What we said is that we think it's not necessary, but that if there is one it's really important that the definition be open and non-exhaustive. It should be something in which people will find themselves, so that when they look at the act, the law, and the definition, they will find themselves and they will understand that they can use that tool. That's the most important thing when you have that kind of legislation where the objective or the goal is to protect vulnerable people or people in vulnerable circumstances. They should be able to understand that.

7:15 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Right, and certainly that's what we've been hearing throughout all of the testimony. It can't be too broad and it can't be too specific. That's going to be the challenge if we put it in legislation: what are those parameters going to be?

Ms. Lippel, you mentioned three: psychological harassment, sexual harassment, and other forms of discriminatory harassment. To me, reading that, yes, great, that sounds good, but I don't know if there are other things. With what you have gone through with your training, I'd be curious to see if you would add more to that. If you had to do the definitions in the legislation, how would you do it?

7:20 p.m.

Prof. Katherine Lippel

My thought is that it should be a broad definition that includes those three items. I'm broader as well in relation to this, but the explicit mention.... Because sexual harassment is in part 3 and discriminatory harassment is in part 3, the more you leave it ambiguous, the more somebody is going to try to say that psychological harassment isn't really included because it's the #MeToo movement, and that's why we're changing this law. Then you're going to go up to the Supreme Court, and 10 years later we'll say, yes, you should have investigated. That's what I want to avoid.

7:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Right, so if you include those three—

7:20 p.m.

Prof. Katherine Lippel

But broadly, so that the definition of harassment includes A, B, and C, but it means that there is more than just A, B, and C.

7:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Right. Okay. Would you add anything to that based on your experiences?

7:20 p.m.

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Christine Thomlinson

No, I completely agree, and I think here you have a myriad of resources to turn to. In human rights legislation across the country, we have harassment and sexual harassment definitions that have been used for years.

I think the beauty of that for investigators like us is that we have an enormous body of case law that we can draw from when we have any concerns that we don't completely understand whether or not the behaviour in question falls within the parameters of that definition. I would encourage you to look at those definitions and consider whether you can use those. I think you can.

7:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Okay. I'm going to stay with you, because you guys are trainers. We've heard from a lot of unions, large unions that have resources available to them and have policies and training in place, but that doesn't stop events from happening. Putting it in law with this legislation is one thing, but how does it come back to solving the problem if people already have the resources? For smaller companies, I get that, but when you have large organizations with large unions and they face the same problems, I'm not sure where the breakdown is. Why are we still having that as an issue?

7:20 p.m.

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Christine Thomlinson

This is really something that I think that you can give some thought to. I'm not singling out unions here. I speak from our experience in dealing with all kinds of large organizations where they are dealing with competing resource interests. Training tends to be something that many don't like to spend money on, so when they do training, if there is a booklet people can read or an online module that they can quickly flip through, that's an attractive training method. What we know from our experience is that it often can be completely ineffective, depending upon the product.

So often, we have the opportunity to go into organizations that we're privileged to work with and to have really meaningful and deep conversations with employees about what this behaviour actually is, to answer their questions, and to have case studies where we can challenge them to deal with the situation and talk to their co-workers and figure it out. We can see how effective training can be.

The other thing I'll add is that we're not naive enough to think that even the best training is going to make all workplace problems go away, but the beauty of training is that it teaches people how to deal with issues when they come up in a live way so that they really know how to address them.

7:20 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

How do you see Bill C-65 being able to address those issues?

7:20 p.m.

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Christine Thomlinson

One of the concerns in Ontario was that the language used was “provide education and information”. Some organizations interpreted that as a training requirement, others as putting something up in the lunchroom.

You could be explicit about training, and you could talk about the training having to be effective to achieve a particular objective.

7:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Yes. You're out of time, I'm afraid.

I was going to...if it were a quick question. But it sounded as if you were going down a rabbit hole there.

We have MP Trudel, for six minutes, please.

7:20 p.m.

NDP

Karine Trudel NDP Jonquière, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentations, which are so important in our consideration of Bill C-65.

My first question is for Ms. Lippel.

In the last hour, a witness made a recommendation regarding section 122.1, which explicitly addresses the prevention of physical or psychological injuries and illnesses. The witness suggested that the section should state that this part is intended to prevent incidents or accidents and physical or psychological injuries and illnesses linked with the employment to which this part applies.

This is along the same lines as what you commended. This recommendation would simply add the word “incidents”. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

7:25 p.m.

Prof. Katherine Lippel

In order to prevent a fatal accident, we have to start by preventing incidents that can lead to a fatal accident in the workplace. If we do not define the nature of the incident or incidents that could lead to a physical or psychological injury or illness, I would fully support adding that word.

That is in line with what I said about psychosocial risks. These risks represent a type of incident. There are whole books devoted to explaining this term. We cannot prevent an incident without describing the type of incident that is to be prevented. Otherwise, it would not provide any pedagogical benefit because people would not know what we are trying to prevent. We are trying to stop people from treating each other badly, but under what circumstances and when? Since we know that these risks are scientifically...

In the field of health and safety, we assess psychosocial risks in the same way as we assess other risks to a healthy workplace. Incidents are among the psychosocial risks to be assessed.

I have nothing against adding the word “incidents”, as long as they are described as potentially leading to a workplace injury, to an accident, and to physical or psychological injury.

7:25 p.m.

NDP

Karine Trudel NDP Jonquière, QC

I would also like you to elaborate on point 6 of your presentation. That is something we have not talked about much and it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts. In this paragraph, you say that we should “bear in mind the gender and equity issues often underpinning situations of violence and harassment in the workplace.” Can you elaborate on that please?

7:25 p.m.

Prof. Katherine Lippel

In drafting the bill, legislators and legal experts have to bear gender and equity issues in mind.

Let me give you an example. I said that the unions should be involved. I think there should be a joint committee that is committed to confidentiality, but a specialized committee. By that I mean that people would choose to be part of that committee because they are interested in the protection of employees' mental health.

In Quebec, Dr. Rachel Cox provided the best examples. Joint committees resolved cases upstream, before a complaint was even filed. The members of those committees, in particular members from the union side, took preventative action as soon as they saw a problem, before a complaint was filed.

That kind of a committee becomes specialized in psychosocial risks. It is often made up of women, visible minorities, and aboriginal persons. It is made up of people who are interested in equity issues. It is these people, including the members from the management side, who decide to seek out training and specialization. These are not at all the same people as those who are interested in a furnace explosion.

To my mind, a joint committee is needed, along with protection for its members from firing, threats, and so forth. The members would be chosen specifically to listen to complaints more effectively.

7:25 p.m.

NDP

Karine Trudel NDP Jonquière, QC

Thank you very much.

I have a question for Ms. Thomlinson.

We talked about the investigators. Various witnesses who appeared before the committee questioned the integrity of investigators because they are chosen jointly by the union and the employer, but paid by the employer. So there is a risk of their integrity being compromised.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that, and about your experience.

7:25 p.m.

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Rubin Thomlinson LLP

Christine Thomlinson

In the vast majority of cases we do, the employer does pay for the investigation. Occasionally, on the rare occasion that an issue is raised by one of the parties—sometimes it might be union or it may be a complainant's or respondent's counsel—as to the potential lack of neutrality on the part of the investigator because they're being paid by the employer, we've often said, “We're fine to be paid by whomever. If you'd like to split the costs, then you're welcome to do so.” That is rarely offered up.

I think for us this is never an issue, because we have always done our work with integrity. At our firm, we have an enormous client base. We're not dependent upon any particular organization for our work, and we write reports frequently that our employer clients who pay our bill are not happy to receive, but that's the hard truth of the investigation we've done.

I think there are many investigators who do that kind of work, and those are the investigators who should be doing that kind of work. I think you're right to recognize that there may be risks otherwise, but that's the way the work is done most effectively.