We may have to erect a tombstone on Parliament Hill and inscribe it "Here lies pay equity," if Canada's MPs support the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, buried deep in C-10, the Conservatives' Budget Implementation Act.

Eleven recipients of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case, the country's highest honour given to women, and more than 60 experts on women's human rights have called on Stephen Harper to drop this legislation because it empties women's right to equal pay for equal work of its meaning. But media space has more readily been given to those denigrating pay equity with such old saws as "Equal pay for work of equal value is like comparing apples and oranges."