Employers under audit

Last year, the Commission decided to focus its efforts on large employers, in order to have an impact on as many employees as possible. It continued this strategy in 2001, with the result that more than 80% of employees covered by the Act have now been audited or are under audit.

In the public sector, audits have now been initiated with 41 of the 65 federal departments and public service agencies, accounting for more than 97% of public servants.

Also in the public sector, there are organizations and agencies (for example, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) known as "separate employers" because they are not departments and not part of the public service as such. Of these 14 separate employers, 8 have been audited or are under audit, accounting for 94% of employees in this group.

In the private sector, audits have been initiated with 166 of the 397 employers, accounting for 77% of employees.

A full list of employers under audit can be found in section 12 of this report.

More audits were completed than had been planned

As shown in Table 1, the Commission has begun initial audits of 215 employers, out of the 476 employers subject to the Act, since the program started in 1998. However, in most cases at least one follow-up audit was required before these employers could be declared in compliance with the Act. As a result, the Commission has started a total of 354 audits. The Commission originally estimated that, at the end of the audit program's fourth year, it would have conducted about 320 audits.

Table 1 also shows that 35 audits were initiated in 2001, and another 21 follow-up audits were begun with employers who had signed undertakings when their initial audit concluded. During the same year, the period for implementing a direction had expired for seven employers, and follow-up audits were initiated immediately to determine whether they had complied with the direction.

In addition, 20 audits have been cancelled since 1998, because a business closed or was absorbed into another company, the number of employees dropped below 100 (the statutory cut-off for private sector audits), or for other reasons.

Status of audits

Table 2 shows that few employers have been found in compliance at the initial stage of an audit. In 2001, two employers achieved compliance early: the Department of Canadian Heritage and Public Works and Government Services Canada. Since 1998, only eight employers have met the Act's requirements at the time of the Commission's first audit.

Recourse to enforcement measures remains exceptional. In 2001, the Commission issued directions to five employers and referred two cases to a tribunal, while two employers asked that the direction issued to them be reviewed by a tribunal. The details of these measures are outlined in section 5 of this report.

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