Mr. Speaker, the tripartite joint labour-management-government working group recommended that there be a two tier system and that the system should be as follows: the first stage of appeal would be to the RSO, the regional safety officer. In other words, the RSO would make a directive to an employer or an employee. Either of those could then appeal and ask them to review the direction that was given.
If the directive still stands, then the next stage of appeal would be to the CIRB, the Canada Industrial Relations Board, where a three part panel would then review the matter, and hopefully that panel would have expertise in workplace safety and health.
Currently in Bill C-12 that whole process has been tossed to the side. It put in place an appeals officer who works for the department and is in fact an employee of the department. What we really have, in a way, is the fox watching the hen house, because we are filing our appeal in a single stage to the same people who issued the directive that we are appealing with no further outside arm's length appeal option.
Everybody involved, from the FEDCO federal employers, to the Canadian Labour Congress and all the unions affiliated, agree that they want an arm's length appeal heard by a third party like the CIRB not by an appeals officer who actually works for the department.