On February 15, 2023, the BC government introduced Bill M 205 – 2023: Equal Pay Reporting Act, designed to increase transparency in the pay gap between men and women in the workforce. If passed, the new legislation would require employers that meet a certain employee size threshold to disclose mean and median pay for male and female employees.
In addition to reporting the prescribed information to the Registrar of Equal Pay Reporting (to be appointed), employers would be mandated to publish the data on their company websites as well as a website to be designated by the Registrar.
The number of employees that would trigger the disclosure requirements remains unclear. The BC government has indicated that this legislation was drafted based on the United Kingdom’s gender pay gap regulations (which applies to employers with 250 or more employees).
Currently, no other provinces or territories have gender-based pay transparency legislation. Prince Edward Island is the only province in Canada that has rolled out pay transparency legislation, which requires expected pay or pay range to be shared in public job postings, and bans employers from pursuing pay history from job candidates or taking disciplinary action against employees for disclosing pay.
Both Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have introduced similar legislation within the past year but have not been implemented.