Human Resources Committee on Feb. 28th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We're going to get started.

Good evening. We're running a bit late here.

Pursuant to the order of reference on Monday, January 29, 2018, the committee is resuming its consideration of Bill C-65, An act to amend the Canada Labour Code (harassment and violence), the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Budget Implementation Act, No. 1.

Today the committee will hear from witnesses on the subject of the work environment and resources available to employees of the Parliament of Canada. Our witnesses include, as an individual, Katherine Lippel, professor, Canada research chair in occupational health and safety law, University of Ottawa.

Thank you very much for being here today.

From the Canadian Human Rights Commission, we have Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner; and Fiona Keith, senior legal counsel.

Thank you both for being here this evening.

We're missing our next witnesses, but hopefully they will arrive shortly. I'll just move on. From Rubin Thomlinson LLP, we have Christine Thomlinson, co-founder and co-managing partner as well as Jennifer White, investigator and trainer.

Thank you both for being here today.

We will give each organization seven minutes to introduce yourselves and bring greetings. Hopefully by the end, our two other witnesses will have arrived. Then, of course, we'll have a series of questions from my colleagues rounding out the evening.

First up we have Katherine Lippel, professor, Canada research chair in occupational health and safety law, University of Ottawa.

The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Professor Katherine Lippel, Professor, Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health and Safety Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, and thank you for the invitation. This was not my initiative—I was invited—and I really appreciate the invitation. As the chair said, I have brought a copy of a brief in French and English. The clerk has it, and she will distribute it to you.

I hold the Canada research chair on occupational health and safety law and have done so since 2006. I've been a member of the Quebec bar since 1978, and I was a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal between 1982 and 2006.

More relevant to this committee is the International Labour Organization, which is currently developing debates on an international convention on occupational violence. The gender bureau of the ILO invited me to prepare a document in support of their discussions, and you have the reference in your documentation. It provides an overview of what's going on, first of all in terms of definitions of violence in the workplace, and secondly in terms of different regulatory strategies around the world. In my seven minutes, I will not try to give you a synthesis of that, but, if you are interested, you have the ILO document that is published by the ILO.

I have seven points that I want to make in my seven minutes, and it might not even take seven minutes. You have the details that are fleshed out in the brief.

First of all, I want to applaud the explicit inclusion, at section 122.1 of the Canada Labour Code and in part 1 of Bill C-65, of the prevention of psychological injuries and illnesses. I think this is to be commended. I do not fundamentally think this is a change in the law, but I think it's very pedagogical, in the sense that it will avoid litigation.

Please don't make that disappear, because you're going to hire a lot of lawyers.... I love to train lawyers, but if I could train them to do something more useful, it would perhaps be better if you eliminated that ambiguity. I applaud you for doing that in this draft legislation.

Second, and I understand completely why it can be interesting to not define harassment, but I have concerns in relation to the absence of a definition, and I'll tell you why. I think it will lead to a lot of litigation. The current version of the proposed legislation may make this legislation more vulnerable to rapid modification through regulation against the will of the parliamentarians who have adopted it, because you don't control what happens two, three, or four years down the line.

I'm not going to provide you with a definition, although I'm happy to answer questions on this. What I would say is that, minimally, you should be able to ensure a broad and open-ended definition that explicitly includes psychological harassment, sexual harassment, as well as other forms of discriminatory harassment.

I also know that cyber-bullying is a key issue, but, if you have an open-ended definition, you don't have to talk about cyber-bullying. I think at least those three elements are absolutely essential in the legislation itself. All of these categories of workplace parlance in the report that I did for the ILO, and in ILO discussions, are included in the concept of violence. However, I understand that the regulatory practices here are not to include them, and that's fine.

Third, to be more effective, the legislation should include explicit mention of the need to address psychosocial risk factors underpinning violence in the workplace. I explain that in detail in the brief, and we discuss it in the ILO. In terms of psychological harassment, sexual harassment, and physical violence in the workplace, psychosocial hazards lead to this type of violence. If you don't prevent the psychosocial hazards, you're going to have a much more difficult time in preventing the violence.

Fourth, clause 5 of Bill C-65 proposes new subsection 127.1(1), and suggests we channel all complaints to the supervisor. I explained why I think this is a bad idea. We have research data, both federally, and from EQCOTESST, which is a study of a representative population of Quebec workers, and it's very clear that the majority of cases in Canada come from the supervisor as the author of harassment.

In part 2, it makes a lot of sense to have the supervisor find out if there's a leaky faucet or there's gas leaking into the workplace—you have to tell him right away—but when you're talking about violence, it may not be a good idea to start with a supervisor. You have to have some flexibility in there in cases where supervisors are responsible for the violence or harassment.

Fifth, clause 6, amending 134.1 of the Canada Labour Code and related provisions—and there are a whole bunch of them, as you well know—exclude policy committees and representatives of the union from processes relating to harassment and violence. I suggest respectfully that this is a mistake.

I have a doctoral student, Rachel Cox, who is now a professor. She did her doctorate on the implementation of the Quebec psychological harassment legislation in unionized workplaces in Quebec. She has clear evidence that unions can be allies in relation to this. I think it's important to have flexibility in that it's not necessarily the health and safety committee. It might well be better served to have a specialized committee, but one whereby all members have the same regulatory protections as health and safety committee members.

I hope that's clear: in other words, protect them from the reprisals, but it's not everybody who wants to hear about harassment. You have to pick and choose the people, both on the management and union side, who are interested in this.

In crafting legislation, lawmakers should bear in mind that gender and equity issues often underpin situations of violence and harassment in the workplace. I address this aspect in the brief. In particular, if you have a specialized committee, you might want to be able to adapt that committee specifically to the needs of the population who disproportionately are affected by violence and harassment, including discriminatory harassment.

My final point is that effective legislation should be designed to provide support for the target of the harassment. I try to avoid saying “victim”, but it's to support the victim of violence or the target of harassment, and the legislation should not, in my opinion, seek to regulate punishment of the perpetrator. Employers can already punish perpetrators. I find that when the legislation is punitive legislation, what happens is everybody lawyers up really quickly, and the victim gets re-victimized. I have suggestions in the brief as to how we could be more victim-friendly in this type of legislation.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much. We're going to move over to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. We have Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner, as well as Fiona Keith, senior legal counsel. The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Marie-Claude Landry, Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission]

Good evening. Thank you for inviting the Canadian Human Rights Commission to take part in your consideration of Bill C-65. As the chair noted, I am accompanied by Ms. Fiona Keith, senior legal counsel with the commission.

This bill is a positive step towards preventing all forms of harassment. Yet the bill is just one part of the solution to this issue that is deeply rooted in our society. While we support the establishment of proactive regulations as an important step in changing the culture in all federal workplaces, we have concerns about the process as it has been put forward.

We have three main messages.

First, in order to end harassment, and sexual harassment in particular, victims must absolutely feel safe, empowered, and supported. That is what they need to proceed. The bill does not go far enough, however.

Second, greater clarity is needed. In our opinion, too many things have been left up to the regulations.

Third, in order to find a solution to harassment and help victims deal with it, they must have access to the redress measures set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Any new process must be in addition to, and must not limit or delay access to the protection afforded by the Canadian Human Rights Act, which is a quasi-constitutional piece of legislation.

Regardless of the proactive disclosure regime, whenever power dynamics are at play, there will be imbalances in power. When there are imbalances, there will often be harassment.

The commission has more than 40 years of experience dealing with human rights and harassment complaints. Time and time again, we have heard that the victims of all forms of harassment, and sexual harassment in particular, must feel safe, empowered, and supported. When there are power imbalances in the workplace, any process can be intimidating. If the process is complicated, intimidating, embarrassing, the victims will have to endure the unbearable, and they will refuse to proceed.

We encourage the committee to ensure that Bill C-65 reflects an approach that does not leave victims knocking at the wrong door. It should be amended to clearly establish that a victim will not be required to turn to their supervisor, as my colleague said.

The reality is that harassment often involves people in supervisory and management positions. We must allow the victims of harassment to choose where and in whom they wish to confide. Moreover, once they have made that choice, they must know beyond the shadow of a doubt that their job is protected.

We have to consider how the victim will feel in the proposed process. Will they feel safe? Will they feel supported? Will they feel protected? Will the process enable them to file a complaint, in spite of the power imbalance that is often at the root of harassment?

How will the process work in cases where there are several grounds for discrimination? How will it help victims who have experienced multiple forms of discrimination or systemic discrimination in a hostile or toxic work environment?

We also have questions about how the bill will apply to small employers, including MPs' offices, to small trucking companies, local radio stations, and certain first nations employers. What additional support will be offered to them to ensure that they comply with the act?

We support the creation of a proactive regulatory regime that will create a positive obligation on employers to foster an environment that is respectful, inclusive, and safe.

When harassment occurs, a victim needs a clear, impartial, and flexible process that is effective. To ensure this, we suggest that this bill be amended to make it clear that the right to a workplace free from hazards includes a right to a workplace free from harassment as is currently provided in Part III of the Canada Labour Code. An illness or injury should not be required to make a complaint of harassment.

As well, victim should have the choice to seek redress immediately with the CHRC before or at any time during their internal complaint process at their respective organization.

The burden on the victim should be minimized as much as possible. For example, if a parallel human rights complaint is filed, the competent person's report should be shared with the Canadian Human Rights Commission so that the victim does not have to start from scratch and retell their story over and over.

The commission does not believe that a definition of harassment is needed in the Canada Labour Code, but should one be included, it should be non-exhaustive, inclusive, and consistent with human rights law.

As well, the bill must make it clear that the labour program and employees have obligations to report on the effectiveness of the process, including reporting data related to human rights.

Finally, human rights are not only a priority: they are quasi-constitutional legal obligations and must be available equitably to all. These are cornerstones of access to justice.

Any legislative proposal should be a complement to the redress-based protections guaranteed in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Whereas parallel processes that apply the CHRA, such as the federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board, are empowered to provide remedies under the CHRA, this is not the case for Bill C-65.

Because of this, any victim who seeks remedies—for instance, for lost wages or for pain and suffering or for wilful and reckless behaviour—may choose to engage in two processes at the same time, the CHRA and the proposed internal process. It must be made clear to people that each system serves a different purpose. The proposed information hub and the 1-800 line must provide information that explains all the options, including the right to file a complaint under the CHRA.

In conclusion, we must address the pervasiveness of harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace, which results from unhealthy power imbalances. That means that the victims of these unhealthy dynamics must feel competent, empowered, and supported.

The committee must ensure that the process does not limit human rights protections, but rather complements the protections already afforded all Canadians under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The commission intends to present a brief in the coming days that outlines its mandate, complaints process, and recommended technical amendments. We will of course be very pleased to help the committee as it carries out this extremely important work for Canadian society.

My colleague Ms. Keith and I will be pleased to answer all your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

I'm very pleased to welcome to the table from the National Association of Women and the Law, Suki Beavers, project director; and Martha Jackman, co-chair of the National Steering Committee. The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Suki Beavers, Project Director, National Association of Women and the Law]

Good evening, and thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on Bill C-65 on behalf of the National Association of Women and the Law.

NAWL is an incorporated not-for-profit feminist organization that promotes equality rights of women in Canada through legal education, research, and law reform advocacy.

We want to begin our comments this evening by congratulating the government for prioritizing action to strengthen the prevention of and response to violence and harassment, including sexual harassment, in federally regulated workplaces and on Parliament Hill. This is consistent with the federal government's constitutional obligation under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with Canada's domestic and international human rights obligations.

We're also very appreciative of the support that's been given to this issue by all the parties and by the broad agreement that tackling sexual harassment is an important component of any gender equality agenda.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the 1989 Janzen v. Platy case confirmed that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination. Put very simply, sexual harassment is unlawful and it's a violation of women's rights. Nearly 30 years later, however, in Canada, as elsewhere, women continue to overwhelmingly be the targets of sexual harassment at work, and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators.

An intersectional feminist analysis also highlights that violence and harassment, including sexual harassment, are not experienced in the same way by all women, and that racialized, indigenous, and disabled women are particularly at risk. Therefore, approaches to preventing and responding to sexual harassment must be framed in response to these realities.

While the good intentions of Bill C-65 are clear, we've identified a few key areas where critical content is not yet included or is open to a range of interpretations. Because of the particularities and the pervasiveness of gendered power dynamics in politics, our comments this evening will focus on some of the aspects of the bill that are particularly important to preventing and responding to sexual harassment on Parliament Hill. These include the following.

The legislative intent of achieving gender equality and security in the workplace could be explicitly referenced in Bill C-65. The law, and not the regulations that follow it, should include definitions of the violence, including gender-based violence, in all its forms across the continuum of harassment and sexual harassment that occur in the workplace, which Bill C-65 seeks to target.

Customized approaches to respond to the unique causes of different forms of violence, including gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and other forms of harassment, are required, as both international human rights law and the Canadian charter impose on Canada the duty to eradicate all forms of discrimination against women. However, in its current form, there is no distinction between sexual harassment and other forms of workplace harassment and violence.

Bill C-65's focus on strengthening health and safety approaches should be an additional mechanism that's available to victim survivors of sexual harassment, including on the Hill, and not be seen as a mandatory prerequisite to or a replacement of other mechanisms.

The complaint process under Bill C-65 should not delay or have any negative impact on the complainant's ability to access other mechanisms, including under the Canadian Human Rights Act as well as collective agreements or, in reporting crimes committed in the workplace, through the criminal justice system. Adding a clause that confirms that nothing in the act precludes recourse under the Canadian Human Rights Act would provide clarity on this point. Ensuring that Bill C-65 bolsters rather than hinders women's access to justice is particularly important, given the range of remedies available to a complainant under other processes that are not available under Bill C-65—and we've just heard some of those same comments.

Because Bill C-65 does not include details about the investigation process that will be used, it's not possible yet to assess whether the process proposed will be appropriate for and effective on Parliament Hill. The question of who will be appointed to undertake sexual harassment investigations and make determinations is an incredibly important one. The independence, expertise, and confidentiality of investigators will be even more important in an explicitly political environment such as that of Parliament Hill. If women are to trust the system and report, there can be no perception of any potential conflict of interest by the competent person appointed or by any parties involved in the investigation or decision-making.

Good options for ensuring independence, removing bias and partisanship by any party, and minimizing the possibilities of conflict of interest in sexual harassment cases, especially those involving parliamentary or political staff, include either the establishment of an independent body to govern investigations or the establishment of a list of independent external investigators with specific expertise on human rights, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and all the forms of harassment and violence that take place in a workplace.

The model chosen should adopt a human rights framework and will need to be adequately funded to ensure appropriate support for victim survivors and the timely determination of complaints. At least half of the competent persons or investigators should be women, and the list of those who can be called on to conduct an investigation should reflect the population and include indigenous women and men, women and men with disabilities, racialized women and men, and LGBTQ2 people. Supportive roles can be identified for department of labour staff and/or tripartite workplace committees. For example, they could be used to review and agree on the list of external experts eligible for appointment.

Significant attention has been paid in Bill C-65 to ensuring the confidentiality of complainants, which is critical; however, clarifications may be useful to ensure that the approach to confidentiality doesn't inadvertently help harassers and harm women. Procedural fairness and respecting a victim survivor-centred approach necessitate that the complainant must be provided with a copy of the entire competent persons report and recommendations. This is a crucial amendment that should be made to Bill C-65.

NAWL supports the call for a provision to be added to Bill C-65 that will require all federally regulated workplaces and those on Parliament Hill who will also be bound by the Canada Labour Code provisions to publish annual statistics on the number of incidents of sexual misconduct reported to them, the outcome of each complaint, and any financial settlement paid.

Finally, it is important that any government measures to combat sexual harassment and violence be as effective as possible. NAWL therefore recommends that Bill C-65 provide for a formal review of the new federal regime within three years of its enactment. Because laws and regulations governing sexual harassment in legislatures have only recently begun to emerge in Canada and elsewhere, further study of the human rights-based approaches to, and effectiveness of, measures adopted at other levels of government and in other countries to prevent and respond to sexual harassment in their legislatures would be a helpful component of such a review.

I'll end my comments here. Along with my colleague, Professor Martha Jackman, who is co-chair of the NAWL national steering committee, I look forward to answering any questions you might have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Up next we have, from Rubin Thomlinson LLP, Christine Thomlinson, co-founder and co-managing partner; and Jennifer White, investigator and trainer.

The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Christine Thomlinson, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Rubin Thomlinson LLP]

Thank you for inviting us here to make remarks on Bill C-65.

In preparing these remarks, we drew on our experience as a law firm that solely focuses on investigation and training relating to employee misconduct in the workplace, the vast majority of which involves harassment. We've been doing this work for 15 years, and we look forward today to sharing the collective experience of our team of 11 investigators who do this work full-time across the country.

Having reviewed the bill in detail, we have four areas that we want to focus on today in our limited time. They include the definitions, which we've heard some comments on already; policies and training; confidentiality; and the mechanics of investigation. I'll deal with each of those in turn.

Beginning with definitions, we've heard comments today already that the bill doesn't include definitions of violence and harassment, with the intention that those terms would be defined in the regulations. We know from the work that we do that definitions are critical. They're critical to establishing a standard of behaviour for people in the workplace so they understand how they're expected to behave, and they're critical from the perspective of the investigator, because we need them to underpin the findings that we make. We are concerned that leaving these critical definitions until the regulations will not send the strong message that you intend to send to the people who would be covered by this legislation.

We also have the unique perspective in our practice of seeing a myriad of definitions in play. Every investigation that we do takes place in a different workplace, typically under a different policy, and often under a different definition. We've seen definitions that work very well and definitions that work far less well.

For example, we see harassment definitions that require that behaviour be directed at particular individuals, which is not a definition that we would endorse. We see definitions that include a requirement that there be intent to offend, which I think is universally understood to not be an appropriate definition. We see definitions that include the requirement that the person on the receiving end suffer qualitative psychological or physical harm, which we've already heard comments on.

We really believe that you have an opportunity here to carefully consider an appropriate definition and to set that standard at the outset and not leave room for deviation later.

We wanted to address policies and training because we note that the bill includes language that talks about organizations taking measures to prevent and protect against harassment and violence in the workplace. We absolutely think those things are critical, but we're concerned that the current language in the bill is too general and leaves far too much room for organizations to interpret how they'll choose to do that.

What we've seen in our years of experience—and we have the Ontario experience to bring to bear, because similar legislation has been in place now for quite some time—is that, when organizations in Ontario were required to take efforts to generically prevent and protect, many organizations interpreted that by asking, “What is the bare minimum that I need to do in order to satisfy this statutory requirement?” That is absolutely not the intent of this legislation. The intent of this legislation is to put effective measures in place to help address this workplace problem. We're concerned right now that, without more guidance, you're going to leave that same situation in place federally.

In our work we've also had the opportunity to speak to hundreds and probably thousands of employees about their experience with harassment in the workplace, and we hear from many of them why they're reluctant to bring forward complaints about harassment at work. A recurring theme is that they tell us is that there were no policies, or if there were policies, they were unaware of the existence of the policies. They tell us that when there were policies, they didn't know they existed, they didn't understand them, and they didn't know how to use the reporting mechanisms that were set out therein.

From our perspective, language in the bill should absolutely explicitly require employers to both have policies that specifically address harassment and violence in their workplaces—that is the case in Ontario, and in our experience that has been extremely successful—and conduct meaningful and effective training on those policies. Again, the educational requirement in Ontario, has seen many employers do very little to effectively educate their people on what harassment is and how it can be addressed in the workplace.

The issue of confidentiality has been commented on by some of the other speakers tonight, so we'll make two comments here.

The first is that we understand some provisions have been put in the bill to address this, and they deal with how committees and health and safety representatives will be shrouded through confidentiality under the bill.

Our concern here is that in doing that really the language is too narrow because, absolutely, there are people who need to be kept out of the confidential information, who extend far beyond the health and safety committees, and health and safety representatives. There's another piece and I don't know if it's been considered. There may very well be people on those committees, amongst those representatives, who have to be involved in the investigative process. What if a respondent is a member of a committee? Certainly they have a right to participate in a process. What if they need to be a witness? What we would encourage you to do is to take a look at the language that was inserted in the Ontario legislation, and what it says in order to preserve confidentiality. It reads:

...information obtained about an incident or complaint of workplace harassment, including identifying information about any individuals involved, will not be disclosed unless [such] disclosure is necessary for the purposes of investigating or taking corrective action with respect to the incident or complaint, or is otherwise required by law;

You'll see that's far more general, but also more protective.

We've seen employers using that language since that particular provision was enacted in Bill 132, in September 2016, and the effect of it, in our experience, has made employers be much more thoughtful and careful about their use of confidential information surrounding investigations in the workplace.

The last comments we'd like to make relate to investigations, and here we'll echo some of the comments of the other speakers about the concern around reporting having to be through the supervisor. We absolutely in our practice see the percentage of occasions where the supervisor is the harasser; and not having a mechanism whereby someone can circumvent that reporting group, we think is extremely problematic. We would encourage you there to again consider the Ontario experience, where policies and procedures in Ontario are required to provide additional avenues for employees to complain. Even if the supervisor is not the harasser, many supervisors are not properly trained to deal with harassment complaints and are not sufficiently knowledgeable of harassment to identify it when it is brought to their attention, particularly psychological harassment which doesn't always present in the way that people understand.

The net result of that legislative gap for us means that as the bill is currently drafted, many complaints between employees and supervisors will remain unresolved, which means that they'll go to the minister, and the minister will then have to deal with them. We think that's going to leave the ministerial resources vastly over-extended.

One final note is that currently the bill talks about investigating all occurrences and complaints of harassment. While we think that is a laudable objective, we'll note one unique aspect about the Ontario legislation which contains the same requirement. In Ontario, with those investigations, the language that's used is that employers are to conduct investigations into incidents and complaints of workplace harassment that are “appropriate in the circumstances”. We would really encourage you to consider some language that allows for flexibility because not every incident and even complaint of harassment necessitates a full-blown investigation. We've seen employers struggle with even what's considered to be “appropriate in the circumstances”, but at least that language has allowed them to do some creative interpreting of what might be a way to deal with that particular situation. We fear that an inflexible requirement that everything be investigated is going to become unwieldy, and that the effect of that is going to mean that more of it is going to end up with the ministry.

We thank you for allowing us to make these comments, and as my colleagues have said, we look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent thank you all very much. We're going to start off with six minutes from MP Blaney please.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is my belief that if we were to consider your recommendation with the goodwill of the government, we could certainly improve by far this bill and give it teeth because we are all supportive of the goal of this bill, which is to tackle a very sensitive issue. But we certainly don't want it to just stay with goodwill, but also action.

I will begin with you, Madame Lippel. There's certainly a lot of experience in that document you provided us. I will get to the core of my question. I really like all of your recommendations, but there's one I like, in particular. My question will go through the other member. I've been asking the minister this many times. If the supervisor is the one who's, let's say, concerned by the...what kind of alternative mechanism would you propose? That's my question for you tonight.

[Prof. Katherine Lippel]

Thank you for the question. There are models around the world. The one I personally prefer is the Belgian model. It requires une personne de confiance, whose full-time or part-time job, depending on the size of the organization, is to be the person to whom everybody can go to anonymously to address concerns. When they first adopted the law, it was only for psychological harassment and sexual harassment, and now they also include psychosocial hazards, which come before the actual manifestation of violence. The personne de confiance would be the first person who would be able to address it.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

We can appreciate that there may be a trusted person in large companies. In the case of small companies, however, which are essentially SMEs under federal jurisdiction, should they call upon an outside organization?

[Prof. Katherine Lippel]

For non-unionized workers in Quebec, it is the Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, or CNESST, formerly the Commission des normes du travail. So the investigations are conducted by people who are completely outside the company. If the prima facie evidence is sufficient, these people represent the victim and at the same time work towards conciliation.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I should also mention that I am working on an amendment right now that would enable officials with Employment and Social Development Canada to investigate specific cases. That is not possible right now, such as in the case you mentioned.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go to the other side.

Ms. Thomlinson, you've also mentioned that there should be a mechanism when the supervisor is directly involved. We just got a suggestion here of adding a third party within the organization—or not, I suppose. Would you like to say something about it? You're much more knowledgeable than I am in those areas.

[Christine Thomlinson]

I certainly echo the comments on the benefits of a third party. Certainly the benefit of a third party is that it allows people to feel more comfortable when making anonymous complaints, and it provides a better vehicle for that. I don't know that it's always practical, and it also means that the matter then has to go external to the organization.

I think our view would be that this is an added benefit, but if there's only an internal alternative, the alternative that seems to work most effectively in our experience is having a mechanism whereby—and ideally this would be enshrined in policy or procedure—employees understand that if they are uncomfortable taking it to the designated person—and I think a designated person is still a good idea because that would presumably be someone who is trained who understands these issues—they could then go to someone with whom they feel comfortable. That can be defined differently depending on the structure of the organization, but the most common definition of this that we see is anyone in a managerial position within the organization. The complement to that, though, has to be that managers are trained within an organization to understand that they are part of that reporting mechanism, and that they are able to identify issues when they're brought to their attention and understand which steps to take when they are.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

What about in the case of a small organization when there isn't necessarily a designated person? Where do Ontarians go in small organizations now?

[Christine Thomlinson]

The model in Ontario is absolutely the managerial one. We spend an extraordinary amount of our time doing training in organizations that are small, large, and medium-sized, but we train managers to understand exactly that. In some organizations, the only reporting mechanism is for an employee to talk to their manager or any manager.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Are there no external resources like in Quebec, where they can go to an independent body?

[Christine Thomlinson]

It depends on the organization.

I would say that larger organizations are absolutely considering more of those mechanisms, and I think more are becoming available in the form of whistleblowing hotlines and independent organizations that are setting up. However, those would be for larger organizations that have those resources.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

You are obviously conducting an inquiry about the specifics of a case, aren't you? That's your specialty.

[Christine Thomlinson]

That is our specialty.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Are there civil servants who are doing this before you intervene in the private sector? In Ontario, are there investigators who are enabled to do those specific investigations when there's a complaint?

[Christine Thomlinson]

That's our entire business.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I beg your pardon?

[Christine Thomlinson]

That's our business, and there are many that do it, absolutely.