Evidence of meeting #29 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cgsb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aspin. Your time is up.
I will now give the floor to Mrs. Day for five minutes.
10 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to put a question to either Mr. Dauphin or Mr. Morel. It will be about standards at the international level.
When Canada exports products to the United States or imports products from that country—and this also applies to Mexico, given that it is on the same continent—which standards take precedence over others?
I would imagine that we also probably have an underlying tendency to protect our businesses, and thus would tend to include a form of protectionism in our standards.
Finally, in terms of free trade agreements—and I imagine that they have to be taken into consideration— how are we doing?
10 a.m.
Director, Fuels, Canadian Fuels Association
To answer your first question, concerning which standards take precedence over others, I would note that a standard is a mechanism designed to facilitate the transfer or exchange of products. The buyers, who determine where the product will be used, are always free to request whichever standard they want. Whether it be the ISO standard in Canada, the ASTM standard in the United States, or the CEN standard in Europe, it is the buyers who know what product they need and where it will be used.
This is also true for Canadian buyers. For example, a buyer who wishes to import a product from Europe for use in northern Quebec needs to refer to an appropriate standard to ensure that the product will work during a Quebec winter. In this way it is the buyer who determines which standard has precedence.
As for your question on protectionism, this is a major factor. These standards are established by committees of the Canadian General Standards Board. It is essential that standards do not become a barrier to commercial trade. Any standard that might be perceived as being limitative or protectionist in a given industrial sector will be the subject of many discussions. Generally speaking, the members of these committees will ensure that the standards will not act as a barrier to trade.
10 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Could you please answer the third part of my question, which concerns free trade agreements?
10 a.m.
Director, Fuels, Canadian Fuels Association
I gave a partial answer with my first point.
At the end of the day, the buyer of a product will determine how it will be used. For example, Canada has the highest standard for diesel fuel, with a sulfur level of 15 parts per million. The standard in Mexico is 500 parts per million. That country has different environmental restrictions.
If someone wishes to do business in Canada, they need to respect the environmental standards established by Environment Canada. For example, nothing prevents a producer from selling any given product in Mexico, in South America or in any other countries. Once again, the needs of the buyer will determine the quality of the product.
10 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
My next question is for Mr. Jenkins.
The board has established standards for training and certification. Are you satisfied with these standards?
10:05 a.m.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thank you, ma'am.
We are satisfied with the standards. The content of the course is what changes annually as new things come on or new fisheries come on. But the oversight of the training—the rigour, the testing requirements, and so on—has been in place since 1997. It has served us well, and we will continue to utilize it.
Thank you.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Have you been able to measure the results of the program to date?
10:05 a.m.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
You mean the results of the training program?
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I am referring to the training and certification program.
10:05 a.m.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
DFO itself participates in the development of the course instruction, although the individual companies deliver the course. We also provide remedial and follow-up training as required.
With regard to some of the weaknesses of the training program, just given the nature of the fishery, unfortunately we have a lot of intake throughout the year. If I were to say there was a weakness, it would be that sometimes, just due to the very nature, either for at-sea.... If you had an urgent requirement for staff, you might have to give them some very quick training. Normally the formal training is done in the spring prior to the new fisheries starting, so all your staff are fully trained then.
If you hire people mid-season, you probably don't have the core capacity to bring everybody in. So we leave it to individual companies to make sure these people are trained for that particular fishery, on a one-on-one basis, for sort of remedial training. Then we get them on the first available course to do the full training.
I don't know if there's much we can do to change that, simply because it's a reality of the fishery that you have a lot of people and you have a high turnover in observers. You have a high turnover dockside. Sometimes the requirements come up because DFO has opened an exploratory fishery, for example, and you suddenly need a lot more observers than you had predicted. That would, perhaps, be a bit of a weakness.
In terms of the overall training standards and the consistency, we're very pleased. Despite a fair amount of turnover in recent years in some fisheries, there are a lot of individuals out there who have made a career of being at-sea observers. Certainly a good 50% of all of our observers have been around for a number of years, and that helps in the transfer of knowledge to new observers as well.
Thank you.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
I'm sorry, but I spent the first few minutes of committee waiting for a bus. However, I had a good colleague to talk to.
Your presentations have been very helpful.
I asked the board, when they were here, how standards are enforced. They don't do any enforcement, which you already know.
Standards are great. We have the Ten Commandments. But I don't know too many people who live up to them.
I'm curious as to how, in each of your areas of operation, these standards are enforced and what assurance there is that the standards are actually adhered to. If you could each address that very briefly, I think that would be helpful.
Mr. Jenkins, we'll start with you for a change.
10:05 a.m.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thank you, Ma'am.
In the case of the standards and the training, as I alluded to, DFO provides the oversight. We also have our own audit program, in addition to what the CGSB does. We go out and audit companies with regard to the broader issues—things like fraud, collusion, and adequate training, and whether arm's-length criteria are being adhered to and so on.
As I mentioned earlier, we do some investigations. If we note a particular deficiency—and sometimes it's not deliberate fraud but just the inability of people to really pay attention to what they're supposed to be doing—then we go back to the company and ask them to do remedial training or follow-up training to allow all the staff to be aware of the deficiencies and to bring things back up to par.
10:10 a.m.
Director General, CanmetMATERIALS, Minerals and Metals Sector, Department of Natural Resources
The standard we manage is not enforced. It is referred to in a number of pieces of regulation.
I'll give two examples: pressure tubes for nuclear reactors and welds for pipelines. In one case the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and in the other case the National Energy Board, mandates that technologists who perform non-destructive testing be certified under the CGSB standard. They have to provide proof that they are certified.
There is no enforcement per se of the standard at Natural Resources Canada. What we do is certify individuals, who then perform tests, and it is other regulations that refer to the CGSB standard as a requirement for certain activities.
10:10 a.m.
President, Micom Laboratories Inc.
I'd like to go back to my two examples, haz-mat and furniture testing.
Haz-mat is somewhat enforced by Transport Canada. You get to test your box once, and once it's tested you don't have to retest it as long as you keep the same components in the box. You could use the same box for presumably 100 years.
Just to make the parallel with what's happening in the U.S. with DOT, on an annual basis in the U.S. they need to retest their packaging. From that perspective we can say that haz-mat is less enforced here than in the U.S.
In the case of furniture, while the standard is not really enforced, as I said before—or at least the QPL is not enforced as much.....
The difference in the U.S., of course, as everybody knows, is that it is much more litigious than Canada. If you fall off your chair in the U.S., potentially you almost feel as though you have won on a lottery ticket. If you fall off your chair in Canada, if you are lucky, somebody will help you to stand up and sit in another chair.
Furniture, latex gloves, and a few other of the commodities that are in the QPL are, I would say, poorly enforced.
10:10 a.m.
Director, Fuels, Canadian Fuels Association
Finally, in the fuels area, like my three other colleagues I guess that the standard itself is not necessarily enforceable per se. But there are some elements in the standards, for example, that are incorporated by reference into existing regulations or legislation. The standard will make that reference or will include those requirements.
So those requirements are enforceable, but via the regulation and the legislation established by the various governments.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Well, it's helpful to know how you approach enforcement of standards in each of your areas, and I thank you for those answers.
I'm interested in the other bodies that set standards. When you use those or when you refer to them, how much divergence do you find among the various bodies?
Let's go in the same order.
10:10 a.m.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I'm going to pass on this one. We don't use any other body for certification.
Thank you.
10:10 a.m.
Director General, CanmetMATERIALS, Minerals and Metals Sector, Department of Natural Resources
The rest of the mandate for the lab that I manage is to perform research. What we do is contribute to the development of consensus standards among Canadian and international organizations. To go back to pipelines, we develop standards for pipeline corrosion or for coatings that are used to protect line pipe from corrosion from the environment. Many of the standards, because pipelines are installed around the world, would be developed by organizations such as NIST in the U.S. or ASTM. Some of our scientists would be members of the committees.
But in the end, it depends on the locality in which the pipeline is installed to establish the norms to which the pipeline will have to perform. They might quote or cite an ASTM standard, or they might cite a national standard, but there is no consistency.
10:15 a.m.
President, Micom Laboratories Inc.
I would say it varies a lot. For instance, we spoke of some of the U.S. standards this morning. Some of them are part of the building code, either the Canadian building code or the U.S. building code. Those standards of course would be highly enforced.
I'll give you another example. If you are a purchaser in Germany and buy a chair for your company for an employee but don't buy a chair that is part of a certification program, if the employee is injured from using that chair, the purchaser could be sued personally. So it goes from one extreme....
I'm not saying it's a good way to go, by the way; I'm just saying that there is a full spectrum.