Finance Committee on May 14th, 2014

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm the eternal optimist, and you and your organization and the companies you represent and the workers for those companies have earnestly and intelligently provided us with insight as to what we could do to change this. I just want to make the point that by ramming this through as part of a budget implementation act.... Hope springs eternal, and as a Nova Scotian from Hants County, I'm a very optimistic person, but I want to make that point. Not only is this probably not the right committee to be studying this, but it's not the most receptive environment for it. While we may agree on your constructive proposed amendment, I want to manage expectations here in terms of the political environment within which we operate.

Would you rather see this amendment considered perhaps under the health committee, or the committee responsible for product labelling or industry? Would it be better under another committee?

[Shannon Coombs]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

I think we proposed the amendment to bring some clarity to the bill so that there may not be any future misinterpretation. While I appreciate your concern about the quick study of this piece of legislation, we're doing a really progressive thing for industry and for worker protection, and I think that's what the GHS brings to all the sectors. We're able to marry worker protection with facilitating trade.

I appreciate your party's concern on that, but we would really like to move this forward. We see it as very progressive. It has been discussed for the past 20 years, so I would appreciate your review of this.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

We'll try with your amendment—

[Shannon Coombs]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We're right at five minutes here, Mr. Brison. I apologize for that.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It was all that Nova Scotia talk.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Yes. Thank you. Order.

We'll be moving on to Mr. Keddy.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I'm still thinking about Mr. Brison being an optimist and living on the shore of the Bay of Fundy with 30-foot tides. That's quite optimistic.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

That's right.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I'd have to agree.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

[Inaudible—Editor]...with you guys on climate change.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Ms. Coombs, maybe to expand on the line of questioning and allow you to finish your thought, I have two questions. One, you suggested an amendment to the process, and would you be satisfied if that amendment could be handled in the regulations?

[Shannon Coombs]

It's an option, for sure, that it could be handled in regulations. We are afforded the same provision under the consumer chemicals and containers regulations. Our proposal, because it's here before us now, is to make it very clear and precise in the legislation.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you.

On a point of clarification, you talked about relabelling for quality control. How does that system work now?

[Shannon Coombs]

What we're asking is that if you're bringing in chemicals—not from the U.S., for example—and you want to be able to bring them into Canada, we want to be able to relabel them here. It provides us the opportunity to bring in chemicals, and we can relabel. We have that provision under CCCR for the consumer chemicals, and we're looking for the same for the workplace.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I would assume that in order to do that you need some assurance that the chemicals are exactly what they're supposed to be.

[Shannon Coombs]

Right, and they'll come in with their safety data sheets, for sure, but this is about making sure that we can relabel here.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

But do you actually have a process to test that?

[Shannon Coombs]

Yes, we would, internally in the companies, absolutely.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you.

To Dominique Gross, we have spent a fair amount of time at this committee talking about training, youth employment, and temporary foreign workers. One of the things we discussed, and one of the things you actually mentioned, is the process of determining whether you need temporary foreign workers. Can you explain how that works in European countries? If you have occupational shortages and it's a structural problem, then you would think you would respond to that with training initiatives. We're starting to do that in Canada.

What we've learned in our study is that most of the European nations, quite frankly, are faster. I don't want to say that they're better—they may be—but they're certainly faster than we are. Do you want to just explain that a little?

[Dr. Dominique Gross]

Thank you for your question.

If we think about the European countries that have a long history with the temporary foreign worker program—Germany and Switzerland—they both have a characteristic: that is, they have local federal labour agencies that handle the matching between vacancies and the unemployed or people who are looking for jobs.

Those local agencies have perfect information about the state of the labour market, which is the first point. The companies that need temporary foreign workers need to apply to those labour agencies. They first offer the work to the available unemployed people and then, if nobody is really suitable, they give the authorization. That is one point.

Another point that those countries have is the surveys of businesses. They ask questions about their ability to fill their vacancies and their success in terms of skills and in terms of type of occupations within the past semester, for example, or, in Switzerland, the past three months. There is a continuous set of questions that businesses answer about what their need is and how easy it is for them to fill those jobs.

That's information that's useful for training, for young people who learn where there are jobs and where they are likely to have very good jobs, and also for the temporary foreign worker program.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Perhaps just quickly—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Very briefly, please.