Further to our updates provided regarding the delayed implementation of the Pay Transparency Act (which can be found here), the federal government has recently released proposed amendments to legislation which would impose pay transparency requirements.
On August 10, 2019, the federal government released proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Regulations (which governs the required reporting of salary data by employers) made under the federal Employment Equity Act, that would provide new pay transparency requirements. These proposed amendments follow the federal government's announcement in the 2018 budget of its' commitment to address the gender wage gap through the inclusion of new pay transparency requirements in the federally regulated private sector.
In efforts to achieve this goal, the proposed amendments intend to revise the current salary reporting requirements to collect further information regarding: determining an hourly rate of pay, hours of work, bonuses, overtime pay and overtime hours, and information that will be used to publicly report on the wage and bonus gaps of employees. Further to the existing reporting requirements, the amendments, once in force, will require federally regulated private sector employers to provide any other information relating to employees' salaries as may be prescribed.
While employers will be required to adhere to additional record keeping obligations, the amendments seek to revise and implement new definitions of "salary," "bonus pay," "overtime hours", and "overtime pay." The amendments will: (i) simplify salary reporting; (ii) require maintenance of records of new salary data elements including each employee's occupational unit group classifications and code; (iii) impose mandatory requirements regarding the use of definitions provided for in the Employment Equity Act; (iv) expand the scope of the annual employment equity reporting requirements; and (v) align the legislation with the salary breakdown used by Statistics Canada to capture salary increments up to $250,000.
Currently, the federal Labour Program is inviting submissions from the public, including employers, on the proposed regulatory amendments. Submissions are due by September 9, 2019.
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