Human Resources Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I hear it perfectly. We're probably listening on the floor channel. I'm guessing some of our colleagues who want translation are listening on the English or French, so they're probably hearing it on those channels while we, on floor, don't hear that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thanks for that suggestion, Mr. Housefather.

Let's try that. If you require interpretation and you're not getting it, make sure you raise a point of order as we absolutely want people to hear.

Mr. Robertson, you were in the middle of an answer. Please, go ahead.

[Gary Robertson]

I appreciate the time and I'm sorry for the technical challenge.

I happen to be the chair of CCOHS so I have some visibility into its operations from that perspective. It has done an extraordinary amount of work to issue tipsheets that are helpful to all jurisdictions and sectors, not just those that are federally regulated.

It has released for free a large segment of its training material. It's to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the value of that, to ensure that people have access to timely information that will help keep them safe. It has established MOUs with a number of key organizations, or large organizations, that have the ability to influence COVID prevention measures, such as PHAC. It has done quite a bit.

The one example I intended to give earlier was that it provided advice to the court systems across Canada when they were doing their business resumption, so that it could be done safely. Under the leadership of a number of justices, it went extremely well. It's a very complex environment when you think about all of the moving parts. The CCOHS has been quite active, and it's something we're really quite proud of.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I heard earlier a mention of an additional $2.5 million being invested this year to strengthen the contribution of CCOHS. Some would consider that amount to be relatively modest when we see billions of dollars invested to support businesses and individuals during the pandemic.

Could you outline how this investment, this $2.5 million, will improve your reach and your ability to support the needs of the Canadian economy during both the worst time of the pandemic as well as a targeted recovery going forward?

[Gary Robertson]

For $1.3 million this year and $1.2 million in the subsequent year, CCOHS is hoping to do significantly more advisories, tipsheets, direction, guidance, and most importantly, additional training capacity to ensure that as people retool and return to the workforce, or re-return to the workforce, that they're doing so in a safe context. A lot of good work is going on. I agree that it sounds like a modest amount, but there is full value for the dollar.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Dong and Mr. Robertson.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I'm going to ask a broader question about work. We know that the departments have been separated within the federal government. There is the Department of Employment and Social Development, and the Department of Labour is separate.

We are concerned about broader labour issues. I want to see how you are dealing with this issue.

I'm thinking of sectors such as aeronautics or aerospace. This is a major challenge if we don't want to lose expertise and workers in the field. We know how many jobs have been lost. How do you work collaboratively to implement broader work strategies?

I have another question about the minister's mandate letter. How are you working with other jurisdictions to think about transitioning workers to a greener economy? Solutions involve, not exclude, the workers. You can't think about making transitions without thinking about the workers.

How are you addressing those issues at the Department of Labour?

[Gary Robertson]

Thank you for your question.

We have worked very hard with industry and the aerospace sector. Despite the fact that our proactive activities have declined overall, our proactive activities in this sector have increased by almost 80% over the previous year. We are aware of the challenges in the area. We have decided to work harder to support this sector.

With respect to transition, we have put in place a number of initiatives to minimize the likelihood of individuals being laid off. One of the initiatives is to extend the period of time before a person can be laid off. This initiative has allowed people to remain in their positions for an additional nine months.

These two initiatives are part of our response.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Next is Ms. Gazan, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

Moving forward, we know that in many places, workers are becoming sick with COVID because they are not provided with proper protection or are not provided with budgets to properly support staff. I'll give you an example.

Currently in our shelters in Winnipeg, shelters that are all housed within my riding, we have a COVID outbreak. Workers are working around the clock. These shelters and front-line organizations, are doing everything in their power to keep people safe, including having to shut down our only detox now because too many staff have gotten sick.

Is your department willing to work very closely with provinces to develop national standards for work health and safety, particularly in light of COVID and particularly with an understanding that this is probably the first of many pandemics to come?

Workers deserve to be safe. This is currently not happening. Could I have a response to that? Thank you.

[Gary Robertson]

Back in late October the Canadian Standards Association issued a press release that indicated they were going to set up a testing and certification centre in Canada to ensure we had better capacity nationally to access PPE that met our requirements.

The labour program is linked to that. We're not responsible for the initiative, but we're playing a role as a stakeholder. That is an initiative that will benefit all provinces and territories equally as they set up their capacity and have the ability to offer those services.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Given the serious nature of this, we know many workers getting sick from COVID-19 are workers involved in care industries, whether it's health care or front-line organizations working with people with diverse needs. What is the timeline?

We know we could be in this pandemic for a few more months. Many people have lost lives caring for others. What timeline is your department proposing to put in this training to make sure that people are safe now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please provide a short answer.

[Gary Robertson]

The CSA would want to comment on their own timelines.

The CCOHS training materials, which would in part address your question, are expected to start being developed very shortly and should be available in 2021.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Gazan and Mr. Robertson.

Next is Ms. Falk for five minutes, please.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Robertson, I'm interested in business resumption for federally regulated employees and the type of information being given by CCOHS. Is this where these tipsheets that you are referring to would fall?

[Gary Robertson]

They would fall for CCOHS, but in terms of the activity the labour program's going to undertake, we'll be focusing principally on the key elements that will contribute the most benefit based on the work we do. The key elements would be to make sure every organization that we link with is fully aware of its obligations related to the hazard protection program. We will have very clear guidance for them and be able to support them if they need to update that. We'll equally be working with them to ensure that their occupational health and safety committees—and policy committees if they're large enough to have those—are operating effectively. Again, this will work only if the employers are working with employees to address the fundamental issues.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

What does that guidance look like?

[Gary Robertson]

Many employers should have had biological hazards listed in their HPP—hazard prevention program—but many may not have. We will be working with them to make sure they understand that those need to be included, and specifically as they relate to COVID. We'll actually have industrial hygienists positioned to give them detailed advice as it relates to their particular sector. As you can appreciate, it would be very different for someone working for an airline in an airplane versus someone working in a telecommunications cabling tunnel. Both of them are limited spaces. I won't call them confined spaces, but in some parts they may be. There would be different variations. That's the type of activity we would be doing.

If environments have struggled with collaboration among their committee members, we would be in a position to help support them in identifying the key issues on which they would need to have a dialogue.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

With respect to the CCOHS line item of $1.3 million, I'm just wondering if you could tell us how many employers have received information, training and education from them.

[Gary Robertson]

I don't have the statistics but I could certainly ask Anne Tennier, who's the president, to provide those and we could forward them to the committee. I think you'd find that it's a fairly significant number in both instances. I expect that it will increase dramatically as they bring the new capacity online.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Do you know if there is a procedure in place to measure the success of the rollout of that?

[Gary Robertson]

They do surveys with the people who use their products. I'm not sure to what degree they've kept that up, because they're very overwhelmed right now and they're focused on delivery. Again, I can check with Anne and ask her to provide the information.

I was part of a discussion just short of a week ago, in which they went through some of the statistics. They were pretty impressive, particularly on the training front, with the number of folks who were accessing their services. At a minimum, I know that they've tracked the regional distribution across Canada and it is fairly pervasive in all the different jurisdictions.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Perfect. That's good to hear, because we know that this pandemic especially has really shown the differences regionally even in the rollouts of programs. I'm in a rural riding and we've had great problems with even just Service Canada office closures and the lack of rural Internet. People are being told to apply for programs online or to look for information online, but a lot of these people don't have access to that, so it's good to hear that's being noticed.

Mr. Chair, that's all I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Ms. Falk.

Finally, we're going to go to Mr. Vaughan.

Go ahead, please, for five minutes.