Good afternoon.
Thank you for receiving us. We are the only union to be heard today.
The CSN represents 300,000 members, including 10,000 who are subject to federal legislation, such as Mr. Godin, who represents Canada's correctional officers.
First, we want to commend this bill, which fills a significant gap in the Canada Labour Code by finally including provisions on the prevention of harassment in its broadest sense and violence at work. The purpose of the bill is the protection of both psychological and physical health by including preventive measures, but the purpose of the act, as amended, only refers to accidents, injuries or illnesses.
We are concerned that, when the bill refers to harassment and violence, the legislation will refer only to occurrences. The fact that the vocabulary is not the same is problematic, and this is the purpose of our first recommendation: we want the concept of occurrence to be added to the purpose of the legislation.
The bill also provides that the definition of harassment and violence in the workplace will be included in a regulation, which is also a problem for us. As you know, the definition of those terms is the foundation for the legislation. Defining those words later in a regulation, which may be changed depending on the political vagaries of the lives we lead, is problematic. We believe that the definition of harassment, including sexual harassment, should really be included in the legislation, because the regulations will be based on that definition. It therefore makes more sense to include it in the legislation itself.
Furthermore, the bill removes the definition of sexual harassment because it will be included in the broader definition of harassment and violence. That's great, except that the definition will be in a regulation only later. If the legislation is repealed before the regulations or the other act are in place, there may be a legal vacuum. We think it's very important to point it out. In the current context, a legal vacuum with respect to sexual harassment in Canadian labour laws is a misstep that must be avoided at all costs. That's why we wanted to mention it.
We also have remarks to make about the internal complaint resolution. I will let Mr. Godin tell you about it.
Jason, it's up to you now. I will come back to conclude.