Lawyer: B.C.'s new pay transparency legislation not enough to end gender pay gap

The B.C. government is facing criticism after announcing plans Tuesday to introduce pay transparency legislation to help close the gender pay gap.

Once the change comes into effect Nov, 1, the province will require businesses to disclose salary amounts on job postings. In addition, employers will be prohibited from asking candidates about their salary history, or punishing employees who disclose information about their salary.

Vancouver lawyer Humera Jabir is criticizing the plan for what he calls a lack of accountability.

"If those numbers are provided and you can see there is a disparity and discrimination evident in how people are being paid, there's no compliance or enforcement mechanism to actually move that forward,” said Jabir, a staff lawyer at West Coast Leaf.

“In other jurisdictions they do have fines and other sorts of measures to actually move employers in the direction of correcting the differences we know do exist,” she said.

B.C. is one of the few provinces that doesn’t have pay equity legislation, which enforces compensation.

"Transparency might give you some information about how people are being paid, but equity is really about the accountability and creating change,” Jabir said.

The new pay transparency legislation would require all businesses with 50 or more employers to post public gender pay reports by November 2026.

Those who work in male-dominated fields say the announcement is a first step towards equality.

"We do a lot of work towards inclusion in the trades and supporting diverse trades people, including women, and in non-unionized environments it's one the biggest problems—to ensure they're being paid adequately,” said Karen Dearlove, the executive director of the BC Centre for Women in the Trades.

“A lot of the time, women just don’t know if they’re making the right amount of pay compared to their colleagues, and having that transparency is just another way to ensure gender equity.”

According to Statistics Canada, last year women in B.C. earned $26.74 per hour while men earn nearly $6 more per hour. That gap increases dramatically for visible minorities.

During Tuesday’s announcement, the parliamentary secretary for gender equity pledged that pay discrimination won’t be tolerated in B.C.

“Despite all the progress we've made, women are still paid 17 per cent less than men. For Indigenous women, minority women and immigrant women, the gap is even higher,” said Kelli Paddon.