Mr. Chair, I will start out with a brief on-the-record statement of protest. The first protest would be to any taxidermal treatment of the chair. I want that on the record because I wasn't able to speak to the point when you were suggesting you might be stuffed soon. I think we appreciate your role here.
I also want to say, on a serious point, that although I realize my appearance and participation here is couched in terms of an invitation, it's essentially not an invitation that I welcomed. I want to repeat that the entire operation of identical motions in multiple committees has the effect of reducing the rights of members of Parliament such as myself. Essentially, to participate in a less than meaningful way is—without any personal comment towards any of you here, and certainly no personal animus, because I don't believe anyone around this table initiated this process—coercive, as I regard it, and an abuse of the powers of a majority towards a minority.
Moving on to my five amendments which all relate to division 5, I'm speaking to changes that I have proposed in five different amendments to clause 176. This is the clause that changes the Canada Labour Code by essentially eliminating the role of the health and safety officers and regional health and safety officers and changing the definition of “danger”.
To move through them fairly quickly, my first amendment is to delete the repeal of the definitions of “health and safety officer” and “regional health and safety officer”. I noted that during evidence-taking at the human resources committee, and this amendment is largely based on testimony that the committee heard, particularly Chris Aylward from PSAC made the point:
The current health and safety officers are neutral, trained and specialized. They have the authority to monitor workplaces and issue directions.
We think that it's an unhelpful move in Canada Labour Code management, and a lot of sophisticated work has built up over the years to have a Canada Labour Code that works, and that it's capricious to remove the important role of the health and safety officers. Amendment PV-1, the Green Party's first amendment, essentially is a deletion of just a few of the lines in clause 176 so as to preserve the role of health and safety officers.
Amendment PV-2 similarly deletes the new definition of “danger”, which would allow us to revert to the previous one. In this amendment, I'd like to cite the evidence that was heard from Hassan Yussuff of the Canadian Labour Congress, who pointed out that by redefining “dangerous work”, “the bill basically narrows the scope of application that allows workers to exercise their right to refuse dangerous work. The right to refuse work would now only apply to workplace conditions that cause so-called 'imminent or serious threat' to the worker.”
As you can see, my amendments proceed along the lines of finding ways in the alternative, and I provide them in the alternative in the hope that one of them might actually succeed to preserve both the role of the health and safety officers and/or a more reasonable comprehensive definition of “danger”, so that workers will have the right to refuse dangerous work.
Amendment PV-2 speaks to that deletion.
Amendment PV-3 moves to my first alternative definition of “danger”. It attempts to revert to the previous definition while adding elements of hazard or condition. The amendment itself both preserves the current definition of “danger” and adds to it.
Moving quickly to amendment PV-4, we have another alternative definition, but this time adding the notion of acute or chronic shock.
The fifth definition is one that... We found a paper from some time ago from the Canadian Labour Congress suggesting that the World Health Organization's definition of “health”, which is incorporated in amendment PV-5, would in fact be more comprehensive and useful for workers in being able to refuse dangerous work.
I think I've taken less than five minutes, but that's a quick summary of the five amendments I've put forward to protect workers and protect the scheme by which workers are currently protected through health and safety workers.
Another amendment goes to this point but occurs further along in division 5.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.