That's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To add to that, the protocol calls for an immediate and mandatory three days off for locomotive engineers following any critical incident, with a strong suggestion of meeting a counsellor prior to returning home from work. We also provide employee assistance programs. They can also choose to seek the therapy of their favoured provider.
In 2013 we decided to adjust the protocol after assessing its effectiveness, and decided they would take a mandatory three-day holiday whenever an incident occurred. They could have an extra two days off at their request, no questions asked. Again, that's with strong support for continued therapeutic help from either a counsellor or a person of their choice. Since that time, we have significantly reduced the duration for claims for disability.
We're also participating with
the University of Quebec in Montreal
with Dr. Bardon and Dr. Mishara, in a study that is measuring the effectiveness of our protocol, to make sure it is delivering all of the desired results, not only from an employee-continuing-to-work perspective but their overall mental health and their quality of life. This study will go on until July. We're looking forward to the results.
Another strong pillar of helping us with this type of incident is that we provide peer support training by Dr. Solomon, a well-known expert in psychological assistance. He's worked with police forces all over the United States, railways in the United States, the FBI, and with VIA since the early nineties. We provide two sessions per year of peer support. You have people in each terminal across Canada who can provide peer support when one of their colleagues is injured. As well, in the event they've never had an incident, it can prepare them on how to deal with it ahead of time. And if they've had such an incident, this three-day full-time workshop, with 24 to 30 participants, goes a very long way toward improving the mental health of our locomotive engineers.
For the sake of time, I'll end it there and pass the microphone over to Mr. Pastor.
I would be willing to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.