Thank you, Chair and honourable members of the committee, for the opportunity to be here and for dedicating your time to this discussion.
While today’s conversations centre around facts and policies, it is important to recognize that these are not just abstract issues. For many Canadians, these are personal.
People across the country are watching and seeking answers and oversight of safety in their communities. This conversation demands urgency and compassion. It is crucial to find a path forward that prioritizes transparency, accountability and the health and safety of all Canadians.
Unfortunately, systematic issues have created a system made impossible for DND to review through an internal process. I strongly encourage creating a dedicated budget line item in the next budget to fund an independent comprehensive review of DND contamination sites. This initiative should be directed by the president of the Treasury Board, the Honourable Anita Anand, with oversight and involvement from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and Health Canada to ensure impartiality and effectiveness in moving forward.
A question has come forward on how employees and surrounding communities were not advised about the federally managed contamination sites in the areas in which they worked and lived. Without disclosure, employees and members of the community were unable to ask questions or raise concerns regarding these properties. A lack of transparency and communication on these sites has left and will continue to leave irreversible impacts for these communities and within these areas.
The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, the CCME, saw a need for implementing the requirements for a program to provide guidelines in identifying contaminated sites to ensure monitoring for the safety of the environment and for human health. In 2005, the federal contaminated sites action plan, FCSAP, began in response, to provide transparency to Canadians and federal departments by listing unprotected sites in the federal contamination sites inventory.
Under the Treasury Board's directive on management of real property, federal organizations are required to report, update and certify site data regularly. Under CCME guidelines, classified sites must be monitored for potential adverse health effects.
We must ask ourselves, if people on these sites were not informed or educated on the reporting process, how could they have known to report illnesses or deaths on or close to these properties, and where would they have reported? Given this gap, it is absolutely essential to determine how we can now align our actions with the program's established guidelines in order to move forward at this time.
Under CCME guidelines, how are health assessments on DND sites completed? DND is using “CAF medical”, which has its own internal medical system. Within this system fall DFHP and also PMed, which is preventative medicine. They operate under a strict mandate focused on military members and operations only.
This excludes civilian employees and surrounding communities, leaving significant gaps in medical oversight. CAF employees do not always fall under certain provisions of the Canada Labour Code in certain instances, so how can CAF medical health assessments mandated to members only ensure that health evaluations are done for individuals on those sites?
The lack of disclosure of contaminated sites prevents individuals from applying for WCB and VAC compensation claims. Claimants must provide key documentation, including area worked, work time, a list of contaminants and their supporting medical documentation for a subject matter expert to evaluate if their illness is considered occupational.
Occupational illnesses are assessed by the recommendations made by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. These situations are to be looked at by Health Canada with the occupational illness list that is created by the United Nations. It is called the “ILO”, the International Labour Organization. Looking through VAC public information and WCB policies shows that WCB follows this recommendation.
What standard is VAC following to assess occupational illnesses? If it is not using the recommendation, the question now is “Why?” Based on CAF policy, members sometimes fall outside of the Canada Labour Code standards while on domestic properties. These times occur during specialized operations and training only. This brings up an absolutely critical question. Should the ILO occupational illness list be applied when CAF members are exposed to contaminants at their home units as documented in federal inventory?
This raises absolutely significant questions about a potential conflict of interest for DND to evaluate the program and the management of these sites.
Thank you very much for your time.