Human Resources committee  I'm going to start by just telling you a little bit about who I am and why I might have some information useful to the committee. I am a physician and epidemiologist whose research is in the field of occupational health. I am currently tripartite chair of occupational health in

Human Resources committee  I'm afraid I can't. The Brazil study was fairly briefly reported, and I am not really in a position to make a comment on it.

Human Resources committee  It was put on the survey because it would be of interest to the women welders who are part of WHAT-ME. Putting it there doesn't in any sense say that we support or do not support the conclusions of the survey.

Human Resources committee  The really important thing is that the workplace be safe for male or female welders. I don't think we necessarily need to make recommendations about pregnant welders.

Human Resources committee  My reading of it is simply that there should be discussions about the strategy for setting up such a national maternity assistance program. I certainly would support those discussions. I do not feel it is appropriate or my place to say what the conclusions will be from having had

Human Resources committee  Could I come in to answer that question? This is Nicola Cherry. Amongst the welders in the women we studied, over half weren't reassigned. They stopped work without reassignment, and they stopped work at about 17 weeks' pregnancy, so they stopped very early if they were not reass

Human Resources committee  Sorry, I had no idea the question was to me. To some extent, as Mr. Lafrance said, it is the employer's job to find the reassignment. If the employer has no wish to keep the woman at work, he or she won't try very hard necessarily to reassign. We do find the reassignment is much

Human Resources committee  You clearly wouldn't need preventive withdrawal if the workplace was wholly safe, but at the moment, most of the occupational exposure limits and regulations in Canada have been based on the work of men and the susceptibilities of men rather than women. One of the major issues is

Human Resources committee  Certainly, we collect that information. I don't have it at my fingertips. I could guess that 50% would return immediately after the child. The majority of women in the study already had a child, and they were all welding at that point, so we can't say how many we lost before that

Human Resources committee  I'm very prejudiced in that I was quite closely involved with the Quebec system, which is splendid at protecting the health of women but is a very expensive program. If it were feasible to have such a program across Canada, I think it would assist pregnant women enormously. This

Human Resources committee  My belief is that it's more to do with the strenuous nature of the trade. We are currently looking at the effect of the welding fume on the outcome of a pregnancy. I don't have the results, but I would be surprised if the welding fume itself caused miscarriage, whereas there's go

Human Resources committee  Yes. In fact, this is one of the complications of a national program. The first trimester is the most critical for chemical exposures. For miscarriage it is probably the most important period, whereas for low-weight babies and stillbirths it's exposure during the last weeks of pr

Human Resources committee  If there were a program of preventive reassignment that women exposed to heavy work and welding fumes could be reassigned to early in the pregnancy, that would be the best way of protecting the child.

Human Resources committee  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Human Resources committee  I think the last few weeks before the end of the pregnancy can be very uncomfortable for working women. They have fatigue. Their balance is bad. They're probably more in danger of having accidents at work. They have backaches. There's a lot of evidence that women are hugely unc