Human Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2011

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

Do you anticipate further demand for conciliation and arbitration going forward?

[Marie-Geneviève Mounier]

Not necessarily, because there's a period during which the parties are bargaining by themselves, so it's very difficult to anticipate.

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

We've seen the axe fall on a couple of federal departments already, such as Environment, DFO, and HRSDC. We've seen that 600 people who process EI claims are going home, and this is pre-strategic review. You guys are a relatively smaller department, so I would think that any significant cuts in your department would be hard felt. Maybe you could give us some kind of indication as to what kind of impact this is going to have on the services you provide.

[Bayla Kolk]

The labour program did a strategic review, which was announced in March 2010, indicating that there would be reductions in the order of $7.3 million over three years. The findings of the Treasury Board ministers were that the labour program is important and relevant but that we should look at three areas. Number one is to eliminate red tape and streamline service delivery. Second is to align our program funding with actual needs. Third is to focus our programs on the core mandate and high-priority areas.

We have implemented our strategic review. We have had a very effective workforce management committee and have helped the affected employees--there are not many, but relative to our size, it's a significant number--to find other jobs, either within the program or elsewhere in the federal government.

We've worked closely with HR and HRSDC, because we are part of the portfolio, and we found that we could streamline in a number of areas using more modern technology and alternate methods. That's how we brought into effect the implementation of the strategic review. That's from what we've known today. The next step is not yet known to us.

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

Have there been specific programs eliminated?

[Bayla Kolk]

It has been in the public domain that we have closed our industrial hygiene lab. That was done because of very reduced demand for that service and because of our analysis that provinces were no longer running laboratories of that type; they can be found in the private sector.

We did need to work with the affected employees to see what their portable skills were and to move them along. That has been successful.

It's a lot of work to decommission a lab and to make sure we know where to look elsewhere in the private sector for those kinds of services.

That's one example.

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

Do I get another question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

You have 15 seconds.

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

Is the bulk of the staff central to the capital region, as opposed to being in the regions?

[Bayla Kolk]

No, actually. In my branch, I'm responsible for regional operations, for five regions across Canada. The bulk of them are actually in the regions: that's about 480 people. The total in the labour program is about 700.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that exchange.

We will go to the next questioner. Go ahead.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much for coming today. I greatly appreciate it.

I wanted to ask you about the wage earner protection program. Specifically, could you update the committee on the success of the program in terms of how many Canadians have accessed the program, what the maximum payments are that are associated with it, how many individuals have received that maximum payment, and if you anticipate any expansion of this program that has been in place since 2008?

[Bayla Kolk]

Thank you for the question.

I will go over some of the successes of the wage earner protection program. Since its inception, the WEPP has issued $89.5 million in payments to just over 40,000 applicants. Of these applicants, an average of 57% is currently getting the maximum payment of $3,400. As I said earlier, for those who don't, it may be the because they've received money from other sources and that sort of thing.

There is a current plan to expand the program. Budget 2011 announced the Government of Canada's intention to expand WEPP to cover workers who lose their jobs as a result of the restructuring of a company rather than a bankruptcy.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

May I ask you if you know the statistics surrounding the circumstances whereby an individual doesn't receive the maximum payment because we know they are receiving other funds, i.e., they're maximizing their opportunity in the program?

[Bayla Kolk]

If they don't receive the maximum, it means they've received some severance or some other payment from another source. The calculation would be that if you have received a payment and it takes you over the amount allowable, then we don't.... It's not a top-up program. It's a defined program of $3,400 for that purpose: to compensate in the event of bankruptcy--and soon, in the event of a restructuring.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

On a different subject, I have a question about part II of the Canada Labour Code with regard to occupational health and safety. Could you outline--a little more fulsomely, I guess--some of the initiatives that you've taken most recently to expand how you're dealing with mental health issues? I know that it has been very topical and that you have been moving forward with some new initiatives in that area. Could you expand on them for the committee?

[Bayla Kolk]

Yes. In particular, Minister Lisa Raitt has a deep interest in defining occupational health and safety as encompassing mental health issues. The summer before last, she asked us to support her in round tables across the country with key stakeholders, some of them mental health practitioners and people from the Mental Heath Commission of Canada, but others who represented unions and employers of various types, to talk about the prevalence of mental health issues in the workplace, which sometimes amount to in the order of 40% of disability claims.

The minister was very interested in stakeholder views on the appropriate strategies and also in how the labour program could show some of our existing tools that make a contribution. I'll name the anti-violence regulations again, but there's also our role under the Government Employees Compensation Act in working with the Treasury Board on disability management, on how to reintegrate people successfully: so under the principles of prevention, support and accommodation, and return to work, how to have a dialogue with our stakeholders about appropriate strategies.

We are doing a lot of work. We're trying to validate the mental health issues within occupational health and safety. This will be an ongoing theme for us going forward.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Do I still have a bit of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Almost a minute.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Along that same theme, I know a national framework initiative was put forward recently. Maybe you could share with the committee the structure of that national voluntary framework that employers are being asked to participate in. I know it's something the Mental Health Commission moved forward with, and the minister was quite adamant that this be a focal point.

[Bayla Kolk]

The framework draws on a number of best practice strategies that are both in the private sector and in the public sector. It also draws on participating with the Mental Health Commission in the development of national standards. For the labour program we have loaned our expertise of people who have worked on disability management, Government Employees Compensation Act, and occupational health and safety central to the development of the national standard. We also brought the Mental Health Commission to the federal-provincial-territorial table to promote this as a collaborative effort with other jurisdictions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Ms. Hughes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I have a couple of questions. One of them is with respect to the occupational health and safety portion and the right to know about every known or foreseeable health or safety hazard in the area where they work. I know this is in the Canada Labour Code. When the government negotiates agreements in the international area, do you have any input at all, with respect to when there comes time to do some trading with specific substances, as to what they should be looking at putting in that agreement?

[Marie-Geneviève Mounier]

I would say that probably if we do negotiate standards on that front it wouldn't be so much in the labour cooperation agreements but would be international labour organizations, because we have a number of conventions dealing with that.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Are you saying you do have input into some of the agreements that are being put in place to maybe look at some safety issues? For example, I'm thinking of asbestos. Regarding the way we handle asbestos here and the way they handle it in third world countries, do you have input when agreements are being drafted to allow it to be transported to a different country and suggestions made to them as to what should be in place?