Thank you very much for the question. It raises a lot of very important issues.
The first one I'll tackle is regarding who knows best. I will agree with you, partly, that the employer and the employees together know best. What I will say is that the employer has more tools to address the issue, but the employees or employee representatives have key roles in identifying the risks and defining the solutions. A fundamental aspect of occupational health and safety is that both sides have to work together to find solutions.
I do want to come back to the PPE, and I'll turn to Gary again, but I want to say something. In a workplace, people have to work through the risks and identify how to mitigate the risks. It may be that in some cases people do need PPE and that PPE is required, but there are often other measures that are also essential to have in place. We know a lot about social distancing, and we see these plexiglass barriers that protect, so depending on the workplace, it's a combination of changing the work process, some equipment and potentially some PPE. All of that leads to a solution.
The final thing we should address to answer your question is the fear of reprisal, and the fact that people may feel that they could lose their job or that they have to work in dangerous situations. There are provisions in the code to prevent that.
I'll turn to Gary to give more details. Our answer will pertain to the federally regulated sector—that's our scope—but most provinces have very similar legislation.
Gary.