RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME

1. Implement employment equity legislation in all Canadian jurisdictions and in the private sector. Ensure that employment equity programs are based on numerical goals and timetables.
   
   
2. Strengthen the contract compliance clauses of all such legislation (including the present Employment Equity Act) to ensure that private sector corporations conform to the law.
   
   
3. Strictly enforce pay equity legislation at the federal and provincial level to ensure that the different work performed by women and men is equally valued.
   
   
4. Equalize compensation (benefits and salary) on a prorated basis and equalize conditions of employment for full- and part-time work.
   
   
5. Integrate such Human Resources support systems as job bridging and job enrichment programs into in-house employment equity programs.
   
   
6. Provide necessary workplace support services (e.g., child-care options, parental leave, etc.) to women and men.
   
   
7. Implement the strategies recommended for Education and Training for re-entry women, older and younger women, women with low educational attainment, Native and other minority women and women with disabilities to ensure that these doubly disadvantaged women have equal access to opportunity in the workforce.

As noted in the Background section of this report, the participants at the End of Decade Conference and Forum'85 acknowledged that the goals of the Decade had not been achieved. In consequence, they ratified the Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women to the Year 2000 to ensure that the efforts begun during the Decade would continue. Canadian women, noting federal commitment to Decade goals, had good reason to view the ten-year timeframe as a "Decade of Promise".

This report has documented how few of these promises have been kept and how far women still have to go before they will achieve equality with men. It is essential, therefore, that women continue to lobby all levels of government for the the legislative and financial support that is needed to make the promise of equality a reality.