Human Resources Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Absolutely. It's interesting. We're in an incredibly exciting and promising time when it comes to mental health. I've seen it. I've benefited from it myself. Within the past 15 to 20 years, we've seen a remarkable change. I look at younger generations—I'm sure many of you do, too—and how open they are about this. The language is just part of their vernacular. The future looks very bright.

What do we do about the here and now? When you mentioned something like a mental health officer, on the one hand, I'd say that, yes, it sounds like a great idea. In another sense, I think it should permeate everything. Do you know what I mean? It shouldn't just be relegated. I know that's not what you were implying at all, but it should be something that we all consider, that employers and employees at every level have a greater understanding and appreciation of so that people don't feel isolated, which, as you can imagine, just adds to it.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I was trying to find some more details on these things you are going to try to put into the Labour Code to bring your goal forward. I was just going in that direction.

I would quickly like to go on to digital platforms. Could you describe who these digital platform workers are? Then, also, what changes do you want to make to protect their jobs?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

This gets back to gig economy workers. It's something that, I think, a lot of other countries much like ours are also dealing with as well.

We've made changes to the Canada Labour Code to prevent employers from misclassifying their employees as independent contractors by shifting the burden to the employer. We've been focused a lot on education and awareness. We're working with stakeholders to address this. Any employer who knowingly misclassifies an employee in order to avoid their obligations is breaking the Canada Labour Code and will face consequences.

In the meantime, I know this is work that Minister Qualtrough has been taking charge of. I'm working with her on that.

I think it begins with how you make sure you have labour protections for people who are, name it, frankly in things that a lot of us use and that are very convenient, whether it be Uber, Instacart or whatever. Some of these, particularly Instacart and DoorDash, became very popular during the pandemic as people were inside.

How do you make sure that the people who are involved in that work, good people who are doing it to make some money and to have a wage...? How do you make sure that labour protections are there for them? How do you make sure the benefits are there for them, EI and such? This is something that, like I said, a lot of other countries in the world are grappling with and dealing with. It is a huge, changing part of our economy. It's growing because it's so convenient. It makes so much sense; so many of us have one of these, but how do you make sure people are protected? That's where we're arriving right now.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Have you been consulting Uber and DoorDash and talking to these people?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Yes, we have.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

What kind of feedback are you getting from them in terms of making these changes?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'll see if my deputy or one of my ADMs can speak to it, if they've had more first-hand experience. I've had first-hand experience but only as a customer. I have been asking them prying questions.

Go ahead, Sandra.

[Sandra Hassan]

I'll turn to Andrew Brown on this one to talk about the work that is being done with our colleagues at ESDC.

Go ahead, Andrew.

[Andrew Brown, Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Dispute Resolution and International Affairs, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Sure, just to mention a couple of things with respect to gig workers and digital platform workers, as you just heard there, I think there is a desire to ensure that as the work proceeds there's thought both to labour protection as well as to other kinds of social protections that need be available to these workers.

In terms of the consultations that were undertaken last year, I heard that there were a number of different things that may be important. One is access to those other supports. To be more specific, are there abilities for workers to unionize in these environments? Are there otherwise opportunities for them to have more of a collective voice, and are there other sorts of labour standards such as minimum wage and so forth that would be applicable to this set of workers?

It's a new group. Currently, of course, those who are not classified as employees aren't covered, so it's really trying to figure out how to further extend labour protections or adapt labour protections to this group of workers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Benzen. Your time has concluded.

Mr. Sheehan, you have the floor.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the minister for appearing before us. We appreciate all the work you have expeditiously undertaken.

I ask this as a husband and as a father of a daughter going to school, and I was proudly serving on the pay equity committee previous to this. What I'd like to hear from you is what has our government done to make workplaces safer and more equitable for women and what your plans are on reducing further barriers and inequities for women in the workforce.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much, Terry.

Women obviously make up half of Canada's workforce and many were frontline workers through this pandemic, but the reality remains that they face a lot of challenges in the workforce, socially, financially, physically. How do you reduce barriers for women in the workforce? How do you create a more equal and equitable space?

Child care is huge and $10-a-day child care, affordable, high-quality child care, has the potential to add, Minister Freeland says, 243,000 workers to the Canadian workforce. Every dollar invested in early childhood education can generate up to $3 in economic return. That is very real, and that's why it's such a big priority for the government.

Through Bill C-3 we amended the Canada Labour Code to provide five new paid leave days for federally regulated employees who experience a miscarriage or a stillbirth. That was work this House did together.

Under the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Employment Equity Act, employees are protected against discrimination and termination on the basis of pregnancy.

We are strengthening provisions to better support working women. Especially, I think of those who need to be reassigned during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. We're tackling [Technical difficulty—Editor] As I just mentioned earlier, in 2015 the House passed legislation to remove the federal tax on menstrual products and our government now is leading the efforts to provide free menstrual products in federally regulated workplaces.

On pay equity, we will continue to advance the implementation of the Pay Equity Act right across federally regulated workplaces. That's very important work.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Excellent. Let's keep on Bill C-3 then.

Mr. Chair, you'll be interested in this. Prince Edward Island has one day of paid sick leave, Quebec has two, recently British Columbia legislated five days each year for both full- and part-time employees. This was an important piece of your mandate, and congratulations to everyone, including yourself, on getting this passed unanimously in December. This would provide federally regulated private sectors with ten paid days of sick leave.

Minister, could you please explain again why it was so critical to move swiftly on Bill C-3 and what you are going to do to get sick leave implemented? You touched on it a bit. If you could just drill down on that, it would be great.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

We have to get stakeholders together, which we are doing. As I said, we're convening that next month. It's complicated. It's a bit tangly, as we say here, dealing with collective agreements and dealing with operational systems that employers have.

They know it's coming. We all know it's coming. It passed unanimously.

Look, I think it passed unanimously because everybody in the House....

It's not the first time that a piece of legislation that I think makes a lot of common sense was split up amongst the parties for various other reasons. I don't know whether we got lightning in a bottle with this or not, but I am very grateful to my colleagues from all sides of the House. I think Mr. Aitchison and I dealt with it, and the NDP, the Bloc and all parties. We understood instinctively that this was incredibly important.

The reason we arrived on 10 days particularly was because we knew, after two years of COVID, that for a lot of people, if they were quarantining, it was generally for two weeks. We want to make sure that people are covered.

You know, we didn't know what omicron was a few months ago, and it has changed our lives. It ruined our Christmases, for the most part. I got it. We don't know what might come next.

I'll say this, and I don't say it flippantly, because it's a very real thing: We have weather and seasons on our side. We're still in the middle of the worst part of the year, but we're getting through it—the long dark days of winter, particularly the months of December, January and February. In this country, it is when we spend the most time inside. I think that's why omicron really hit hard, because you can't leave your house. These are the hardest months.

As the days get longer, the weather gets better and more people spend time outside, and the virus, in whatever form it seems to take, abates. We know that now because we've been living with it for two years.

It does not take away from the urgency. Do not get me wrong. It just gives us a bit of breathing room to make sure that when we implement this, we do it right, we do it properly, we get it done correctly.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

As a follow-up, you mentioned working with the provinces and territories on developing a national plan on paid sick leave.

Can you talk more about the role of the provinces and territories in regard to providing paid sick leave?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It's 95%, so I have to talk to them. I have to have them on board.

I've had very good conversations, I believe with all my ministers now, my ministerial colleagues in provinces and territories. We will meet on February 25 with the idea of coming up with a national action plan on 10 days of paid sick leave right across the country.

We think it's essential to the social safety net of the country. I also think it's essential to the health and welfare of the entire country that people no longer have to choose between taking a day off because they feel sick, potentially with something, and having to pay the rent or pay the mortgage or pay for groceries. We don't want people doing that. We all agreed on that. That's why it passed unanimously in the House of Commons.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We're just about at the end, but in order to be fair, if it's agreeable, I'm going to go Madame Chabot for one question, and then to Madame Zarrillo for one question, to conclude this first hour.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Madame Chabot.

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

I agree, Mr. Chair.

Minister, we have talked about safety at work and mental health. You yourself talked about pregnant and nursing women. In Quebec, occupational health and safety laws give pregnant or nursing women the right to preventive withdrawal in the event of danger in the workplace. However, there are federally regulated workers in Quebec who do not have the same conditions.

Is it part of your vision that federally regulated workers in Quebec receive fair treatment and be given these same rights?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Madame Chabot, maybe you could just clarify particularly which benefits you're speaking of that, as you say, are currently in Quebec but do not apply to federally regulated workers in Quebec. Which benefits are you speaking of particularly?

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

I am talking about the right to preventive withdrawal of the pregnant or breastfeeding worker.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I will ask one of the members of my team.

Sandra or Andrew, perhaps you could speak to it. Maybe you could help Madame Chabot with the answer to that question.

[Sandra Hassan]

Do you want me to answer your question?