The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) represents 72,000 academic staff at universities and colleges across the country. CAUT strives for fair working conditions, compensation and benefits to foster quality teaching and innovative research while advancing equity and human rights within our profession. Many of the institutions where members work contract with the federal government to deliver educational services, such as research and training. As post-secondary education is an employment sector with high union density, it is known that the existence of a collective agreement does not automatically protect workers from employers seeking to lower labour standards. The government's commitment to implement a modern fair wages policy is welcome. It supports the government's broader decent work agenda and will assist in ensuring that workers who do business with the federal government have fair wages and working conditions. This submission responds to the following questions: (1) Who should be covered by the policy?; (2) What should the policy require?; and (3) How should the policy be enforced? Through a fair wage policy, the federal government can leverage public spending to support important socioeconomic goals, including improved labour conditions and greater equality of income.