Health committee  I guess the question is what the appropriate piece of legislation is to deal with that. The Minister of Labour and the Non-smokers' Health Act are looking at occupational spaces, so where is the workplace and what are generally public spaces? The question would be what the approp

Health committee  Questions like that I think would be best answered by Health Canada, which is looking at that particular issue.

Health committee  Absolutely. I think the Canada occupational health and safety regulations are built on the balance of the employer's responsibilities and the employee's rights. I don't know who made the recommendation about reporting prescriptions to an employer. To start with, people can be im

Health committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I am very pleased to appear before you to discuss workplace safety. I am accompanied by my colleague Eric Advokaat, senior director of Occupational Health and Safety. Responsibility for labour matters in Canada, including workplace safety

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  The definition of danger is just to clarify and simplify the definition. The definition that's proposed continues to cover the substance of the previous definition. It covers imminent or serious and its impact to life or health. As was mentioned earlier, there is a specific refer

Human Resources committee  As has been mentioned, we need to appreciate that hazards exist in all workplaces. The intention is that workplace parties would identify and mitigate those hazards in the workplace before they become a danger. The workplace parties work together to ensure there is proper trainin

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  With regard to the amendments and the move from a designation to a delegation model, essentially what we're proposing is to provide more support to our health and safety officers. As was mentioned in one of the questions, I think, our health and safety officers deal with a range

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. They're on site. They're looking at a particular situation, and they're the ones gathering the information with regard to a particular incident. We need to ensure they have the support from their managers and directors with regard to particular situations, should

Human Resources committee  That's a very important point. I think we've given some examples of how we believe these amendments will improve health and safety in the workplaces. That's exactly the intention of the amendments. We've mentioned the improvements to the internal responsibility system and stren

Human Resources committee  Thank you for your question. If I understand correctly, your concern is with regard to the clarification of the definition of danger and whether or not it continues to provide protections to employees with respect to impacts upon life or health that are longer-term. The clarif

Human Resources committee  Essentially, when there is a refusal to work process, currently an employee would refuse to work and an employer would be required to undertake an investigation to look at the situation to try to resolve it. If there is no agreement and the employee continues to refuse to work, w