Thank you for your question.
An absolute right is an oddity. I believe there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace. I'm not sure an employer would really want to hear the conversation that goes on in a locomotive after a crew that was contractually or legally required to be relieved from that train in 12 hours was still there 14 or 15 hours later. While entertaining, that may not be the most helpful, so I don't know why we'd want to record that.
I disagree, though, that the technology is not available. The technology is in place and active today. It is there for the TSB to use. Where our concerns lie is in who should be the custodians of this information, of this protected, private, privileged information? Should it be the TSB, which has a mandate and a responsibility to impartially investigate incidents and accidents, or should it be employers that have on many occasions been demonstrated to be.... I don't know if it was a finding of fact that they were malicious, but there was certainly "malintent" in some of the actions employers have used with respect to discipline and punitive actions against employees. That's the concern.
I'm not sure I read the legislation the same way when we say it's not punitive or disciplinary. The way our legal folks have looked at it might be a bit different, but we'll have to look into it and get back to you on that.