What happened was a private member's bill came forward and the government acted. The bill sought for the independent contractors to become postal employees. Indeed, Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, signed an agreement, resulting in more than 6,000 contractors becoming employees of Canada Post in January 2004.
The law rightfully places obligations as well on all employers across Canada to ensure that they have safe working conditions for employees. Under the Canada Labour Code, which the House passed, there are certain obligations on employers. Employers now even have further legal responsibilities to ensure that the health and safety of employees is protected.
Indeed, the House recently amended the Criminal Code, following the Westray Mine disaster, to impose a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent employees from suffering harm at work.
What could be more important than keeping Canadians safe in the job or at home?
In the past six months, more than a few hundred rural mail carriers have raised health and safety concerns. Some have even exercised their legal right to refuse to work under the Canada Labour Code. These employees have raised two areas of concerns.
The first, as has been mentioned, is ergonomic health, a complaint arising from the repetitive motion of stretching to deliver rural mail across a left-hand drive vehicle into a post box.
The second is related to road safety. This concern is especially prevalent in rural communities or on rural roads. These include, for example, high volumes of traffic and the increase in volume of traffic on rural roads. Sometimes these roads are not wide enough to allow a vehicle to pull off to the side to deliver the mail without having to worry about what's coming behind them. In some cases there are insufficient sight distances. For instance, roadways and hills cause a visual disturbance to somebody coming along behind them. Thus, they are unable to react quickly enough or to stop to avoid some form of accident.
We are talking about the safety of employees and the safety of residents in rural Canada.
Human Resources and Social Development health and safety officers have been called in to investigate a number of the work refusals. They have determined, in some cases, that the workplace conditions do constitute a situation that must be immediately corrected: safety concerns. The government is committed to the safety of Canadians.
Canada Post is committed to protecting the safety of all its employees. The corporation immediately upon receiving these decisions implemented a series of measures to mitigate these concerns.
There are a limited number of safe alternatives to roadside mailboxes, and Canada Post understands this. This may include delivery to a central point, such as a local post office or a community mailbox. Millions of Canadians, including rural Canadians, already receive their mail this way and have for some period of time.
Where Canada Post has received a Human Resources and Social Development decision or direction relating to road safety or where delivery is clearly unsafe, quick action has been required and quick action has been taken. In these cases, customers have immediately been moved to alternative forms of delivery.
In each case Canada Post is working closely with the community because the community is what drives Canada Post, and it understands that. It is working closely with the community to ensure that convenient delivery is maintained through locations where both employees and public safety is protected, the very thing to which the member's motion speaks.
At the same time, Canada Post has engaged various experts, including traffic safety experts at the National Research Council, to evaluate and advise Canada Post on the working conditions of rural mail carriers. The findings of these experts will provide guidance moving forward as to how Canada Post can comply with the legal requirements and its obligations to its employees.
Some of the more practical solutions Canada Post has already moved on are flashing yellow lights to ensure these vehicles are visible from behind and reflective signs. They have already been passed out and delivered to all 6,000 rural route drivers.
Just as the government takes seriously the safety and the ergonomic concerns raised by Canada Post employees, we are insisting that Canada Post maintain a rural mail service. The government recognizes that issues have arisen with respect to rural mail delivery and are in part due to labour issues, but also are in part due to safety issues.
The Prime Minister and the minister responsible for Canada Post have recently met with senior officials of Canada Post. As a consequence, Canada Post has reiterated its commitment to taking steps to ensure quality rural mail delivery.
The government is supporting the spirit and intention of the motion.