Human Resources committee  I can't add much to what Ms. Mandal said. I wholeheartedly agree with every point she just made. The large employers I represent in FETCO generally already align with the new provisions that will be put in place. Will there be some incremental costs around new regulatory requirements and reporting?

Human Resources committee  Currently in the health and safety regulations, under the violence investigation process there are criteria laid out for who the competent person is. They are as follows. The competent person is to be defined as somebody “who is impartial and is seen by the parties to be impartial; has knowledge, training and experience in issues relating to work place violence”—in this case, of course, it would be harassment—“and...has knowledge of relevant legislation.”

Human Resources committee  No, it's not unique. Frankly, I think it's the way the process works. On the regulatory side, when it comes to occupational health and safety in the workplace, we meet in a tripartite way regularly. There is a go-forward regulatory plan that the department publishes when it looks at regs that they feel need to be updated because circumstances have changed, our understanding of issues has changed, or technology has changed.

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure it would be conflicting. I think what we would have to do at that stage is have a discussion around what the language was in that overarching definition. I believe that as parliamentarians you might want to hear from the stakeholder community around the specific language that's embedded.

Human Resources committee  I think leaving the details to the regulations is the legitimate way of approaching an exercise like this. In the case of occupational health and safety in the workplace, we have the Canada occupational health and safety regulations, and that document is maybe 250 pages long. It has in it provisions that set the framework for the occupational health and safety requirements in the workplace.

Human Resources committee  I don't think that's necessarily so. I think what that clause is trying to get at is examples whereby the department can try to learn ways of doing its work better. It wants to launch a pilot project around the way it, for example, ensures compliance under the act or the associated regulations.

Human Resources committee  In that example, it would impose a burden in that particular place, yes.

Human Resources committee  I think the intention behind this clause is not to do as you've described but to ensure the department is doing its best to ensure compliance. They may look at the way specific industries are doing their work and review their work in that regard. I don't think it's necessarily to create standards that exist only in one region.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I think that is the most appropriate place to have that conversation. The experts, the stakeholders, can meet and go through what honestly is sometimes a painful process of fighting over words—ands and ors and buts—that matter at the end of the day. What we would end up with, I believe, is a solution that is mutually agreed to.

Human Resources committee  When we first started talking about the issue of sexual harassment in the federal sector in a tripartite way and we were considering what the alternative ways forward were, one of the options presented by the government was to take this clause in part III of the Canada Labour Code and move it into part II, for a number of reasons, one of which was that it would broaden the scope of who that clause now is applied to.

Human Resources committee  Consistent with that, when I asked our member organizations about this, many were proud of the way they're handling it. It starts at the top. There is leadership involved. Offices that are handling complaints report directly into the CEO. There's a culture around the importance of bringing forward complaints.

Human Resources committee  This bill is coming at the tail end of what we view to be a very positive consultation, and it's in the context of a broader, very positive, societal conversation around the issues of harassment and sexual harassment. That's all good. We've taken what was a one-line obligation under part III of the Canada Labour Code to ensure an employer has a policy in place, expanded it, put it into part II, and developed a process that employers will now have to follow.

Human Resources committee  The argument we've been making is that we believe the definition is more suitably placed in the regulations because they allow it to be updated as our understanding of this particular issue changes and evolves over time. The minister alluded to this in her comments when she talked about cyber-bullying.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Chair. Thank you, committee, for having me here today. I'm pleased to be here to speak to you on behalf of FETCO about Bill C-65. By way of background, I should tell you that FETCO stands for Federally Regulated Employers—Transportation and Communications. That's a mouthful, so we usually go by the acronym of FETCO.

Human Resources committee  That's a great question. That's really one of our fundamental points throughout this process when Bill C-525 was brought forward. We've been consistently making the same argument and that is that under the Canada Labour Code, for our employers in particular, we do have a rich and successful history of the tripartite model for doing business, whereby government, management, and labour talk about issues.