.

º  (1620)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: It comes back to what you were talking about earlier, namely the fact that while we have good policies, the problem lies in the way they are applied. We need to change not only the application process, but people's mindset as well. This by no means simple task will take more than just a few days to accomplish.

[English]

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: This is going to take quite a while. It's going to take a cultural shift. They always say that you're in a period of turbulence when your demographics and social framework are out of sync with the rest of your society. The dual-income family, with both partners working, is a huge social shift. We've made that shift on the family front, but we haven't yet made that shift as a society. We still look at it as if people are doing this to buy a BMW and a wide-screen TV, when the reality is that one in three families would drop below the low-income cut-off if one partner stayed home. StatsCan did a study that said it takes 72 weeks of paid labour to support a family of two grown-ups and two kids. There are 52 weeks in a year, and 72 weeks are required. We have to recognize that this is not for the wide-screen TV. This has to do with basic standard-of-living issues. So we have to start shifting how we view this whole thing. In Scandinavia they've made that shift. Men actually take parental leave.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Yes, but we're getting there. We've made considerable progress by extending parental leave to one year. We're getting there.

[English]

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It's coming. But we have to give people permission.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: It's a changing of culture.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It's a huge shift.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Do I have time for another question?

[English]

    The Chair: No, your time is up.

    Mr. Jackson.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Lib.): Are we living in a time warp?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: That's a good way of saying it. I'm going to steal that and use it in the future. Yes, we are. We're living the Beaver Cleaver family when the wife is not at home any more making the cookies.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Who's coping in this environment?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Richer people are coping better. To go back to what we talked about earlier, money doesn't buy you happiness, but it sure helps you buy social services, fast food, restaurant meals, a cleaning service, etc. So money does help.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Is the family suffering with this shift from the extended family to the nuclear family?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Our data would suggest that family adjustment and perceived family well-being from the point of view of the employer are suffering. Women are spending more time on child care, etc., but are feeling more guilty, while men spend less time but feel okay about it. So we are seeing some of these social things. I've only looked at family functioning from the employee's point of view. But look at the divorce rate, etc. Most of those indicators would suggest there are problems.

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: I'm a high school teacher by profession, and based on my observations, I felt that the women were coping better. I taught shop, and I found that as we shifted from the old-fashioned type of car to one that is more complicated, the women were the best students. They were the ones who could fix the cars. The guys wanted to do the macho stuff. They're in a time warp as well. They're waiting for these macho kinds of jobs. The marriages are not happening, and the women are getting a little tired. They move on with their lives. So to me they're coping better.

    Should we have more women in Parliament? Would that change things?

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: It might. A critical mass is important.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: This balance thing probably has a huge impact on who decides to run, because this job is not an easy job. I look at the parliamentarians. You guys don't have a life. Who would want that? People who really want some kind of balance are going to selectively not do this. We're seeing--and Judith probably has the same data--that people are refusing promotions. Succession planning is going to be huge because people are saying, “Why would I take $5,000 more to put my life down the tubes?” This has profound implications all over the place. In terms of Parliament itself, it's not just women who want balance. I bet that a lot of younger people with young families would also choose not to run.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: But in general, I think--and you can shoot me down in flames if you like--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I would never do that.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: --that women are more sensitized, and lots of times the right one for a job as principal or something chooses something else. But one thing that's happening is that they're changing the stuff. You want good people to work for you, and these good people are going to demand the way they want to work for you. You're going to find that the women are on top of that, too.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: This is a big problem for the federal public service as an employer. If you don't change, you're not going to get the younger people coming to work for you. That is an issue.

    Mr. Tony Ianno (Trinity—Spadina, Lib.): With the way employment has increased in the last little while, it doesn't seem as if it's a problem yet.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: It will be.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It will be. You can't hide these numbers. They'll go to small business.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: We recently did a study looking at all three levels of government in Canada--municipal, provincial, and federal. These statistics you would know. We looked at the average age of the public servant in all three levels of government and when people were going to go. All three levels of government indicated that by December 31, 2010, 44% of people will be eligible to walk out the door. That's extremely important.

    In our study on recruitment and retention in the public sector, we did do focus groups. They weren't extensive. We didn't do hundreds of them. We had an interesting conversation, which I'd like to share with you. We asked youth in the master's programs in public administration and business administration, community colleges, and technical schools their preference in employment, where they would work, public or private sector. Most would choose the private sector. Most chose the private sector, by the way, because they have a stereotypic view of what it is to work in the private sector and a stereotypic view of what it is to work in the public sector. For them, working in the private sector was sexy, hot, and fast. For the public sector, it was not. Without fail, in every focus group we did--I can't remember the number, but I think there were six or so--at some point someone would raise their hand and say, “I've been thinking about what you asked. Would I work in the public sector or the private sector? I actually would work in the public sector once I got a little older and had a mortgage and kids”.

    That said to me you have all of these policies and programs on paper, but you have to get to the culture of the place. You have to get to a point where people are attracted to work in an environment because they perceive it to be exciting, rewarding, well led, all of those things we talked about, and as providing good support in terms of their own development, etc.

º  (1630)  

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Where they feel valued.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: I thought that was very interesting, and I did want to share it with this committee. It's not scientific. It didn't involve thousands. It involved 50 or 60 youth. But in every case, that hand would go up without fail.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: That brings me back to the super jerk boss. Sometimes people come in with heavy hands. What happens is that all the good guys and gals leave. Then you have to hire them back as consultants, and they do quite well after they get all their benefits.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Do you mean the super jerk boss or the people you hire as consultants?

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: I mean the good people they lose. You tell kids to prepare to be a teacher. Teachers are between, let's say, 55 and 65. Then all of a sudden there's a government policy, and all the good teachers leave. Then you get some people coming in to take their jobs. They have to take pills all the time. They call the old guys back because they're the only ones who can control the class. That's why I'm saying we're living in a time warp.

    They say we're not competitive. We're supposed to be working even harder. Isn't that what some politicians are saying?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Hours in work is a lousy measure of productivity.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: I agree.

    Tell me about this competitiveness.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: We say we're working harder and putting in more hours. Productivity is a U-shaped function. After a certain point, productivity really goes down. People make mistakes, people are absent, and there's drug use, etc.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: There is a silver lining here, which is the New Age, sensitive guys who will share the work with the gals. They're becoming doctors and so on, and they're going to share the work.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I'm married to one now.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Are we still full of testosterone? Are there not enough of us? How's that going?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Many men actually don't want to be like their fathers. One of my students just did a PhD on generational differences in the workforce. We carried out 4,000 interviews with the younger people, and they said two things. One is, “There's no point in being loyal any more. Look what happened to my own parents. They were loyal, and they gave their heart and their soul. They were downsized. I will not do that”. The other thing they say is, “My parents gave priority to work at the expense of family. Look what happened. They got divorced. I'm not going to do that. I'm either not going to have kids, or if I do have a family, I'm going to make them my priority”. They're much more cautious. They've looked at what happened to the boomers, and they're not going to be like us. But they like our music.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Madam Chair, I think I've stirred up enough trouble with this.

    The Chair: I think you did.

    Some hon.members: Oh, oh!

    The Chair: Tony has something that arose out of that.

    Mr. Tony Ianno: On the generational issue, is it not also the age? A 20 year old, whether in high school or just leaving university, will give you one answer, and when they're 30, they'll give another answer, and at 40 they'll give another answer. So in the end it is not so much the time warp that Ovid was talking about, but rather where you are in your life and how that relates. Did you purchase your home yet? How big is your mortgage? All those things go along with it. Eventually, people say, “Maybe I don't need to attain any more. I can pay things off, and I don't have to rush as much”.

    In our family, with two professionals working, we're going at opposite ends. It's not because of the attainment you were talking about. It's basically survival. Even though we do attain lots of goods, it's not for that purpose. We'd love for my wife or myself to stay home and be with the family. But it's impossible in this day and age from our perspective. It's a choice factor, but the choices aren't as clear as they perhaps would have been years ago when you could afford more things and still keep that choice factor going.

º  (1635)  

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: To be very quick about a very complicated thesis--and you might want my student to come in because it is a very interesting thesis--there is always the argument that as you grow up, you change your belief set or there are these strong generational differences in values. A generation is not formed by years. It's in fact formed by what is going on in the environment as you grow up, which shapes your values and what you look for in life.

    The boomers glutted the workforce. There were so many of us that we created a buyer's market, where there were more good people than good jobs. That put the organization in the driver's seat for about 50 years. The attitude was, “If you don't like it, there are lots of people who want your job. If you're not prepared to do this, lots of other people are”. Boomers competed with each other to get promoted.

    The difference now is that for every two jobs coming up, there is going to be one person to take their place, because the boomers had fewer kids than their own parents and then generation X had fewer yet again. So we're moving toward a labour force shortage, especially at the high end, the knowledge end. They don't have the same incentive in the environment to change. I don't think they're going to change.

    Mr. Tony Ianno: Do you also take into account the cultural differences? In Europe their goal is to enjoy life.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Family is very important there.

    Mr. Tony Ianno: There's that very brief story I was once told about a person who attains wealth and goes to a Caribbean island. He watches a fisherman come in with just two fish, and he asks him, “Why don't you buy a bigger boat and have more fish?” The fisherman said, “And then what?” He said, “Then you can come and relax”.

    I think we also have to take into account the cultures internationally.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: I think that will become more important in the future. If you look at our immigration pattern and where our new labour force will come from in the future, you'll see that will become incredibly important. It is important now in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. It is going to be important across the country.

    Mr. Tony Ianno: There isn't much immigration from Europe because they enjoy life.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: To go back to what Brian said earlier, we have to make it so that people don't want to leave the workforce and retire early. We have to make it so that they love coming to work. We can't afford to let the good people leave.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: Madam Chair, I have a 4:45 call, so I'll have to leave soon. Please know that I'm available at any time.

    I have written materials for the committee. If you'd like me to forward that to the clerk, I'd be happy to do so.

    The Chair: There's one thing you might assist us with. You've told us what causes stress and what workplaces need to do to reduce that. I think you understand that a lot of those things can't be legislated. If you work for a jerk, you work for a jerk.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: Absolutely.

    The Chair: If you have good policy, you can't shove it down the throat of an employer who says, “If you don't like it, you're gone, and I don't really care about it”.

    This committee will be struggling with what kinds of things we can put into Part III of the Canada Labour Code, for example, that will help facilitate removing the stress and bringing a better work-life balance. We can appreciate all the things you've been saying. But do we need to do something in labour standards? Linda mentioned that maybe we can do something in terms of tax policy and personal days. What we're looking for from people who have studied this and who certainly understand that there is a problem are things we can do as a government from a legislative perspective.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: I would be happy to provide any other input and comment from afar.

    The Chair: Anything you send in will be distributed and used in our deliberations as we're trying to write a report.

º  (1640)  

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: That's great. Thank you.

    Had I known, I would have been able to provide my thoughts in that context. My approach in coming to you today was to look at it from an organizational point of view, not a legislative point of view.

    The Chair: We appreciate that, and that's extremely helpful. One day when you're on a plane and you're captive there, just jot a few things down.

    Ms. Judith MacBride-King: I will. I wish you all the best as a committee. I think the work you're doing is very important.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The letter I received didn't refer to legislation. A lot of our reports contain stuff on legislation and recommendations. The tax policy thing is huge. I don't know if that comes under your mandate.

    The Chair: We're studying work-life balance. We can certainly make recommendations to government. Those are things we will be considering. Please don't be constrained by what you think is the scope of the committee, because we'll sort that out.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The Government of Canada used to be a model employer, and it was looked on by other people as a model employer.

    The Chair: We had Treasury Board Secretariat here yesterday. They told us that in their surveys, 75% of their employees express a high level of satisfaction and feel that the work-life balance is pretty good.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: How you ask the question will get you a different response. Our study involved 33,000 Canadians. We ask the same questions of the federal public service that we ask all the other sectors. That's not what our data say. Our data say that they are not employers of choice.

    The Chair: In your surveys, is it broken down? I know that it may not be a proper sample size. But can you say employees in this sector, this sector, and that sector?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Yes, I can.

    The Chair: Can you provide the committee with that kind of information?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The report entitled “In the Voice of Canadians” doesn't have that. I did give you an executive summary of our second report.

    The Chair: I have that.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: In every single thing we do, we talk about sector. By far, the worst place to work in Canada right now is in health care. It stands alone. Education is the second worst, by the way. The public sector is nowhere near the private sector. I've given this a lot of thought. Those in the private sector who don't respond and don't behave appropriately go under, so to make the case for change is much easier. You change what you do or you go under. The bad ones go under and better ones come in. But the public service will never go under.

    The Chair: The public service is not only federal. It's provincial and--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I have federal, provincial, and municipal in my sample, and we can break them out.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: What you're saying is that there is a direct correlation between the anticipated length of the career and the degree to which there is disapproval or additional stress. It's almost parallel to the situation between my first date and my marriage, but maybe I shouldn't go there. Isn't that the reality? A higher percentage of people in the public service have a longer career than in the private sector, which is more subject to change and more transitory. Isn't that true?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I will send you the three websites.

    There is absolutely no difference across the sector in terms of tenure of service and years in position, which shocked me. I thought there would be faster turnover, but there is not. So it's not that simple.

    I can send you a deck called “The Public Service as an Employer: How do you Stack Up?” It will be eye-opening for you. The federal public service survey contains questions developed by the federal public service that are not rigorous and don't have benchmarks, psychometrics, or anything. So they can compare themselves to themselves.

º  (1645)  

    The Chair: Once you get that to us, we could then have Treasury Board come in and address it.

    Mr. Pallister tells me that he has four hours' worth of questions.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: As opposed to the comment made earlier, I don't mind being like my dad, actually. My dear departed dad was a very wise man. I treasure my memories of some of the things he said to me. As he got older and the farm started to be more profitable, he made the comment one day, “There are problems with having money, but I had problems with having no money. Give me the problems I have now over the problems I used to have”.

    You alluded earlier to the level of perceived stress. There's good stress and there's bad stress, and the absence of stress is death, I suppose. Trying to avoid stress is like trying to avoid life itself. I want to qualify this by saying I think what people make is correlative to the degree of stress, or whatever terminology you choose to use. The more they make, the greater the flexibility and sense of control over their lives. That would follow. You made the comment that we don't pay people what they're worth. You said it's a reflection of what we value that we pay child care workers so little and parking lot attendants the same amount.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: We pay parking lot attendants more.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Here's a couple. He's a child care worker, and she's a parking lot attendant. They pay, according to the Auditor General, about 30% more into EI than they should be paying, which means that over the last 10 years they unnecessarily contributed several thousand dollars out of their take-home pay to a program--well, not a program at all, because the money wasn't needed for EI. What's missing here is this recognition that the take-home pay, the level of basic costs for people, does have an impact on this. I'd like you to comment on that.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: We use a clinical measure of stress, by the way. The highly stressed people are those above a benchmark that we know is related to cardiovascular disease, etc. What we do know is that the managers and professionals work longer hours, but they make more money. They have more education, more perceived control, etc., and they're less stressed. So it's not all about hours. Your typical clerical person, who works 37½ hours a week, makes significantly less money, and her husband also makes less money, and they are more highly stressed because they can't buy supports. They do everything, whereas people with higher incomes can pay other people to do some of the things. So they get rid of some of the work.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I hear you, and that is where I'm coming from with regard to the EI premiums because they impact most heavily on those people in that lower-income bracket as a percentage of the take-home pay. Obviously, I'm advocating lowering EI premiums, and I want you to say that's a good idea.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: It's nickels and dimes you're taking.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I would say it's something that should be considered.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: They're not nickels and dimes. I'm glad you said that on the record, Ovid, because that's the misunderstanding some of us have, but I don't any more. It's not nickels and dimes. We're talking about $300 a year, which may not sound like much to some of us here, but it is a lot of money to a person--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: It's a lot to these people.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: It is a lot of money, and it needs to be in their hands.

    We talk about microprojects and more latitude, such as days off without reason and compassionate leave, some of the things the government has done that I support, by the way. But lost in the shuffle here is the impact--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Of money.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: --of excessively charging people, unnecessarily and under false pretences, frankly, for their basic costs.

    I've been a promoter of benefits packages for years. Trying to keep the cost down on a properly designed benefits package for working people is an important thing. The correlation between what you get and what you pay for is pretty self-evident to most of us, and it is to working people, too. When we talk about enhancing days off, we're talking about reducing income or we're talking about keeping the income the same and reducing productivity. One of those things has to happen.

    In the private sector, and you've alluded to this, there's a dynamic at work whereby if a company reduces its overall productivity, it is less competitive, and therefore it can employ fewer people or pay less in benefits to the people who work there. I think that people in the private sector understand that. That's not always at work in the public sector. That sense of associating with an output or productivity is difficult to discern sometimes.

    I'm wondering how much of this stuff is out of our hands and more in the hands of collective bargaining, for example. As our labour supply diminishes vis-à-vis the demand for labour, how much of this is going to be dealt with in a collective bargaining environment, where those people who are negotiating for the working people of our country to obtain better benefits, better salaries, and the like are going to have an additional hammer? How much of this is going to happen, as you see it, in any case?

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    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The percentage of the Canadian workforce that's unionized is shrinking yearly. It's not even half of the workforce. So I don't think that--

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I certainly lost employees to the public sector all the time. You have to compete.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The public sector is much more unionized.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: I accept that. But the private sector is not immune from having to compete with the public sector on wages and benefits, so one stresses the other. If you want stress, try to be an employer in a small business environment employing five people, four of whom have taken parental leave at the same time. That's fairly stressful.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: We give people up to five days of absenteeism. That doesn't mean they will take them all. It probably means they won't. But it gives them more control. We have to give people the sense of more control.

    I just thought of another thing that might be useful, and that's legislating cafeteria benefits. The benefits packages in most organizations are based on male breadwinner and wife at home and only one person earning benefits, and they all tend to have the same thing. They assume that you only have one set of needs forever, which includes eye glasses, dental benefits, pension plan, etc. Cafeteria benefits allow people to pick and choose. For example, you have a basket worth $2,000, and you can spend what you wish, and you can vary it on a yearly basis. You can look at what benefits your spouse has, and as a couple, you can put together a plan and change it on a regular basis. The research shows that with cafeteria benefits you can lower the amount of benefits you pay because people see the link much more directly, and they're able to pick things that are of use to them, rather than things they don't use. We know that people with cafeteria benefits are able to balance things much more easily. If, for example, I'm in a lower-income family, I can take it as money. I might take it as money, and my spouse would take it as dental benefits.

    We know that very few employers in the public sector have cafeteria benefits. My impression is that the Treasury Board is not that keen on them for whatever reason.

    That's probably a very good avenue for you to look at, the whole idea of cafeteria benefits.

    The Chair: We were chatting about that. Might it be that it's not the employer that is reluctant to do that but rather the insurance companies that provide a package, where some are lost leaders, as it were, and some are--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: The private sector is able to get them on a regular basis.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: There's no reluctance if there's a profit in it.

    The Chair: It depends on whether there's a profit in it.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Linda is quite right. A lot of these products are in the design phase right now.

    But there is a disparity, and that is with the smaller companies. It's very difficult to get pooling data.

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    Prof. Linda Duxbury: I'm talking mostly about the bigger companies. The smaller companies will have to pool. They'll have to get together and go in on a package.

    The Chair: Perhaps we should have some witnesses come in to talk about it.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: Yes, that would be interesting.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: For the ones that have it, it's wonderful. It makes a huge difference. And you can legislate that.

    The Chair: It's an area we'll explore.

    Brian, you've had about 25 minutes in total.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: That's fine. Thank you.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Some of these conservative people tell you we're going to give you $500, but you're going to spend $1,000 by the time we give you all of these other services. We talk about the government giving benefits to people. Where does the money come from? There are two ways the money could come. We could say don't pay any taxes and you look after all of it or maybe collectively.... Where does that split happen?

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Are you talking about the government as an employer?

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: No, in general, just taxation. There are two ways we can do it. We could take some money from you and provide a service. In some cases we have to because that's the only way you can get it done. In the case of Quebec, for instance, there's the situation with the day care. The taxes in Quebec are a lot higher than in Ontario.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: In Denmark they pay around 68% in income tax.

    Mr. Ovid Jackson: Somebody has to pay. You can pay it yourself, or you can do it collectively.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Right now the tax structure is biased against having your wife stay at home for x number of years. You can write off day care, but you can't write off having a spouse stay at home for two years. That's a blatant bias.

    Are we done?

    The Chair: I think we are. I hope you're more positive about our interest at the end of your presentation than you might have been at the beginning.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: You guys have a tremendous opportunity to do something. Anybody who has been working in this area for a long time is very cynical, and we have every reason to be.

    Mr. Brian Pallister: It's aging. All of us are more cynical.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    The Chair: As a committee, we need to know what government can do. I can appreciate that you're very cynical. I can appreciate a lot of the things you're talking about. I have a mother who is 80, and she lives 800 kilometres away from me. There's nothing the government can do at the moment to reduce my stress when she falls or gets sick.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: There's compassionate leave.

    The Chair: I appreciate that. The fact of the matter is that you make certain choices. I choose to work here as opposed to working there.

    I want to know what government can do in areas such as that. Part of it is just to talk about it, and part of it is to try to bring it to the forefront.

    In some cases we're being told that those in the public sector are extremely happy. If you can give us empirical data that show that perhaps they weren't asking the right questions and that there are things we can do, we need to know that. We can't legislate that every employer is not a jerk, that every employer is compassionate and fair, or that your fellow employees aren't bullies or mean.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: No, you can't.

    The Chair: The smaller the work environment, the easier it is to get to know your co-workers, and in large corporations--

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: You don't promote the jerk. You have measurement and accountability around that--

    The Chair: But I don't have the opportunity to not promote the jerk in business A, business B, or business C. If you are going to measure how successful we are, it has to be in things we can actually deliver. If you can give us some things that you think are deliverable, things we can do, we would be extremely interested in looking at those and pursuing them further.

    Prof. Linda Duxbury: That sounds good.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

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    Prof. Linda Duxbury: Thank you.

    And I'm sorry for being cynical.

    The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.