Evidence of meeting #17 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sector.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
If I could just break in, I would like to turn to Ms. Black, because you've anticipated where I'm going.
B.C. is taking a different approach to single site orders than other provinces. Can you describe, Ms. Black, how that's working?
12:20 p.m.
Research Director, Hospital Employees Union, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Sure.
I would say that one of the key differences—because I am in regular contact with colleagues across the country from CUPE—is that our effort has been fairly well coordinated, considering, with a few glitches. I couldn't say that about the other provinces. It involved a very strong consultation with labour unions.
We were in from the ground. We established a set of principles that would be applied to how workers would be allocated to different sites. Employers and unions essentially negotiated a labour adjustment process, and then that was turned into a ministerial order to ensure that all operators—not just the public facilities but the privates—would be included as well. It applies to long-term care, assisted living and mental health facilities.
There is a situation that Ms. Vyce described of workers sometimes holding two and three jobs in long-term care. Of course, it's true in B.C. as well. We're also trying to avoid the unintentional cross-contamination that might come with that, which is the intention of the orders. Long-term care workers, assisted living and mental health facility workers are prevented from holding another job within those facilities, but they can hold one in acute care or community care. They're not prevented from earning their income in that sense.
There is some protection with respect to seniority in terms of scheduling of hours, protection of benefits, which come from one of the set of orders as well. The key, of course, is that we achieve wage parity, so you're not penalized in having to stay at one site when you've normally been able to work a second site. You will get something comparable to the total hours that you held in both sites.
In the SARS crisis in Ontario in particular, there was a very clear exodus of nursing staff from the lower-paying employers to the higher-paying employers. Agency staff—surprisingly, to me—were some of the highest paid, and they were moving between sites. In B.C., agency staff are not excluded from the orders. However, with that pattern in Ontario during SARS, it was very clear that some facilities that weren't paying as well were very short-staffed.
With the levelling up of wages, there is no disparity that way; it's all the same no matter where you go. They've done a fairly coordinated effort with these three sets of orders, which work in tandem. They work to lay out principles on how staff are going to be allocated. They also get into the logistics of allocation instead of saying, “Go ahead, folks, try...”, because that hasn't fared well in the other provinces; it hasn't materialized.
However, in B.C., it's going relatively smoothly. It's a very clear process with the health authorities. There is a set of lists from employers within the health authority that are given to the chief medical officer, who then sets ultimate approval as to staff assignment. Workers' collective agreements aren't thrown out the window, so they're relatively content and satisfied with the situation.
Ironically, now we're in the situation where there is parity and people are receiving this public sector standard that we had in 2001. Virtually all care aids in long-term care made the same wage.
It's certainly something that we think is critical to stabilizing the sector. There has to be wage stability. There has to be a common standard set. It's the only way you're not going to end up with that misallocation and this big disparity.
Our members and the workers deserve it, frankly. I mean we're calling them heroes at this point. We have to put our money where our mouths are.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marcus Powlowski
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
That brings an end to round one. We will start round two with Dr. Kitchen.
Dr. Kitchen, please go ahead for five minutes.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to everybody for your presentations. As always, they're very enlightening and educational for us all, in many different aspects, as we deal with this crisis.
I'm going to start with Mr. Wilson.
You indicated that you've been working on increasing your manufacture and supply of PPE. You also indicated that many companies have applied to make changes.
Obviously, it's an extremely costly event for company to change a product line or whatever it may be. I'm wondering whether you know how many companies have applied to the federal government for funding and received contracts to come forward with the PPE.
12:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
To be honest, I really don't know how many. I apologize. I wouldn't even know where.... I assume someone inside public procurement would know, but I just don't know.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Would you be able to find that out and provide that to the committee?
12:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
We could try to find out through our [Inaudible—Editor], yes.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Great. Thank you. We appreciate that.
Mr. Wilson, the CME has a pandemic plan that it developed after SARS in 2009. It's a great document of 40 pages with quite a lot of extensive information. How fresh was this document in people's minds, in your company's mind? Were they aware of it or was it basically done in 2009 and they forgot about it?
12:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
It's the latter, unfortunately. It was done in 2009, and I think for a year or so it stayed fresh in everyone's mind and then disappeared. At the time, back in 2009-10 when it was produced, it was the most downloaded document from our website in the history of our organization. I think we've now surpassed it with some of the COVID-19 information.
We forgot about it. Governments forgot about it. I'm not going to point a finger at the government, certainly, because I think we forgot about it as well. [Inaudible—Editor] and tried to refresh it.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I appreciate that, because part of what we're seeing.... After 2003, after SARS, basically the same type of document was done and it appears that it was just forgotten. They came up with plans, but they were just pushed aside. It's interesting to hear that this is part of what you found as well.
Thank you very much for that.
12:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Thank you.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Laskowski, I live in Estevan, Saskatchewan, which is right on the border with the United States. We have a major trade corridor, a trucking trade corridor, basically Highway 39 from the border up to Regina and then Highway 1 across Canada, as well as Highway 52 coming out of Minot in the States. We have a lot of trucks coming to the border. As you've indicated and as I've seen, between April 20 and April 26, the number of trucks coming across decreased by 33%. That's quite significant.
On Wednesday, April 29, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published an updated list of distribution locations where truckers could receive free protective masks. In all, the agency said it plans to give out about a million masks. Do we have such a situation here in Canada? If so, how do our truckers access that?
12:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Trucking Alliance
With regard to the access to masks and other equipment, from a trucking industry perspective, and quite frankly from every sector's perspective, it's a challenge. This doesn't mean the challenge isn't being met, but it's a challenge. Gloves aren't necessarily the big issue. Masks, depending on the quality of mask or the type of mask specifically, can be a challenge, as can be hand sanitizer.
With regard to specific government action at the federal level, CBSA is trying to secure masks for every truck driver who shows up at the border not wearing a face covering. That's very much appreciated.
Obviously that's a short-term measure, and that's why this committee has been struck at the federal level. How do we as a supply chain, not just in trucking but everyone, secure masks going forward? It's not just about securing them, either. Obviously some folks in the supply chain have been price gouging, and you heard the federal government and various premiers speak out against it. I can tell you that we've experienced price gouging. A typical mask of the highest quality would cost, pre-COVID-19, around $2. It can get upwards of $15 to $20 a mask now.
There are challenges, but as I said, we're working through them.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks, folks, for being here and sharing your expertise with us.
My first question is for Mr. Lemaire.
First off, thank you for the critical service that your members do for Canada. All sectors have been impacted by COVID-19, and certainly none more than yours.
How have your members and your sector adjusted to all of the various public health measures, like social distancing, etc.?
I was going to ask you how government could help. I know that during this meeting the Prime Minister announced $252 million for certainly much of your sector. Maybe you could speak to that. I don't know how much you've been briefed on that, as that happened while we've been here in committee, but I'm sure you have a computer or phone open and you're getting some details on that. Maybe you could chat a bit about how you've been impacted, how your sector has been affected and how this government assistance might help.
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
Thank you for the question. It has been a very interesting time.
What has been amazing is that the industry has pivoted throughout the supply chain. CPMA represents growers through to wholesalers and transportation logistics, as well as food service and retail. Everyone who has gone shopping has seen the strategies implemented at retail to enable a volume of shoppers in stores and/or social distance requirements and a flow of traffic through the retail outlets, regardless of size. That's been very effective. There have been added costs with the shields at checkout and, in some cases, other protective equipment.
Going back to look at the food service industry, that's going to be a very different environment. Checkout has been successful on enabling social distancing through drive-through windows and pickup orders. Looking at the wholesale community—the Toronto food terminal and other wholesale markets in Vancouver and Montreal—this is a real challenge relative to fresh fruits and vegetables, which are perishable items.
The purchase program and modelling are normally done where you look at the product and see the product quality. Freshness is key for the supply chain. How do you create an environment where the buyers can come with the appropriate personal protective equipment into the purchase environment, maintain social distancing, and still be able to purchase the product they can use within their retail outlets, from small independent grocers throughout the country?
On the fresh cut and processing side, this is perhaps the biggest challenge, from there back to the grower, where you look at how you do social distancing. This is similar to meat plants and other facilities, where you repack fruit and vegetables and/or work in a fresh cut environment, such as an apple-packing line. How do you manage that and still put volume out to meet market demand? That has been the greatest challenge.
In spreading out the line, volume has dropped. How we can create the appropriate guidelines and standards, leveraging personal protective equipment to enable the social distancing model to be shrunk slightly, or have some type of barriers, is something the industry is looking at, but again, it is varying across the country on municipal application, on how the rules are applied and regulated.
Going to the growers' side, the challenge now goes into how growers actually apply pest management products and other tools in the field. Do they have enough personal protective equipment for their farm workers when they are in the field working, either in planting or eventually in harvesting?
The funding that has come out, the $252 million from the federal government, is greatly appreciated. In the breakdown of those monies, the $50 million is of interest. I'm curious to see how that will work relative to surplus. We've often talked to the federal government about those funds, specifically because the model is used in the U.S. successfully, and how you take surplus product, which I talked about, and distribute it to insecure populations or at-risk populations or other channels, is key. The next step now will be how we do that.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
You talked about the food service sector, the drive-through sector, and MP Van Bynen asked a couple of my questions of Mr. Wilson. I love the fact of the call to action, the call to retooling Canadian business. There's nothing more creative than Canadian business.
Mathew, you spoke to a couple of examples. I spoke with a company in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour that is building templates for fast food drive-throughs to more safely deliver the food through the drive-through window to the car. It's incredible.
I have probably very little time, Mr. Chair, but I would ask Mathew Wilson a last question.
Post-COVID, this retooling, what does it do for the future of manufacturing in Canada? Will we continue along this road as more of a manufacturing presence after COVID?
12:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
I'd say that another good example is that window manufacturers are making the protective barriers as well. I know that a number of our members out west, for example, are doing that type of thing too. There are a lot of examples.
I got an answer, too, by the way, that 3,500 manufacturers went to ISED directly for support. I think that was the last question I was answering. As well, 250 of them came through CME, where we tried to connect people to government support programs directly for retooling. That's a pretty big number of companies, and those are just the ones we know about.
What's going to happen in the future is going to be really interesting. Look, the bottom line is that we won't need this level of production of these types of products on a go-forward basis. For most companies, what we would expect when things go back to normal is that a window manufacturer, for example, will go back to making windows when the housing market starts to heat up again, right?
A lot of companies are doing a shift in production, such as Magna and Linamar making ventilators. They're not making any parts, so it makes sense for them to do it, and a lot of them stepped up not with any government money, but just because they wanted to respond. Most of those companies will go back to making what they were making before this, but there are opportunities, as I've said.
I mentioned the idea of a DARPA for health care in Canada. There are huge opportunities in Canada to manufacture products related to health care and to become experts in that and export those products around the world, as well as supplying domestic demand. I think there are huge opportunities for us if we focus on it, look at where the opportunities really lie and support those industries that we want to grow.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
May 5th, 2020 / 12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have dropped off about four times in this meeting, so if I do drop off again, I will pass it on to my colleague, Tamara Jansen.
My question is for Mr. Laskowski of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
Are you aware of any Canadian truckers who have caught the virus as a result of their work down in the United States?
12:35 p.m.
President, Canadian Trucking Alliance
With regard to that specifically, we have had no members report that directly to me, no.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
That's great, because we know these truckers are being asked to travel down there, and the infection rates down there are the worst in the world. How are they finding safe access to accommodation, meals, bathrooms and so on, down in the States?
I suspect that they are not able to practise infection control measures at the level we'd like to see, and they are not quarantined upon their return here to Canada, as we understand. Is that not a serious threat here in Canada?