Mr. Speaker, I rise to table a petition as it relates to federal health and safety officers in northern Ontario.
The petitioners recognize how valuable the work of federal health and safety officers is in maintaining safe and healthy workplaces. Canada has lost more than half of its federal health and safety officers since 2005, so this is part of a bigger trim.
This is a very real problem in northern Ontario, which has a single officer covering the whole region. That person's work can be held up by just one injury, illness, or absence.
The only way to fix the problem is to add more officers in the region.
The petitioners join the call by the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives to address this critical shortage in the areas of postal services, air and rail transport and, of course, many other areas of the federal jurisdiction.