Debates of Feb. 26th, 2004

Supply

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

Workplace Psychological Harassment Prevention Act

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

moved that Bill C-451, an act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and to amend the Canada Labour Code, be read the second time and referred to committee.

Mr. Speaker, first, I hope you will allow me to dedicate the second reading of this bill to the victims of harassment. I can name some of them: Robert, Christina, Roger, Paule, Jean-Paul, Diane who came close to suicide barely a month ago, and many others. I would also like to offer it to the people of my riding who support me in the work I do and who help me financially to provide assistance to people dealing with psychological harassment in the federal public service.

The bill I am introducing does, in fact, aim to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and would amend the Canada Labour Code.

Psychological harassment is not new; it has been around since the world began. Since 1990, however, it has become more significant. Reorganization of work, job instability, and the fact that more and more is constantly being demanded of employees and employers, these are all elements that produce stress in the workplace. This opens the door to harassment, intimidation and the abuse of power.

Right now, Canada has a policy entitled Policy on the Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace. It is a Treasury Board policy that came into effect in 1994 and was amended in June 2001. Nevertheless, we have seen that this policy has had no effect whatsoever on all the abuses of power and all the ongoing cases of harassment in the federal public service.

In the 15 minutes at my disposal, I would like to explain the difference between the bill and the policy, to show just how much the policy resembles Swiss cheese and how necessary it is to have a bill.

The hon. members will understand that I am basing my statement on facts, on all the people I have just named and many others who have sent me anonymous letters complaining of being victims of harassment. These people have told me their stories. They are also able to prove that the policy currently in effect in the federal public service provides no protection and does not guarantee the physical and psychological safety of our workers.

First, the policy is an empty promise. It contains words and expressions such as “employees can expect”, “employees can do such and such”. The policy in no way requires the administrator or the manager to do anything to stop the harassment. However, the bill, as he said, requires the federal public administration to provide public servants with a workplace free of psychological harassment.

Furthermore, Bill C-451, which I am introducing, establishes rights and responsibilities. Every public servant has a right to a workplace free of psychological harassment. Public servants therefore have a responsibility to inform the delegated manager, meaning their immediate supervisor, of any action that may cause them psychological harassment.

Why am I saying have a responsibility? Because, often, our employees dare not speak out. Psychological harassment is so insidious that the persons themselves doubt that it is happening. They are not sure that they or their work is not at fault.

When we are not sure of ourselves, we can endure harassment, intimidation and abuse of power for a very long time. However, the employer is required to ensure that no public servants are subject to psychological harassment. When I say that the bill puts the responsibility on the employer, it also sets out the process for registering a harassment complaint. I will explain what I mean.

Currently, employees subject to psychological harassment must realize that this is the case and disclose this to their immediate supervisor. This individual, who does not know what psychological harassment is, who is not aware of it, who is caught up in his problems as a section or unit manager, is not always aware that harassment exists.

Consequently, it can take one or two months, and sometimes as long as six months before the delegated manager takes action to put an end to the harassment.

The bill states that, as soon as a complaint of harassment is filed, managers have a responsibility to act. The manager has five days in which to act. Why? Because the person experiencing the harassment is living in an environment so negative and so harmful to their health, that it can lead to other problems for which there is no cure.

The bill also ensures the confidentiality of the complaint. Currently, the immediate manager who receives the complaint often ends up saying, “There is no problem. I will talk about it with my colleagues”. This should never happen. A harassment complaint is confidential because it is something that deeply affects the individual.

When an employee makes a complaint to the immediate manager, and the complaint is not well received, or not accepted as harassment, often the employee feels isolated. The employee will withdraw and continue to endure different types of harassment. At some point, the employee may decide to take the complaint to a higher level.

If that is the case, in our public service, the employee will go to the regional level. The regional manager will contact the immediate supervisor to ask what is going on, to find out whether harassment is occurring in his section. The immediate manager, who did not acknowledge the harassment complaint in the first place, will not acknowledge it now either.

This becomes a vicious circle in which the harassment complaint is never acknowledged. The intent of the bill is to ensure that within five working days of a harassment complaint being filed, something is done, someone steps in, measures are taken to separate the victim and the harasser, or some other approach is taken, such as mediation.

Again, under Treasury Board policy, mediation is practically mandatory. In the bill, mediation is not mandatory for the simple reason that it is very difficult for a victim of harassment to be in mediation in front of their harasser. The bill gives the victim the choice to face the harasser, to choose mediation or not.

The bill also provides for the appointment of a commissioner of the public service who would know about harassment, about how terrible it is, and about its physical and psychological impacts on the victim. The commissioner would have the authority to take action, not only through recommendations, but also through measures requiring the employer to act.

The commissioner would be assisted by a psychological harassment complaints committee. Why a complaints committee? Simply because, according to Treasury Board figures, 20% of the members of the federal public service are, or have been victims of harassment. According to our own figures, this proportion is more like 30%, if not more. This means one worker out of three. And we are talking about the public service, not about workers who are governed by the Canada Labour Code.

We can assume that, in the first few years following the implementation of the legislation, there would be a large number of requests to review files. Many public servants would ask to have their case examined because they are victims of harassment. A commissioner alone would not be able to do this and, also, it takes people to go and investigate on the premises. This is more or less what the commissioner at the ethics office—I am thinking of Mr. Keyserlingk—is currently doing by providing some help to victims of harassment, whenever he can.

So, the commissioner would have the authority to examine written complaints, investigate, report and submit a report. Consequently, he could report to the House once a year on the processing of the harassment complaints received by his office.

The commissioner and his committee could exercise recourses against public servants who do not effectively manage harassment complaints. The bill mentions recourses because currently, there are managers who, in all impunity, continue to be both employee and manager in the federal public service. They are currently the cause of harassment, physical problems and psychological problems experienced by employees, as well as former employees who have left their jobs and find themselves out on the street. The managers continue to work and to do well while their victims have lost everything.

The legislation sets out fines of up to $10,000 if managers do not do their jobs properly and do not effectively resolve a complaint. Additionally, there are recourses for victims of harassment who have lost everything. At present, there are some who are barely surviving and whose complaints have been yet to be dealt with after seven, five, three or two years.

This bill also amends the Canada Labour Code. The International Labour Organization just published a report saying that Canada is the number five country in the world for psychological harassment at the workplace. The rate here is 19% higher than in the United States. A recently published book indicates that psychological harassment in the federal public service is a federal crime in that the federal government knows it exists, but is not doing anything about it.

This is an extremely important bill. This is a non-partisan bill, even though it is put forward by the Bloc Quebecois.

This bill will put justice back in the hands of the victims of harassment. It would be terrible if any party in this House opposed this bill.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this issue. First and foremost I want to congratulate the member opposite on the intent of her bill. The bill's intent and objectives are right, but from the government's perspective, we believe they can be handled in another way.

Concerns about violence in the workplace have been growing for some time, not just in Canada's public service, the group the bill focuses on, but throughout society in general. As a result of this increasing violence, the government and other stakeholders have increasingly focused attention on the question of workplace violence, both physical and psychological. Over the past decade, a good deal of work has been done to gain a better understanding of the potential for violence in the workplace and how to recognize and prevent it.

For example, in 2001 in Montreal, Canada's minister of labour jointly hosted with her counterpart in the Government of Quebec an international conference on workplace violence. It was an excellent conference. It was held under the auspices of the NAFTA agreement on labour. Delegates came from Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Presenters from diverse backgrounds spoke about workplace violence in their areas. The speakers came from the public and private sectors. They represented both employers and employees and they included experts from several jurisdictions, including Quebec.

Psychological violence, the subject of Bill C-451, was one of the key issues discussed. We learned a lot from that conference. For example, we learned that there is a linkage between psychological and physical workplace violence.

One expert, Mr. Di Martino, a consultant based in France and author of the International Labour Organization's report “Violence at Work”, spoke about psychological violence. He noted that its impact can be as bad or even worse than physical violence. He identified a need to focus on the long-lasting negative consequences that psychological violence can have in our workplace.

He also said that issues of physical and psychological violence should not be looked at separately. He pointed out that while focusing on psychological violence is important, we should not lose perspective of the link that exists between psychological and physical violence. Mr. Di Martino said, “Any act of physical violence impacts enormously on psychological well-being, and any act of psychological violence has a physical effect on people. They cannot be separated”.

This is wise advice. It says to me that we should not be separating workplace psychological harassment for special legislative attention as Bill C-451 does. Like Mr. Di Martino, I believe we would need to work at both psychological and physical violence as being linked in the workplace. I would argue therefore that any legislation we bring forward in this area should consider that linkage.

Part II of the Canada Labour Code gives us the ability to do that. That part of the code deals with workplace health and safety. Clearly, the issue of workplace violence, whether physical or psychological, is an issue of health and safety. I would suggest we could address the legitimate concerns of the member opposite in the context of part II of the Canada Labour Code, the part that focuses on health and safety in the workplace rather than part III as the bill proposes.

Before I continue, I must clarify that part III of the Canada Labour Code does not apply to the Public Service of Canada. As such, amendments under this part of the code would not be relevant to the target group of the bill.

The federal public service is instead governed in this area by a Treasury Board policy on prevention and resolution of workplace harassment. However, part II of the code already applies to Canada's public service, the target of the member's interest, and it already provides for regulations on workplace violence.

A few years ago, part II of the code was the subject of an extensive review that included a broad range of stakeholders in the federal jurisdiction. This was the most comprehensive review of the legislation that had ever taken place. It included representatives of employees, unions and employers in the federal jurisdiction, as well as from the federal public service and Treasury Board Secretariat.

Among other issues, the review looked at the issue of workplace violence. Among other amendments, the new law included a provision to require employees to take prescribed steps that would “prevent and protect against violence in the workplace”.

Those prescribed steps were to be developed in the form of regulations. Those regulations are now being developed by a tripartite working group of individuals representing employers and employees in the federal jurisdiction, as well as government officials.

This background leads me to make two points. First, the work to develop these regulations is being done by a representative group of employers and employees in the federal jurisdiction, the same stakeholders who will be governed by the regulations. Second, they are doing this work under part II of the code.

That in turn leads me to make two other observations. One, the proposed regulations will result from a consultative process that includes the stakeholders themselves. Hopefully there will be broad acceptance of those regulations. Two, it appears these key stakeholders themselves see workplace violence as a health and safety issue, one that should be dealt with under part II of the code and not under part III as Bill C-451 proposes.

There are two conclusions. One, the government is on the right track in its approach to address the issue of workplace violence, including both physical and psychological harassment under part II of the code. Two, instead of looking for new ways to deal with workplace harassment such as Bill C-451 proposes, we should be looking to the forthcoming regulations of the tripartite working group.

In other words, I do not see the need for the bill at this time. The intent and the need to address it is right but it can be addressed by other means, as we are moving forward to do.

It is also important to keep in mind that members of Canada's public sector are already protected from discrimination or harassment by the Canadian Human Rights Act as well as by the Treasury Board policy to prevent and protect members of the public service from workplace harassment.

The Canadian Human Rights Act already protects all employees under federal jurisdiction, including the public service of Canada. There is a longstanding public service policy against harassment that was introduced over 20 years ago and was updated in 2001.

Can we do more? Of course we can. We can always do more. I look forward to the regulations from the tripartite working group to see what more can be done. Can we also do more for workers outside the public sector? Indeed we can and working through part II of the code is the way to do that.

When I look at what the government is already doing to address issues of workplace violence, including the issue of psychological harassment raised in Bill C-451, I am convinced the government is on the right track.

I do not see the need for this legislation at this point. I do not agree with the approach presented in Bill C-451 and therefore, I cannot support it at this time.

[An hon. member]

You are doing nothing. You close your eyes and you do not want to see the reality in front of you.

[Loyola Hearn, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not blame the member for Terrebonne--Blainville for being a little upset, because the usual response we get to an issue raised in the House is how it could be handled in another way and the government is going to do something about it. Had the government done something about it, we would not have the problem.

I congratulate the member for bringing in this bill and drawing attention to an extremely serious issue. In commenting on the bill, the former solicitor general basically said that everyone appreciates this concern but there are better ways of handling it. That might be the case. If this is so, perhaps we could incorporate the present bill by the member for Terrebonne--Blainville into what is happening, if collectively we agree there is a better way. However, the question we would ask is why something has not been done.

The member mentioned a meeting that was held in Montreal. He talked about a guest speaker who spoke about the link between physical and psychological violence, that if we have one, we have the other. To a degree that might be fair to say.

Physical violence undoubtedly has a psychological effect and psychological harassment certainly has a physical effect to some degree. One can easily identify physical harassment. It is seen. It is witnessed. It is physically evidenced. However, psychological harassment on its own may be held within the person and never known by anybody else, and therein lies the problem. It is something that many people do not even want to talk about.

In our system of large corporations and large agencies, government being the largest, there are a tremendous number of people who, for want of a better word, manage others. We refer to them as managers. Unfortunately, too many people with that title think it is their job to drive others, to deal with people in condescending ways, in order to get production. They think, “If you are under me, I have to make sure you are subservient to me”. That is very unfortunate.

The highest productivity seen in any workplace is where those at the top create an environment in which others can work in peace and harmony and cooperation. Good leaders can always create that type of environment. We do not always have good leaders and therein lies the problem.

The former solicitor general mentioned that this can be handled and it is being looked at, but how many things have we heard about that the government is looking at? It is constantly navel gazing. Show me a few things that the government has done.

Here we have something which affects more people than we know about, because psychological harassment is not something people want to talk about. It is done by people who want to harass others, who want to take advantage of or belittle others, or to try to show their superiority over others. It is a great way to get that message across when nobody else can witness it and there is no physical evidence. That is where I disagree with the statement about the link. There is not always a link.

Psychological harassment has a tremendous effect on the individual. That victim, for all kinds of reasons, may not have any chance either internally or externally to deal with the burden that has been put upon him or her by the perpetrator.

I fully support the bill put forward by the member. I am not sure if anything will ever be done about it, but perhaps by her coming here and creating awareness for the need to have something done will get government to speed up its action and deal with it in a way where it will have some clout.

Words on paper mean actually nothing. If we cannot enforce the intent then it is useless. Perhaps the remarks made today by members will entice the government to do the right thing. Whether it be this bill or whether we incorporate it into the Canada Labour Code, it does not matter as long as it is done properly and can be properly enforced for the benefit of those who are suffering because nobody pays attention to some of the psychological harassment that goes on in the workplace.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-451, a bill that would prohibit psychological harassment at work. It comes to the House at a time when we are hearing daily about senior managers abusing the public trust when it comes to sponsorship programs.

The public service integrity office, or PSIO, has the task of being a neutral entity to encourage the disclosure of wrongdoing in the public sector. That office found that few employees were willing to come forward with stories of wrongdoing activities. I have a quote from the public service integrity office that I think is very important to this debate, and I will quote it at length. I think it explains the need for this legislation, which I support the legislation. The PSIO report states:

These activities have great implications for the public service because they are serious in nature, often have a detrimental effect on the interests and functions of a group of public servants or a whole department, and subvert the delivery of programs or services to the public. Some cases brought to the PSIO during the past year involved alleged conduct that was obviously within that category. All involved long and complicated investigations, whether or not wrongdoing was found. These cases most clearly fall within the mandate of the PSIO.

Yet, relatively few such disclosures were made to the PSIO. As was noted earlier, it is impossible to know how much serious wrongdoing actually takes places in the Public Service. We do know that serious instances have been uncovered by the police and the Auditor General. Also, serious instances of wrongdoing have been alleged by Parliamentary Committees. And many accounts of serious governmental wrongdoing have been widely reported and discussed in the media and other public forums. The question is: Why did the employees who presumably know about these activities not go to the PSIO?

While some may believe that such disclosures are being made by internal departmental channels, this does not always appear to be the case. In fact, departmental Senior Officers designated to review disclosures of wrongdoing say they seldom receive reports of serious wrongdoing.

In my view, much of it has to do with balancing the likelihood of job reprisal with the hope of personal benefit. For example, if I believe I am the victim of an employment-related wrong, I may be willing to risk reprisal in the reasonable hope of personal benefit if the problem is addressed and fixed. But if I am not the victim of the actual wrongdoing, I am unlikely to benefit if the wrongdoing is fixed. Therefore, I may be less likely to risk reprisal by reporting the wrongdoing. Also, many do not want to risk being labelled a squealer, a rat or a disloyal employee by superiors or colleagues.

Clearly, it requires greater courage and commitment to the public interest on the part of public servants to report serious wrongdoing, especially in light of the fact that they may risk real or perceived reprisals without chance of personal benefit. Surely, the institution concerned has a duty to provide incentives and recognition for the public service being rendered, including effective protection against job reprisals.

Clearly, skepticism about the ability of this Office to provide effective protection is directly related to doubts about the effectiveness of policy versus legislation, as well as uncertainty about the independence and powers of the PSIO. As such, the fears of reprisal--and doubts that a policy-based agency can withstand those determined to practise reprisal--may constitute yet another reason to recommend a legislatively supported agency.

This is a long quote but I think it is a telling quote in terms of why the legislation is imperative at this time and why I believe the House should support it. As the quote from the public service integrity officer explains, public service employees do not believe that sufficient support or protection for them to risk disclosing wrongdoing is in place.

I think the kind of comments that were made by the minister across the way on this issue only fuels the belief that they are not being protected at this point in time by the government in office.

Our public servants deserve better support from us than they have received. Who can forget the pictures of the privacy commissioner employees standing outside the office last summer wearing gags as a symbol of how they felt silenced by a culture of intimidation in their department? If they had felt more secure, we may have learned of George Radwanski's excesses much sooner. This bill moves us in the right direction to support public servants at this point.

By laying out an explicit definition of psychological harassment and its implications on public service employees, the bill clearly supports and protects the workers who have had to implement decisions made by managers right up to the ministers of the Crown. The bill states that hostile, inappropriate and unwanted conduct, comments, actions and gestures are all psychological harassment. It also goes on to talk about the abuse of authority, including intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion that a person in a position of power might use to endanger an employee's job, undermine their performance or interfere with an employee's career, as another form of psychological harassment. It makes clear that just one incident of this behaviour that had long term effects on an employee would in fact be considered harassment.

This legislation is a small step toward some protection for whistleblowers since it would penalize an employer or manager who retaliates against an employee disclosing incidents of psychological harassment.

The NDP has called for protection for whistleblowers for years. Any time employees come forward, like the veterinarian at Health Canada who talked about pressure from managers to fast track drug approvals, they risk not just their current jobs but also any future employment, especially if their career happens to be linked to the public service.

Surveys of public service employees show that over 21% of employees report experiencing psychological harassment at work. That is just an unbelievable figure. Over 20% of people are identifying with this problem right now in our public service. Overwhelmingly, the harassment came from people in positions of authority. Seventy-four per cent of employees who reported being harassed identified their supervisors as the people responsible for the harassment.

We clearly need legislation at this point to protect our public service employees from intimidation and coercion from their supervisors, managers and others. The fact that the government at this point is saying that it is not necessary speaks volumes about the people who are in charge of the government.

In closing, this bill, while protecting employees, will also protect the interests of Canadians by ensuring public service employees are protected from job loss and censure if they make a disclosure of wrongdoing. I am pleased to support the bill at this time.

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-451, an act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and to amend the Canada Labour Code.

The member has identified an issue that is also of deep concern to us on this side of the House. Violence in the workplace, how to identify it, how to control it and how to respond to it when it does occur, is a policy area that the Minister of Labour and her officials in the labour program are engaged in very closely.

Some recent high-profile cases have drawn public attention to the issues related to workplace safety and have highlighted the importance of having appropriate legislation and procedures in place to protect employees from harmful situations.

Naturally we are concerned when events occur that put workers at an unusual risk, and we are firmly committed to responding to these kinds of situations with all means at our disposal, but creating a healthy and safe work environment where all employees are treated with respect and dignity all of the time is among the most fundamental objectives of this government. Workplace safety is a matter of ongoing interest to this government and we are working on it on a number of fronts.

In this context, the Canada Labour Code is one of the key instruments available to us. As members of this House will recall, there are three parts to the Canada Labour Code. Part I deals with industrial relations matters such as work stoppages, arbitration, conciliation and so on. Part II deals with workplace health and safety and matters like workplace violence and harassment, including the issue of psychological harassment that Bill C-451 raises. Part III deals with workplace standards such as vacation entitlements, family benefits like maternity leave and so on.

A few years ago, when this House approved changes to part II of the Canada Labour Code, the part that deals with workplace health and safety, the changes included the authority to introduce regulations that would require employers to “prevent and protect against violence in the workplace”.

As a follow-up to that change, a working group, including representatives of the public service unions and the Treasury Board secretariat, was set up to study the situation and to make recommendations to the Minister of Labour on regulations that would give substance to that authority.

The working group drew its members from three sources: representatives of employers in the federal jurisdiction, representatives of employees, and officials of the federal labour program. In other words, its membership is drawn from all three stakeholder groups in the federal jurisdiction. In fact, the group is called the tripartite working group to reflect its representation from all three parties in the federal jurisdiction.

The working group has met a number of times. Much of their early discussion revolved around the physical aspects of workplace violence, but their discussions eventually broadened out to include the psychological dimension of violence in the workplace too. This means that the expert working group has been studying and discussing the very same issue, psychological harassment, that Bill C-451 is raising.

It is interesting to note that the working group is looking at this issue as it relates to part II of the code, the health and safety perspective, but Bill C-451 asks us to amend part III of the code, the part that deals with workplace standards, not health and safety issues.

Since other experts see this as a health and safety issue, and since the House already agreed to deal with the issue of workplace violence under part II of the code when the act was last amended, it does not make sense to start to confuse the issue by bringing it in under part III, as Bill C-451 asks us to do. Moreover, it is part II of the Canada Labour Code that applies to the federal public service, the target group of this bill, not part III.

Instead, the Public Service of Canada falls under Treasury Board policies on workplace harassment. In fact, Treasury Board introduced this policy to protect its employees from harassment more than 20 years ago. At that time it was the first employer in Canada to include personal harassment and abuse of authority as forms of harassment in its policy.

That policy was updated in 2001 when a revised policy on prevention and resolution of workplace harassment was announced. The updated policy defines harassment as “any improper conduct by an individual that is directed at and offensive to another person or persons in the workplace, and that the individual knew, or ought to reasonably have known, would cause offence or harm”.

The policy goes on to describe any objectionable act, comment or display that demeans, belittles, or causes personal humiliation or embarrassment, and any act of intimidation or threat as harassment. It also includes harassment within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Therefore, the government is engaged on a number of fronts to address the issues that were raised by Bill C-451.

Another concern about the bill has to do with timing. Given the activities of the tripartite working group, as I have mentioned, and the expectation that the group will report to the minister soon, the timing is very bad for bringing forward a new bill.

The expert working group has been discussing the development of new regulations covering workplace violence for some time. These discussions have included consideration of the same issue and psychological harassment which are raised by Bill C-451.

Since this consultative group is expected to report in the near future, I personally want to wait to see what regulations are recommended to address the concerns that are raised by Bill C-451. It is also important to note that the Canada Labour Code is not the only vehicle the government has to address the issues like workplace harassment.

Another instrument is the Canadian Human Rights Act. This federal legislation is already in place to protect employees from discrimination or harassment because of their personal characteristics or beliefs and that applies to all workers under the federal jurisdiction in Canada.

Like others who follow the workplace issues closely, we have seen a growing concern about the potential for violence in the workplace over the past decade or so. There is now a much greater awareness about the potential for violence in the workplace and its impacts. We know that workplace violence can be psychological as well as physical, but whatever the form, it creates fear, stress and anxiety, and that is damaging to both individual employees and to the organizations.

Those of us on the government side are as concerned about the implications of these developments as anybody else.

The potential for physical and psychological abuse are of particular concern to the government. Federal labour program officials are actively engaged in a process to develop new regulations to deal with these issues.

I share the concerns of the member opposite. I know that we are equally interested in addressing them in a forthright manner; however, I cannot agree with either the substance of the approach being proposed in the bill, nor the timing.

Thus, while I support the underlying objective, I cannot support the bill.

[Joe Jordan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc for bringing this motion forward. We are seeing a rejuvenated private members' process. As someone who was on the committee that discussed at great length for years on how to improve the private members' process, I think we are seeing the fruits of that labour here today.

This particular bill is interesting and I congratulate the member who brought it forward. These types of workplace issues have not been addressed seriously for a long time.

Quite clearly, the costs associated with employees who were harassed and the costs associated with workers who were not feeling secure in their environment were not quantified for a long time. They were not considered. We need to take a very serious look at anything that we can do to improve the environment for workers in the country and for workers of the Government of Canada specifically.

Some of my colleagues have picked up on the technical reasons why they have concerns about the bill. I do not intend to get into that here today. It is clear that the issue of psychological harassment, as the political language of the day would suggest, is on the radar screen of government. It is being looked at by various stakeholders.

This is the first hour of debate for the bill. I hear the member heckling me. Rather than heckling me, I would suggest to my colleague that she wait for the report, which I understand is imminent, to see where this fits and how this is addressed. I would suggest to my colleague that she take a look at the order of precedence and perhaps trade down her second hour because if we can get the document of the stakeholders and their final report, it may fit nicely with the second hour of debate on this particular initiative. That may be something that she would want to consider.

On the surface, the issue of psychological harassment and how that is handled was articulated in an extremely logical and intelligent way by my colleague from the NDP. It is a complex issue, but we should not let the potential complexities of the issue drive us away from having to deal with it.

I agree with my colleague that it is a real threat. I am a little concerned when it gets put under the umbrella of health and safety. It is a different kettle of fish. We must have a certain understanding of the dynamics of a workplace, and a certain understanding of the human interaction that takes place in a workplace. In some cases, where traditional health and safety flaws result in accidents and leave people with injuries or scars, the fallout from psychological harassment is not anywhere near as easy to spot.

I say that with a caveat. We should not let the complexities--that I think we probably have in the past--keep us from putting our best efforts toward coming up with a solution.

As I started off by saying, we must look at the costs of not acting. We must look at the costs of having a workplace where this type of harassment goes on and is not addressed. The problem with that is it permeates throughout the workplace.

Even if individuals are not directly affected, they may see a co-worker who is subjected to working conditions that are completely unacceptable and nothing is done. Or, in the case of the public service prior to whistleblower legislation, some individuals may decide that they are witnessing a circumstance that is unacceptable and try to take action.

Because we do not have the proper processes in place, the person who brings the issue forward, whether it is the person who has been harassed or not, does not get a satisfactory resolution.

In a situation like that, clearly we have not resolved the harassment, but I would argue that we have a much larger problem, that is, we have a culture and a workforce where people do not feel it is worth their effort to bring these situations to light.

I understand that the Quebec government has taken very progressive steps. Like many of the social reforms in the country, they find their legs at the provincial level. I think there is an onus on us to watch and monitor extremely carefully what is going on in the province of Quebec with regard to this legislation. I congratulate my counterparts in Quebec for their steps in this regard.

At the end of the day, the government does take this issue very seriously. It is already well under way in terms of a process of defining where it fits and how we deal with it.

I am not going to go through technical objections, because I think they have been addressed, but I think the government has to do a number of things. We have to sort out exactly our approach to what is an extremely complex issue. That is under way. We are looking at it.

As I say, I have expressed my own view that simply putting this as an addition to health and safety does not do the issue justice. I think it is more complicated than that.

We also have to make sure that as we raise the bar in terms of the standards we expect to be in existence in a workplace, we also, in a parallel and complementary way, put in place processes and structures so that if abuses of that high bar exist, employees feel comfortable coming forward. Nothing will work against the intent of this bill more quickly, as the hon. member from the Conservative Party said, than if we set a very high bar and have no capacity to enforce it. In fact, if that is the approach we are going to take, then I would argue that it is a giant step backwards.

I think the government has laid out a process of consultation with stakeholders. It is very close to tabling its report.

As I said, in the truest spirit of this place I would suggest to the member, as someone who has not yet up their mind on this issue, if she could perhaps trade her second hour and move down, if that report were to come to light, that information put together with the hard work she has done on this bill may result in moving this agenda forward.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

It being 6:15 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:15 p.m.)