I'll tell you personally that I'm gutted that it has happened, that things have gone the way they have here. This has gone far worse than my worst nightmare, and one of the reasons is that PHAC does not understand the role of unions and workers in worker safety. In any workplace, the responsibility for worker safety is a joint one between workers and their employer, which means, especially in the health care sectors, that nurses, doctors and other health care workers have a direct role in ensuring the safety of the workplace.
In the interactions that I know of and that I have heard of between PHAC and the unions, there's not been a positive dialogue, a collaborative dialogue, between workers, unions and PHAC. Instead, it's done cursory consultations with workers and unions, just ticking the box. In fact, there should be an ongoing dialogue, because front-line workers know first-hand what the risks are and how things are evolving. They can make real-time recommendations on how to ensure that everyone is protected. By “everyone”, I mean workers, patients, visitors and the rest of us, because, as I said earlier, pandemic containment and worker safety go hand in hand.