Human Resources Committee on Nov. 21st, 2013

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

There has been a lot of talk about the 80%, and as many people are aware, the legislation actually precludes public disclosure of a lot of these issues.

Could you speak in more general terms about what your experience is with refusals?

[John Beckett]

Well, I've been a health and safety professional for about 25 years. I spent up until the year 2000 in the provincial system, and since 2000 I've been in the federal system. I can say categorically that in times of tension in workplaces, this refusal process, frankly, gets abused by both parties, but it does get used as a method to draw attention to things that may not normally be attended to.

By and large, certainly in the industry I am in now, I would say that at least half, if not more, of the refusals that I deal with today, which was much more when we didn't have an eight-year collective agreement, were frivolous. They were about things other than safety.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

It's unfortunate that we don't have a lot of time.

I'm very used to a delegation system. I worked in a regulatory environment for a short time in my career. At that time I was a generalist and certainly capable of doing much of the work, but I found there were times when we needed someone who had specialty expertise, and really, the delegation authority was very helpful.

We've heard people express concerns, but could you talk a little bit about how delegation might actually be very positive?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Make it short, please.

[John Beckett]

Sure.

We support the changes to allow the minister to apply resources as appropriate. Health and safety officers all have a general health and safety background, but they're not experts on everything, yet there are experts on different things within the service. The ability of the minister to assign officers with particular expertise to particular problems is beneficial from our perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Mr. Beckett. You were right on the five minutes.

Now we go to Mr. Cuzner, from the Liberal Party.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the testimony from the witnesses today.

On Tuesday, Ms. Baxter from the department read into the record that changes were based on “feedback from time to time from our stakeholders” and “our regular discussions with stakeholders”. However, from what I'm hearing today from FETCO, you guys were not consulted.

[John Farrell]

We had no consultation about this bill.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. Thanks.

PSAC? No.

CLC? No.

Canada's leading expert in occupational health and safety, you must have been consulted.

No? Okay.

Do any of you know anybody who was consulted?

No? Nobody was consulted? Okay, thanks.

The last time part II of the code was changed was in 2000. That was under a tripartite consensus process.

Don Brazier, your predecessor at that time, in 2000, read into the record, and I will read it: To attempt to obtain through other means changes a stakeholder could not obtain through the [tripartite] process itself would upset the balance that has been reached, seriously undermine the process, and probably ensure that the consensus process could not be used in the future.

Why is FETCO supporting these changes now?

[John Farrell]

FETCO supports a tripartite process to review labour legislation. We are supporting certain...the provisions of this legislation, which we happen to agree with. The horse is out of the barn, and we're asked to respond to Bill C-4.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Is this the new now? Is this how we should be changing the Canada Labour Code now, one-offing like this? That hasn't been the belief of FETCO in the past.

[John Farrell]

Our view has always been that we should engage in tripartite conversations with our stakeholders.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Ms. Baxter also said in testimony the other day, “as I mentioned, we have been looking at our administrative data with regard to refusals to work, and this information has been provided to our stakeholders.”

Has FETCO been supplied with any of that information on the data?

[John Farrell]

No.

[John Beckett]

Yes, we have. We asked for specific information which was given to both parties on where the inspections had occurred and the danger, no danger. That has been provided to both parties.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Is PSAC aware of that?

[Chris Aylward]

No.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Is CLC aware of that?

[Hassan Yussuff]

Yes.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay, so you did have that.

What we found was that the information on the 80% was very vague. Obviously, your testimony today said that the 80% is somewhat of a red herring.

You might want to expand on that a little bit, Ms. Lippel.

[Prof. Katherine Lippel]

Yes.

Well, it depends; 80% of what? There were contradictory things in the testimony, but it's either of appeals or of inspections and appeals. In any case, the majority of these cases, as I believe FETCO has said, are settled before the inspectors get there; therefore, all those success stories don't get counted. All the justified refusals aren't counted in determining the 80%.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That seemed to be missing in the testimony of the officials.

The other information that we had, the stats we were working from the other day when the officials were here, dealt with the number of inspectors. Maybe PSAC can comment on this. From our numbers, we thought that eight years ago they were at around 125 or 130 or more and they're down to 85 now.

Could you guys give us your reflection as to how you see the numbers over the last number of years?

[Bob Kingston]

Sure. According to our data, and this comes from Treasury Board, by the way, so I'm quite surprised that you got the answers you did the other day.

According to our data, in 2004 there were 147; in 2005, 151; in 2006, 140; in 2007, 125. For the three-year cycle from 2004 to 2006, the number fluctuated between 140 and 150. In 2007 it dropped to 125, and as you heard on Tuesday, it now is down to 80. So to say there has been no change was a bit of a misleading statement at best.

I can also fill you in on more of the 80%, if you're interested.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Do we have....?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

You can have 10 seconds' worth.