New BrunswickThe private sector in New Brunswick may be subject to pay-equity legislation as soon as next year, the premier has told women at a Fredericton march.Premier’s comments offered clearest timeline yet for pay-equity, activists sayJennifer Sweet · CBC News · Posted: Oct 20, 2025 3:09 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoA participant marches down Brunswick Street in Fredericton during a recent event to spread awareness of the need for pay equity in all sectors. (Kelly Baker Photography)The private sector in New Brunswick may be subject to pay equity legislation as soon as next year.“I can’t wait for the day when we’ll have a bill before the Legislative Assembly,” Premier Susan Holt, speaking in French at a women’s march in Fredericton on Friday. “We’ll work with the private sector, bring everyone together, and move pay equity forward here in New Brunswick in 2026.”This is a clearer timeline for a commitment Holt made during the election campaign to extend pay equity to the private and care sectors, said Raphaëlle Valay-Nadeau, chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity.It would require employers to evaluate the jobs they offer and make sure that positions predominantly held by women are compensated similarly to positions of equal value and responsibility that are predominantly done by men.The coalition is encouraged by Holt’s remarks, Valay-Nadeau said.“Pay equity is a right, and New Brunswickers deserve strong, effective legislation that upholds it,” she said in an emailed statement.Raphaëlle Valay-Nadeau, chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity, says progress has been made, but work done by women remains undervalued. (Mikael Mayer/Radio-Canada)Friday’s march was organized to mark the 25th anniversary of the World Women’s March in New York City. Significant progress towards pay equity has been made since then.Legislation requiring pay equity in the public sector has existed since 2009, noted Valay-Nadeau.The gap in median annual income decreased from 42 per cent in 2000 to 20 per cent in 2023, said the coalition.And the poverty rate for women in New Brunswick has decreased 30 per cent in the last 10 years.There is still room for improvement, Valay-Nadeau said, because work predominantly done by women remains undervalued and underpaidMembers of the Coalition for Pay Equity were joined after the Fredericton march by Premier Susan Holt, Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers and Lyne Chantal Boudreau, the minister responsible for women’s equality. (Kelly Baker Photography)Women are more likely to end up in lower paid categories of work, lower paid industries and lower paid parts of organizations, said Rachelle Pascoe-Deslauriers, an associate professor of commerce and feminist and gender studies at Mount Allison University.The caregiving sector is one example.“Women are still doing work that is more likely to be assumed to be … ‘natural and inherent’ to some sort of feminine characteristic that is therefore not considered a skill and just invisible,” she said.“Why pay for it when love will pay for it, right?”That’s an issue because earnings are a really important determinant of well-being, said Pascoe-Deslauriers.And over the course of a woman’s life, inequity accumulates, she said, so that women are much worse off than men in their older years.Rachelle Pascoe Deslauriers, an associate professor of commerce and feminist and gender studies at Mount Allison University, says inequity can accumulate for women, leaving them worse off than men later in life. (Submitted by Rachelle Pascoe-Deslauriers)Besides respecting the human right principle of gender equality, Pascoe-Deslauriers also thinks pay equity makes financial sense.“That money will go back into the economy and support other kinds of work,” she said.“Employers certainly don’t need to wait until they are legislated to do something.”CBC contacted the New Brunswick Business Council and the Chambers of Commerce in the Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John areas for reaction to the new timeline for private sector legislation. None was received by publication time.The women’s movement is well aware there is sometimes pushback and partisan wrangling on this issue, said Valay-Nadeau.“We’re hopeful that things will evolve for the better, and we won’t need people to do marches like this unless maybe it’s to celebrate the anniversary of the enactment of pay equity legislation,” she said.Ontario and Quebec have already brought in private-sector pay-equity legislation, said Pascoe-Deslauriers.In those places, the burden of what is required of employers varies according to the size of the company, she said.She added that the basic procedure involved to evaluate a job for pay equity can also be useful for recruitment and hiring purposes.ABOUT THE AUTHORJennifer Sweet has been telling the stories of New Brunswickers for over 20 years. She is originally from Bathurst, got her journalism degree from Carleton University and is based in Fredericton. She can be reached at 451-4176 or jennifer.sweet@cbc.ca.With files from Information Morning, Radio-Canada
Holt promises to move soon on pay-equity legislation for private sector
