HRPD Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 14, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)): Let us begin. For the information of members, I just want to reference a few things before we start with our guests today.

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There will be a meeting next Thursday—or, I'm sorry, one week from Thursday, on May 28. There is a meeting next Thursday that Dale's going to go to and tell us what it's like, but for the rest of us there will be a meeting on Thursday, May 28 with the National Council of Welfare.

At that meeting, as it's the last meeting before the end of the estimates process, we've agreed that we will then have the various votes on the estimates. There are a series of votes that arise from the process itself, and I have a motion from the Reform Party that will ask the clerk to circulate to all members, which deals with a section of the estimates. We will deal with that, and should other members wish to put forward motions, I would ask that they simply refer them to the clerk.

The second thing is, members will recall at one of the—

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, could you tell me what time that meeting will be?

The Chairman: From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., our regular meeting time.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I was under the impression that our meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, May 26.

The Chairman: No, the 28th.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Well, we can't be here. We have to be in London.

The Chairman: London, Ontario or London, England?

Mr. Dale Johnston: Ontario, of course. We don't believe in international junkets. You know that.

The Chairman: That's why I was asking. So there will be no representative from the Reform Party?

Mr. Dale Johnston: I don't think so.

The Chairman: I'll ask the clerk to get hold of the National Council of Welfare and see if they can meet on the Tuesday rather than the Thursday.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Yes, because I'd be unavailable. I have a meeting with the minister outside the Hill for two hours.

The Chairman: Okay. I'll ask the clerk to see if we can alter that immediately.

Mr. Dale Johnston: That would certainly be a lot better for us.

The Chairman: Done. If it would accommodate the schedules of members, I am only too willing. I am but a servant of this committee. I know you feel a lot of love in the room.

Continuing with the love that is felt in this room, I have asked the researchers to prepare a document, which arises from a discussion that we had during our initial briefings last fall about how this committee formally addresses the issue of its responsibilities relative to the disabled community.

At the conclusion of today's meeting a document entitled “A Disability `Lens' for Committee Activities” will be circulated to all members. I will want to discuss and deal with this after we come back from the break. We'll probably put it on the agenda first of the steering committee meeting and then we'll bring it to committee. We're just circulating it at the conclusion of today's meeting for information.

Without any further discussion or debate, seeing none, this is meeting 37, and we're here doing estimates. We have before us David Silcox and Elizabeth MacPherson. David and Elizabeth are from the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal. We also have Dr. P.K. Abeytunga, from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety; and from the Canada Labour Relations Board, we have Mr. Paul Lordon. That's an interesting.... They have misspelled your name, Mr. Lordon; I apologize. We will take the clerk out and whip her, afterwards. He is accompanied by Jocelyne Cormier and Johanne Tremblay. Welcome.

Many of you are experienced in this. Do we want to do all three together as introductory presentations?

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes, so we'll start with an introductory presentation by the artists, and then—

The Chairman: We'll keep questions until we've heard from all three groups, then.

We'll start with Canadian Artists, and then go to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and the Canada Labour Relations Board. Please keep your introductory comments short and efficient, and then we'll open up to questions to members.

Mr. Silcox.

Mr. David P. Silcox (Chairperson and CEO, Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and honourable members. Thank you for providing the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal the opportunity to appear before you this morning to review our main estimates for 1998-99.

The tribunal is a relatively new federal agency that administers the Status of the Artist Act, which was passed in 1992 and enacted in 1995. The tribunal reports to Parliament through the Minister of Labour.

The Status of the Artist Act recognizes the important contribution that artists make to the cultural, social, economic, and political enrichment of Canada. It establishes a regime for professional relations between self-employed artists such as authors, directors and performers, and broadcasters, federal government departments, and federal agencies like the National Film Board and the museums.

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In all, there are some 80,000 Canadian artists and 6,000 producers under the jurisdiction of the Status of the Artist Act. Although the main purpose of the act is to improve the socio-economic status of artists, producers also benefit from labour stability and the predictability of labour costs that a scale agreement provides.

[Translation]

I have been a member of the Tribunal since December 1995, and was appointed Chairperson as of March 1 of this year. As this is a part-time appointment, I am also continuing my work as a Fellow at Massey College in Toronto and as Director of the David Milne project.

[English]

You can buy copies of my book at the bookstore at the National Gallery.

The Chairman: You mean you're not distributing them?

Mr. David Silcox: I thought that would be a little much for this morning. Maybe at my next appearance, Mr. Chairman. I'd be glad to.

Honourable members may be interested to know that Canada is the first country in the world to have implemented a collective bargaining regime for self-employed artists. Acting on a 1980 UNESCO recommendation and a number of task force and committee reports, the federal government enacted the Status of the Artist Act in 1992 and brought it into force in 1995, as I mentioned.

Since 1988, the Province of Quebec has also had in place two pieces of legislation that create a legal framework for relations between self-employed artists and producers and distributors within provincial jurisdiction. We hope other provinces will act on this initiative to support the Canadian cultural community by bringing forth similar legislation.

The tribunal is very mindful of the economic conditions that exist in the community it was designed to serve. Although Canada's cultural industries account for almost 5% of Canada's gross domestic product, the income of individual artists from their artistic endeavours averages around $20,300 a year. Artists and their associations simply do not have the financial resources to become involved in lengthy and litigious proceedings before quasi-judicial agencies. With this in mind, every effort was made in the legislation, and has been made since we started implementing the act, to ensure that the tribunal can provide its services to the cultural community in a way that is simple, fair, and cost-sensitive, both to the constituency and to the Canadian taxpayer.

Our total operating budget is $1.7 million, and we currently have a complement of five part-time members and a staff of nine. To keep operating costs down, we have entered into sharing agreements with a number of large government departments for support services such as informatics, human resources, and finance. The Canada Labour Relations Board kindly provides us with access to their law library and to hearing rooms in various cities in Canada.

[Translation]

Since its inception in May 1995, the Tribunal has defined 17 artistic sectors as being suitable for collective bargaining and has certified artists' associations to represent the sectors. In many cases, collective bargaining between these associations and federal producers is just beginning. The Tribunal provides continuing support to parties bargaining under the Status of the Artist Act in an effort to make them aware of their respective rights and responsibilities under the legislation.

[English]

The tribunal's report on plans and priorities for 1998-99 sets out a number of factors that influence our activities. There are two in particular that I would like to highlight as demonstrating the important role the tribunal has to play in the Canadian economy.

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The first relates to the rapid evolution of technology. I'm sure honourable members are well aware of the current worldwide debate over regulation of the Internet. This is but one aspect of the challenges technological convergence presents for creators of cultural content. The ability to protect and enforce creators' rights is a matter of serious concern at the constituency the tribunal serves.

Although efforts are being made to review and update the Copyright Act, experience has shown that the enforcement mechanisms contained in that act can be difficult and sometimes very expensive to access. For those within its jurisdiction, the Status of the Artist Act provides an accessible, expeditious, and relatively inexpensive means of enforcing an artist's right to compensation for the fruits of his or her creative talent. However, the application of the Status of the Artist Act to the Internet will require either legislative amendment or determination that Internet transmissions constitute broadcasting within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act.

The second area where I believe the artists' and producers' tribunal has a positive contribution to make is as a model for new forms of support to the increasing numbers of self-employed workers in the Canadian labour force. Self-employment continues to be a major driver in employment creation in Canada. Recently released Statistics Canada figures indicate the number of self-employed persons in the labour force increased by 10% in 1997 to almost 2.5 million. This represents 18% of the labour force, as compared to only 14% as recently as ten years ago.

Honourable members may recall the report of the Advisory Committee on the Changing Workplace released by Labour Minister MacAulay last July. The changes shaping the world of work affect everyone, and these changes have led to significant levels of insecurity in society. As the report noted, there is a positive link between the smooth functioning of the workplace and the productivity, competitiveness, and profitability of corporations. These, in turn, affect exports, investments in job creation.

The report went on to recommend that the labour regulation framework need not be the same in all sectors, but should set a common base and deliver the same basic human rights to all workers, including those in contingent and precarious employment situations. These are exactly the situations the Status of the Artist Act is designed to address, and we agree wholeheartedly with the advisory committee's reviews that the model contained in our act could be of benefit to other industrial sectors.

In addition, we are hopeful that the experiences of parties bargaining under the professional relations provisions of our act will establish new models for the conduct of labour relations in other sectors of the economy.

[Translation]

In closing, let me say that the members and staff of the Tribunal are committed to enhancing Canada's cultural community by encouraging constructive professional relations between independent artists and producers in the federal jurisdiction.

We hope that we have your support for our activities, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Merci.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Silcox.

Now we have the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. Doctor, please begin.

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga (Vice-President and Director General, Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety): Mr. Chairman and honourable members, thank you for this opportunity to make a brief presentation.

The broad mandate of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is to promote the fundamental right of Canadians to a safe and healthy working environment. Directed and guided by its tripartite council of governors representing employers, employees, and governments—federal, provincial, and territorial—the centre has been using information as a strategy to improve workplace conditions and to reduce accidents and diseases in the workplace.

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The strategy entails providing the information needed to address specific health and safety issues to those concerned to enable them to make informed decisions and take informed actions. The participatory model for workplace health and safety, as followed in Canada, requires active involvement and cooperation of workers, managers, professional practitioners, and employers. They all need a clear picture of the problems and their causes, as well as solutions and how best to implement them effectively in the workplace.

The centre's information, which these parties have learned to rely on, not only results in informed decisions and actions, but also provides the basis of consensus on how to proceed. It promotes improvement of the workplace, increases awareness of the need for a healthy and safe working environment, and supports education and training.

The centre's service is designed to reach the people who most need it and will most benefit from the information. It is based on partnerships with reputable institutions, international and national, thus tapping into and gaining from the vast pool of information from leading health and safety institutions spread across the world for the benefit of Canadians. In this endeavour, the centre relies heavily on new information technologies in gathering, compiling, organizing, presenting, updating, and distributing its vast collection of information.

The multifaceted service of the centre consists of a free-of-charge inquiry service, printed publications, and a compendium of electronic services distributed using CD ROMs, the World Wide Web, diskettes, tapes, and so on.

The free-of-charge inquiry service, available to all Canadians, answers some 100 questions a day, received by mail or telephone. Every day several hundred more questions are answered through access to the centre's web site, called OHS Answers, which provides answers to more than 1,000 questions on health and safety concerns of Canadians. It is also free of charge.

In the majority of the cases, the information received in response to inquiries is shared by many in the workplace. This inquiry service relies heavily on the printed and electronic information gathered from worldwide sources and is continually kept up to date at the centre. The printed publications, electronic products, and sharing of the centre's expertise constitute the major part of its cost-recovery services. Today, these services are being used by thousands of organizations in over 50 countries around the world.

United Nations programs, such as the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organisation, and the International Programme on Chemical Safety rely on CCOHS' participation in the implementation of a number of their global projects for health and safety. The centre continues to earn increased revenues from its expanding line of fee-for-service products and services to decrease its dependence on appropriation.

As a result of the quality of the centre's services and the tripartite constitution of its governing council, the centre enjoys a high level of credibility from all parties dealing with workplace health and safety concerns. The centre has been able to secure a strong international reputation, which it continues to strengthen through cooperative endeavours that are mutually beneficial to Canadians and the centre's collaborating partners worldwide.

Finally, as the service grows and partnerships expand and increase, more and more people from all areas of involvement in health and safety will be able to obtain the information they need in a form that is convenient and useful to them from the centre.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Now we will hear from the Canadian Labour Relations Board, Mr. Lordon.

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Mr. Paul Lordon (Chairman, Canada Labour Relations Board): Mr. Chairman, I'm here to give you, in these comments, a brief review of the labour board's operations and its situation. Rather than get into a great deal of detail, I'll try to reserve as much time as possible to allow members to direct whatever questions or concerns they may have.

The Canada Labour Relations Board is the labour board in Canada with jurisdiction over the centralized functions of the Canadian economy, those of communications, transportation, and all of the large federal employers and industries that are essential to the movement of goods and materials and the maintenance of interconnections within the country. It shares its jurisdiction over labour relations with provincial boards, which have, generally, jurisdiction over matters that are more focused in the individual provinces.

I personally come to the Canada Labour Relations Board from the New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board, which has had jurisdiction over matters of that nature in the province of New Brunswick. It is fascinating to consider the interconnections between the two and the differences in jurisdiction.

The principal thing that is striking in that respect is that the essential national concerns of transportation, communications, and the essential interconnections between the different parts of the country generally fall under the jurisdiction of the Canada Labour Relations Board as opposed to those of the provinces. The impact of those functions on the Canadian economy and on the health of the country in an economic sense is very significant because of that.

The situation of the Canada Labour Relations Board at present, in general terms, is that the Canada Labour Relations Board is made up of 95 individuals in total, as opposed to a provisional establishment of 97 individuals. Of that group of 95 individuals, 81 of the people who function with the board are staff, and the remainder are Governor in Council appointees. The provision with respect to Governor in Council appointees of the present board is that it will have a chair, five vice-chairs, and eight members appointed as neutrals to sit in panels to decide matters before the board.

Generally, the matters that come before the board are decided by panels of three persons, and there is a very limited number of exceptions to that rule at the present point in time.

The most significant thing about the Canada Labour Relations Board is that it has gone through a period of some disruption and examination over the last two years, including a very significant report prepared by Mr. Andrew Sims, which recommended significant changes in the orientation of the board. This report has been reflected in legislation; that is, Bill C-19, which is presently before the honourable members of the Parliament of Canada and is progressing towards passage.

Because of that, in the time I've been there—and I started work on March 16 of this year—the Canada Labour Relations Board has had to not only continue to meet the demands and pressures of its ongoing caseload, but it has had to plan for the implementation of the legislation, if and when that legislation gets passed.

So we've had to address our current situation, and we've also had to do a considerable amount of forward planning. I might indicate, with the help and cooperation of all those involved in the board, we have undertaken that with a good deal of determination and have established, I believe, a climate of goodwill and cooperation in addressing this situation.

For an understanding of that context, I think it's important for members to be aware that there are essentially two major thrusts in the changes that are impending for the board.

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The first thrust is that there is an intention expressed in the Sims report and inherent in the coming legislation that the board simply get closer to the groups it serves, that it get closer to both the employers and the employee communities. For this reason, the nature of the members who serve on panels of the board will switch from that of being a neutral group to that of being a group representative of employers and employees. There is simply an intention inherent in the bill to make the Canada Labour Relations Board more directly involved and more responsive to the communities it serves on both the employer and employee side, and this will be reflected in the future by the fact that we would have a board that is representational.

While in terms of the Canada Labour Relations Board the change to a representational board is a significant change, what is happening here is that the Canada Labour Relations Board is conforming to the general provincial standard throughout the country. It is by far the most common model, that labour boards such as the Canada Labour Relations Board are representational in the way that the Canada Industrial Relations Board would become under the new legislation.

The second thrust of the new legislation is to make the Canada Labour Relations Board more efficient. In this respect, there are really two major thrusts. The first is to make the administrative responsibilities of the chair much clearer with respect to case assignment and case management, and the second is to make provision for a regional board that can be flexibly and effectively managed in the different regions of the country, and to also make provision for the resolution of matters by single-member panels where this is appropriate.

So a number of matters have been carefully identified and carefully selected in the new legislation for hearing by individual members, and in the long term this will allow the board to conduct its business with greater efficiency, greater speed, and at lower cost to the Canadian public.

Finally, there is inherent in the new legislation a requirement for more consultation with the affected groups and the groups interested in the operations of the board. I might say we have already undertaken to open up the gates and to establish connections with the affected communities during the time I've been at the board.

Finally, there is the issue of costs. The costs are set out carefully, in detail, in the estimates. The board has already begun to look at the issue of the cost under the new act, and we have so far been able to identify a number of areas where we believe there may be some potential for cost savings, but until we actually commence operations, it will be difficult to know the extent to which we can realize those costs. We are very sensitive and aware of the need to not only improve the service and accessibility of the board, but also to do this in an environment where the possible cost savings are realized and passed back to the Canadian public.

I think that's all the comment I would like to make initially.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Lordon.

We'll go to a round of questions, starting with the Reform Party. Given the number of groups, why don't we start with a five-minute round and see how that goes? If you need more time, Mr. Johnston, I'm sure you will let me know.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Perhaps I'll start with the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal.

As was mentioned in the presentations, there has been some discussion of amalgamation of the CIRB, as described in Bill C-19, with the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal. But since the legislation will be out of the House on Friday, do you think it's too late to contemplate a merger at this time?

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Mr. David Silcox: It's a hypothetical question that I don't really feel competent to address. I only want to point out perhaps that our functions are quite different. Our tribunal deals with the relations between self-employed artists and producers. The CLRB deals with employer-employee relations, so it's quite a different thing.

I think the studies that have been done on labour matters recently have indicated that a model that deals with this specific sector, as ours does, is a model that's worth having and worth pursuing. Perhaps the appropriate time to look at that would be when our tribunal comes up for review in the year 2002 and we have a better sense of whether it ought to or should or could be considered in a different administrative way at that time. It's not up to me to talk about government machinery.

Mr. Dale Johnston: No. Perhaps then I should rephrase the question and ask how you think the roles are not parallel between your group and the CIRB? I heard you say you didn't think they were parallel because they were dealing with employee and employer. How is yours different?

Mr. David Silcox: We deal with self-employed artists as opposed to employees and their relations with the regime that governs the relationships with federal producers. So it's different in that respect. It's different also in the fact that it deals with a specific sector of the economy, basically the cultural sector, which has a number of particular aspects to it, which I think don't obtain in other industrial sector areas.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I would imagine certainly that there would be some unique features to dealing with self-employed artists, but still it comes down to the negotiation of contracts and a business deal or a deal between someone who's paying for the services and somebody who's providing the services. So I really see them as being a lot more parallel perhaps than you do.

On page 13 of the estimates, we find an increase in salaries and wages under personnel costs. That increase is $310,000. The full-time equivalent chart on the previous page shows an increase of 2 FTEs for that period. What else is there in there? Surely we are not thinking about paying these people $155,000 a year when the top grid that's shown is $80,000? Where is the extra money coming from?

Mr. David Silcox: I think you'll get a more accurate answer if I let Ms. MacPherson answer that, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Elizabeth MacPherson (Executive Director and General Counsel, Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal): The numbers that are shown under the columns that say “Planned 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-2001”, were numbers approved when the tribunal was first established. The numbers that you have under the column that says “Forecast 1997-98” are actually much closer to the real spending of the tribunal. So although it looks like an enormous increase between 1997-98 and 1998-99, it's because those 1998-99 numbers were actually approved probably three years ago by Treasury Board. We would not expect actually to reach those spending levels in 1998-99, so we'll be reporting back to the House next year on what our actuals are for 1998-99.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Then of course that begs the question, didn't you have the latitude to have these numbers closer to what your actual spending is going to be? Couldn't the plan numbers have been a little closer to—

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Ms. Elizabeth MacPherson: There are two factors that were at play there. At the time we did the original estimates as to what spending we'd need, we envisioned a fully functioning tribunal with all the members in place and a full complement of staff. Of course, as we got into operation, we were gearing up, so we weren't spending all the money we thought we would need when we became fully operational. There are two aspects, one of which has just recently changed. Our founding chairperson had been a full-time chairperson. When she was appointed to the Senate we went through a period of two and a half years with an acting part-time chair. So we were still maintaining a provision for a full-time chair. In fact, as of March 1 this year the decision has been made that the chair's position will only be filled on a part-time basis. In the fall, when we do our annual reference level updates, I'll be able to reduce that contingency.

The second contingency we're providing for has to do with regulations that prescribe additional categories of artists who will be able to benefit from the Status of the Artist Act. Those regulations are not yet in place, and when they do come into place, which we hope will be fairly soon, they will increase the jurisdiction of the tribunal, so we'll have an additional workload. The original estimates had been calculated on the basis of having that workload.

Mr. Dale Johnston: How many cases a year would be heard by the tribunal?

Mr. David Silcox: In the last fiscal year we received seven new applications for certifications, one complaint of failure to bargain in good faith, one application for declaration, and one reference from an arbitrator. We held 11 hearings in total in 1996-97.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Is there any—

The Chairman: Mr. Johnston, make that the last one on this round so everybody will get a question in, and then we'll come back and spend more detail on them.

Mr. Dale Johnston: This is my last question? Okay, it's a very brief one. Is there any provision in your department for any recapture? Is there any fee for service?

Mr. David Silcox: No, there's not.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Do you have any questions, Mrs. Gagnon?

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I'm not sure whether my Reform Party colleague asked the same question, but I'm not clear on something. I understand that the Status of the Artist Act includes a model for self-employed workers and I realize that artists fall into a very special category and that they require protection when it comes to employment and contracts. However, could you tell me more about the other model you have developed which could help other workers. As we all know, there are many self-employed people out there today creating their own jobs. What kind of guideposts have you set to help artists?

[English]

Mr. David Silcox: I'm not sure if I can give you a full answer on that, except to say that a very large number of the more than 400,000 people who work in the cultural sector, approximately 25% of them, are self-employed. It's a much higher percentage than almost any other industrial sector in Canada. I think one of the reasons the Status of the Artist Act was passed in the first place was to acknowledge the special nature of that sector as an important economic sector.

I believe it's actually a good model, because you're going to have, increasingly, as the years go by, unless the trend reverses itself, more people in the self-employed category. The question is, how are they covered? How are their interests and rights looked after in relation to the work they do?

Maybe my colleague would like to add a word or two.

[Translation]

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon: You claim that this is a sound model. In what way?

Ms. Elizabeth McPherson: Following up on what Mr. Silcox said, the Tribunal certifies collective bargaining sectors, unlike the Canada Labour Relations Board which certifies employee units for collective bargaining with an employer. Some sectors include all producers in a particular field such as music.

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Parties negotiate framework agreements in which minimum terms and conditions of engagement are set. These are not like a collective agreement which sets the terms and conditions of employment.

Finally, certification by the Tribunal is somewhat like a licensing process. Certification is for a three-year period and is renewable. The model is different from the one used by the CLRB.

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon: That answers my question. I know that the search is on for ways of protecting self-employed workers. Unions would like to group self-employed professionals, such as musicians, into associations and then bargain on their behalf. You have shed some light on the subject. Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Gagnon.

Mrs. Brown.

Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll start with the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal. The performance report for the period ending March 31 indicates that you had 25 applications for certification and 11 hearings during the fiscal year 1996-97. Can you tell us the current status of the backlog of people waiting for hearings?

Mr. David Silcox: Yes, we can. We've actually defined 17 sectors since we started in business. At the moment, we have four that are scheduled for hearings later this year, and 10 that are not yet complete or ready to be heard. That backlog is not the tribunal's doing; it's that the applicants themselves simply haven't got everything together in order to have a hearing.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: But they have applied.

Mr. David Silcox: Or in a couple of cases, as the regulations are not in place, they're not able to be dealt with yet.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Do you have any idea of the cost per case? What is an average cost of processing one of these applications?

Mr. David Silcox: No, I don't. It would vary quite considerably.

In the hearing, for example, we had with the Union des artistes in Quebec, we had the hearings spread over quite a number of days and a period of several of months; another hearing can take place in half a day. It's very difficult to know. We deal with some very small associations and some very large ones. There really isn't a guideline on that.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: I still don't have a clear picture in my mind of how many cases were completed in the last fiscal year.

Mr. David Silcox: There were 11 finished in the last fiscal year.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to go on to the CLRB. It has to do with the staff. There was supposed to be a headquarters staff reduction of 25% by the end of 1997-98. The estimates indicate that another reduction of 10 staff positions, that is, from 107 full-time equivalents to 97, is planned for the current fiscal year. But the staff budget increased $1.3 million. I think Mr. Johnston raised this too. I don't understand how you can cut 10 more positions and increase your budget, unless it's maybe the 16 people who make more than $80,000 a year.

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With regard to that, what kinds of qualifications do those people have to get those jobs?

Mr. Paul Lordon: I'm going to be very direct with you. I did not notice the discrepancy personally with the cut and I didn't direct any questions to the staff about it. It seems to me that the difficulty here is that it takes a while for the cost savings of the cuts to be realized. In other words, you have to go through a whole year before you start to bring your cuts down, or to bring your—

Ms. Bonnie Brown: I understand that, but previous to this you apparently went through a 25% staff reduction, so surely that which is already completed should be beginning to show in the figures; yet we still see this upward trend.

I wonder whether maybe it's severance.

Mr. Paul Lordon: Yes. I can tell you that I spent the first two weeks of my period at the board attending farewell parties for departing employees, and the severance costs have been extraordinary during that period. So that may well be the factor right there.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: That might be it. But I wonder if you could supply to the committee—

Mr. Paul Lordon: We would be happy—

Ms. Bonnie Brown: —with a real explanation of that $1.3 million increase.

Mr. Paul Lordon: Yes. That's a question that's of great concern to me, and I will supply the answer.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: These are projected. These are for this year. In other words, if somebody left in February and was given a severance, I don't know if that cost is spilled into the next year's budget or whether it's supposed to be taken care of in the previous year's budget.

Mr. Paul Lordon: Maybe Ms. Cormier, who has been supervising that aspect of the operations, could answer that question.

Ms. Jocelyne Cormier (Acting Executive Director, Canada Labour Relations Board): I perhaps just can clarify that the item on page 11 that is referred to as contributions to the employee benefit plan may vary from year to year. It may in fact increase or decrease. It's an amount that is set in our reference levels, if I'm not mistaken, and we are not including any salary costs per se.

I'll obtain a clarification for you. That increase is one that is given to us in our reference levels by Treasury Board. It's set for the organization on a yearly basis. But I will look into that and get back to you.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: You said it was set by Treasury Board, but if there has been a decision to reduce staff by 25%, followed by a second decision to reduce it by 10 more positions, then these numbers should be coming down, but they're not.

Mr. Lordon has undertaken to supply that.

Mr. Paul Lordon: I agree with the member. I have undertaken to check why the staff reference level cuts are not reflected in costs and I'll provide detailed information on that.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Okay.

In terms of the other tribunal, I understand there's one position greater than $80,000, and the 11 people seem to be spread out across the salary scale to suggest an understandable system.

But in the case of the Canada Labour Relations Board, I still need to know whether those 16 people who make more than $80,000 a year are all in the same category. What is it that they do? What are their qualifications to do it?

I have a horrible feeling that they're appointees or something. It's just a little sharing of fun with the Reform Party.

Mr. Paul Lordon: I'm sorry, I missed the question.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Who are those 16 people who make more than $80,000? I don't mean their names. I mean, do they all fit into a certain role?

Mr. Paul Lordon: No. The individuals who are reported as making more than $80,000 generally fall into the category of the governor in council appointees. That would be me, the four people who are serving currently as vice-chairs, and the members, who are appointed. Then the other group of people who generally make in that area are the regional directors of the organization.

We have a regional office in Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and those people are generally at the EX1 level. Many of them are making in that salary range. I think that pretty well brings the group together.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Ms. Bennett, did you have anything?

• 1200

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): Well, I'm interested in the tribunal. One of the things about tribunals is that the expertise that comes so that the people appearing before it feel that it's fair and that they understand.... I was just wondering what expertise you are able to bring. It's obviously varied disciplines of artists that come before you. Are you able to contract out for expertise, or how does the tribunal get the information it needs in order to come fairly to a decision?

Mr. David Silcox: The answer is that the part-time members of the tribunal in fact are drawn, for the most part, from the cultural sector itself. Mr. Fortier, who is the vice-chairman, for example, was formerly the director of the Canada Council and a deputy minister of culture here at the federal government. I myself was a deputy minister of culture for the province of Ontario. And there are other members such as Curtis Barlow, who is the director of the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, and Meeka Walsh, who edits a magazine in the arts in Winnipeg—a good magazine at that—so we do have people who are knowledgeable in the arts but don't have particular affiliations that would disqualify them from considering the cases that come before us.

We can also draw upon expertise in the cultural sector itself, and our staff is quite prepared to do that when it's necessary to do so.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Do you think the artists who come before you feel the perspective of the artist who's there, or is this mainly that of arts administrators?

Mr. David Silcox: The answer, I believe, is that the artists who come before us feel they get a very sympathetic hearing, and the producers who come before us feel they get a very sympathetic hearing, simply because we understand the milieu in which they both work.

We also are urged by our legislation to be relatively informal, and a good deal of the cases that we hear are done in a quite informal atmosphere that doesn't have the trappings of the adversarial system that we see in television courtroom dramas, for example. Our objective is to find solutions between artists and producers that make both sides happy and that both sides are in agreement with, and we tend to take more of a mediator role than to sit and adjudicate in an adversarial role between lawyers. In fact, a number of applicant who come before us are not represented by legal counsel; they represent themselves.

I think it's working very well, and what independent assessments we've had of the work of the tribunal so far have been very positive.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Are you happy that it's described as quasi-judicial or do you think that other descriptors like mediation or alternative dispute resolution would be more appropriate?

Mr. David Silcox: I'm quite happy to be referred to as quasi-judicial, because in fact we do have the powers under the act to provide a legal framework for the relations between artists and producers. So our role is a quasi-judicial role. We are a branch of administrative law. We carry it out in an informal way, which doesn't ignore the niceties of the law but tries to do it in a way that is amenable to the sector we serve.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: If you weren't there, would these people be in court?

Mr. David Silcox: I don't know where they'd be, to be frank. I can't answer that question. You never know in which direction artists are going to go—

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: You have to protect them from just wanting to—

Mr. David Silcox: —or producers, for that matter.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Bennett.

Now, would it be Mr. Johnston or Mr. Anders?

Mr. Dale Johnston: I'll defer to my colleague.

The Chairman: Mr. Anders.

• 1205

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Ref.): One of the other committee members here, Bonnie Brown, touched on this. We had staff reductions of 25% in 1997-98, a reduction of 10 staff positions in the current fiscal year, and yet there was talk of severance pay being given.

Ted Weatherill was given, we were told, eight weeks of severance pay. Now, if the head of the Canada Labour Relations Board is given eight weeks' severance pay, how can we possibly justify that, when you've had in the last two years what amounts to roughly some 30%—I'm going to say, just as a rough guesstimate, 34%—staff reductions and yet we've actually got an increase in the budget? By rough calculations, to me that would mean you would have increased the salary of everybody who was remaining by 40%. That's crazy.

Mr. Paul Lordon: I've indicated to the previous honourable member that I'm very concerned about the discrepancy in figures, the $1.3 million, and we will provide the committee with the details.

With respect to the question of the severance amounts, whether that relates or not we don't know. But I may be able to provide a little bit of help there.

The public service provided certain standards for the early retirement and severance of the members who elected to take it, and it is my understanding that all of the severances that took place inside the staff of the board were conducted in accordance with the general public service standards. Now, I can tell you that those standards were generally somewhat more costly and somewhat more generous than the eight-week standard that you mentioned as having applied to the previous chair. That's the first point that I think you should note.

The second point I should make is that with respect to the severance that was offered to the previous chair, that matter is not conclusively terminated as yet, because there is litigation pending that may affect the ultimate severance that is paid to him. I don't think it's appropriate to comment on that litigation, other than to note that it is in existence.

So this matter has not been conclusively resolved by the eight-week severance.

Mr. Rob Anders: The Auditor General also outlined a series of concerns with the operation of the board. I'm just generally wondering here, how many people have access to government credit cards, and how many have access to expense accounts?

Mr. Paul Lordon: The answer to that is very similar to the answer previously given. It is generally speaking the Governor in Council appointees and the regional director category as well, so a total of about 16.

Mr. Rob Anders: Okay. It's interesting that the Auditor General also found the board's travel expense policy was not reasonable, and to quote out of the Auditor General's report, “The board pays out close to $240,000 in expense claims without any receipts”. What have you done to tighten up the system?

Mr. Paul Lordon: This is going to be a long answer. On my initial day at the board, which was March 16, I met with the senior staff, except for the regional directors, and discussed in detail the problem that was identified by the Auditor General. I also met with the representatives of the Auditor General and with senior people at Treasury Board to discuss the implementation of a strategy to cut down on these claims.

I also had my own staff look at the issue of travel and decide what kinds of limitations we ought to impose. I carried out a number of personal discussions with individuals about what standards apply generally through the public service in respect of these issues.

• 1210

The upshot of the discussions with the members was that we identified a number of areas, particularly where they had been allowed to put in claims in excess of the amount provided for in the Treasury Board guidelines without receipts. In general there had been a practice that members would be allowed to charge an unaccountable $180 per diem, and that is no longer the practice in the Canada Labour Relations Board and has not been since the date of that initial meeting.

The new practice is that members are allowed to claim unaccountable only up to the level at which the public service in general is allowed to claim. Just to give you an idea, it's $25 for supper, $9 for breakfast, approximately $9 for lunch, with a $6 incidental fee. That is the standard practice for all levels of government employees on travel status.

Over and above that, the members must individually and specifically justify every expenditure. I personally have reviewed, since the time signing authority was accorded to me by the minister, every instance where there has been an exception and have paid no amount unless there was a specific and precise justification of the amount paid. I can further say the discussions I had with the individual members of the board have been very fruitful in this regard, and they are very comfortable with the observance of that practice. Cooperation has been forthcoming and there have been significant reductions in a number of instances in travel claims as a consequence of this policy.

So the concern you mentioned is very present to both me and staff members, who are supporting me in examining the details of these travel accounts. It is also a concern that I would say is now shared by both the vice-chairs and the members of the board. We're making very significant strides. In terms of the general attitude and respect for the need to save costs, I think in that area as well there have been significant strides. There has been no instance of an unjustified and unspecified claim since I have been there.

Mr. Rob Anders: I guess we'll have to rely on what the AG has to say about that the next time he reports.

Switching over to the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal, what type of remuneration is paid to board members?

Mr. David Silcox: Board members are part-time and they receive anywhere between $260 and $325 per day when they attend meetings or hearings.

Mr. Rob Anders: So this should be a fairly cheap process. But what's the cost per case for the tribunal's activities to date?

Mr. David Silcox: I don't have a figure for the cost per case, but we plan to have it for this fall's program performance report.

Mr. Rob Anders: How many cases have you dealt with in 1997-98?

Mr. David Silcox: Last year there were 11.

Mr. Rob Anders: By my calculation here, you spent $1.7 million. Is that right?

Mr. David Silcox: The figure is $1.3 million.

Mr. Rob Anders: That's a little better than $100,000 per case, and you're only paying these people per diem.

Mr. David Silcox: If you want to calculate things that way....

Mr. Rob Anders: Now I'm going to move to something else, because it turns out you're not just doing quasi-judicial tribunal adjudications; you're also conducting information campaigns. I guess that's where a lot of the money is being spent. Is that right?

Mr. David Silcox: What did you have in mind?

Mr. Rob Anders: According to the Status of the Artist Act, I understand your mandate to be quasi-judicial tribunals to adjudicate disputes under the act. If you spent $1.3 million and you only dealt with 11 cases, that would mean you're either spending over $100,000 per case or you're spending a lot of that money on conducting information campaigns.

So I want to know the nature of the research and information activities and the amount in proportion of the tribunal's funding that supports those activities.

• 1215

Mr. David Silcox: Obviously, not all our funds go to the actual hearings themselves. Part of our plan and activity is building awareness in the community about the rights, benefits, and obligations conferred by the act we implement. I can get you the figures that were committed to or spent on that side of our activities. It's not an excessive amount.

Mr. Rob Anders: Compared to the amount of cases you've actually dealt with and the amount of money that's been spent, I would say the vast chunk of your resources are spent on these “outreach activities”. I guess I'm going to ask what those are.

Mr. David Silcox: I'll be corrected by Ms. MacPherson on this, but all they consisted of was the production of a brochure that simply describes what the tribunal does and the creation of a kind of booth the tribunal takes to particular conventions or gatherings of artists or producers at different times in different parts of Canada.

I should also say we had a number of cases that developed though 1996-97 and moved into 1998. So while 11 were completed in the last fiscal year, there in fact were a number of others that were moved along at the same time. I think you have to look at that in a sort of multi-year perspective.

Mr. Rob Anders: I take it to mean the vast chunk of that money was spent on a booth that tours around different exhibits and art shows during the year. That being the case, I understand part of your mandate is to set the minimum terms and conditions of engagement for independent artists.

Judging by the amount of certifications you've gone through and what not, my general impression is we're paying people to send booths around to art exhibits telling artists what minimum standards or terms and conditions are, and not many artists are taking them up on the deal because it doesn't seem like something that can be delivered.

Mr. David Silcox: A good part of what we spend is on public notices, where it's important to notify the community at large through the Canada Gazette and newspaper notices of cases that are coming forward, hearings that are about to occur. Members have travelled to hearings. There are sometimes telecommunication costs and translation costs. I certainly don't want to give you the impression, because it would be wrong if I did, that the public relations side of things gets a great deal of attention. It doesn't. It gets some attention, but it's not out of proportion to the other things we do.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: One last question.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. Rob Anders: How do you go about setting the minimum terms and conditions of engagement for independent artists?

Mr. David Silcox: We certify an area and define it. It is up to the self-employed artist's association and the producer to enter negotiations and settle on an agreement they can both work with. We don't actually write the agreement; we simply define the sector. After an agreement has been reached between the producer and the artist, we may, if asked, deal with complaints or other aspects of breaches of the agreement.

The Chairman: M. Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): I have gone over the estimates of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and I would like you to review for me your responsibilities which tie in with those of the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du Travail du Québec. Your mandate is similar in many respects to that of the Quebec commission and I would like to know which areas come under your specific jurisdiction.

• 1220

In fact, isn't there quite a bit of overlap between the two organizations?

[English]

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was created by the Parliament of Canada with the stipulation of promoting, or doing activities to promote, health and safety in the workplace under the direction and guidance of a council of governors representing federal, provincial, and territorial governments and councils, and as well by the trade union movement, employer organizations, and various associations.

It is the council that directed the centre to undertake the information provision to the workplaces—and this is very particular—rather than the regular information services, which tend to provide services to pretty much the professional and scientific and technical communities. That was the primary direction given to the centre.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: I read all of that in the document. I know exactly what the mandate of the organization is. I'm asking you whether or not there is some duplication between your responsibilities and those of the Quebec commission. Are you involved in specific areas? I don't need to review the mandate of your agency or your objectives, because I did that when I was preparing for the meeting. I simply want to know if there is any duplication of responsibilities. If that is the case, which responsibilities overlap? Are there any specific areas in which there is no duplication?

[English]

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: I think a number of the provincial organizations, including the Quebec commission, undertake the provision of information and have extensive library collections of documents. In the sense of the information resource accumulated at the Quebec institution and at the Canadian centre, there is likely to be quite a large overlap in terms of the material as the basis for providing the information.

As well, there is a difference in that we have focused on creating CD-ROMs and using the World Wide Web, based on a large collection of information sources that we have brought in from various national and international institutions throughout the world and that are made available for public access, very specific to Canadians in terms of occupational health and safety.

These products and services are by and large what is being provided on a free-of-charge inquiry service, presented on a full cost-recovery basis. The subscribers, on a subscription basis, pay an annual fee. That represents what we have indicated here as the revenue levels for the centre to undertake its functions.

We don't undertake research, by the way, and we don't provide research funding, so there are many areas where the CSST, the Quebec institution, does undertake quite a large range of activities beyond information, which is not reflected in the Canadian centre's work.

But as scientific and technical institutions, many who are operating in this field would have quite a substantial collection of information products for their own purposes. I think that, for example, is an area where it probably unavoidably would be overlapped in terms of resources.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Do you have some idea of how many requests for information are received in each province? For example, an important part of your mandate is to supply impartial technical information to Canadians. Would it be possible to know who your principal clients in Canada are, which provinces they hail from and how many inquiries each province receives?

• 1225

If you have these figures, I would appreciate your sharing them with us.

[English]

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes, in our free-of-charge inquiry service. I make a distinction between the free-of-charge inquiry service and the revenue-generating production services.

In the free-of-charge inquiry service, we collect information about the distribution of the sectors. About 28% of the inquiries come from the service sector, about 30% from the goods-producing industries, about 7% from governments, about 8% from health and social institutions, about 8% from educational institutions, and from other services, media and so on, about 16%.

In the distribution of this, again, the free-of-charge inquiry service across the provinces, about 50% to 52% of the questions come from Ontario, about 11% each come from British Columbia and Alberta, about 7% from Quebec, about 5% each from New Brunswick and Manitoba, and small amounts from the other provinces. That's the distribution.

Again, though, this is for the free-of-charge inquiry service.

In terms of the fee-for-service products, I don't have the distribution with me, but quite a large proportion of the centre's revenues from fee-for-service products also comes from outside Canada. The free-of-charge inquiry service is a Canada-wide service that is not available outside Canada. It is only available to Canadians.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Could we possibly have a copy of that information? I made some quick notes, but perhaps if you could get that information to the clerk...

[English]

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: That I can give you.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Was there a question over here?

Carolyn.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: To follow up on that, I notice that the act promotes the fundamental right of Canadians to a healthy and safe working environment. Am I to take from this that there are national standards?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes. There are many national and provincial standards.

Occupational health and safety is largely a provincial jurisdiction matter. The federal government's responsibility is pretty much for its own employees and the trans-Canadian services employees, which is around 10%, or less than 10%, of the working population.

We do have national standards coming from the likes of the Canadian Standards Association and so on, but by and large, most of the standards are set as legislation, regulations and from the various jurisdictions, provincial and territorial.

The Canadian centre has put together the entire collection of all the legislative documents from all across Canada into one source, which people can refer to in terms of what their responsibilities are and what are the standards they need to adhere to. It makes it very convenient for people to get what they are legally responsible for.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: As a federal government, though, if we found that a provincial standard was way too low, and we felt Canadians were at risk, could we do anything?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: We provide information generally in a province. When a question comes about legislation, we provide federal requirements as well as the provincial requirements that apply to that province.

But you're right; there is a fairly significant variation in the standards across the country. There has been an effort by the federal government, by Labour Canada, to harmonize these requirements, legislative standards and so on, and that process has not yet progressed far enough to accomplish a parity.

• 1230

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: In a time of unemployment, where entry-position jobs are difficult for people to get, I worry that waitresses and people in the hospitality industry are being made to work in smoke-filled environments because they have no other choice. Do we have an opinion on this?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: In all areas of exposures, whether it is to smoke or environmental contaminants that people find in industry locations, the standards and requirements are set, but they don't necessarily comply with the zero effect or a negative impact on the health of individuals.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: But I don't think you would let people work in a factory filled with smoke.

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes, I agree. The legislation itself is not up to taking care of the individual's health in that sense, in the sense of exposure to smoke in most places.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: One of the things that I'm interested in is that CN has a really good prevention program, I think, so that they don't put unfit people out to do huge physical labour and then wreck their backs. Is there something we are doing in terms of the prevention programs in terms of gyms and ways of preventing back injuries in the workplace?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: At least in the things we can do in our federal government.... What are we doing to actually help prevent back injury rather than deal with people on workers' comp later on?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: There are many guidelines and much advice provided to employers and employees, because in that—

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: I guess what I mean is a clearing house of ideas, where people can call you up and see what other people are doing.

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes, we provide that service from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety on any issue, and quite a large number of questions, an increasing number of questions, have to do with muscular-skeletal problems, not just back problems but wrist problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, and so on and so forth, with the new technologies.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: If you were to consider the possibility of gathering and disseminating occupational statistical information, would that require additional resources?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes. At the moment, the statistical information with respect to accidents and diseases is collected by the various compensation boards in the provinces. That is where this information is available. There was a national program for occupational injury and disease statistics. It was carried out by Statistics Canada and gave a summary of the data that originally came from the compensation boards. That program got into problems, financial and otherwise, and it is not continuing in the manner that it used to.

But it is an area that does require two things. First, it requires some close cooperation with all of the compensation boards, where the information is available. But there again, as in the case of standards, the basis of the collection of information is not uniform. If somebody wanted to do a national program for injury and disease statistics, he would have to get into quite an extensive amount of work in order to extract and categorize the information into categories from different jurisdictions, because the basis is so different from one jurisdiction to another in terms of the criteria and in terms of the categorizations.

So the short answer is that because of these reasons, doing a national program of injury statistics does involve a fair amount of resources.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: It seems imperative. We need to know the facts before we can find any solutions.

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Indeed.

The Chairman: There's a radical thought.

I'll come back to the Reform Party and Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Dale Johnston: You might have expected such radical stuff from a Liberal.

• 1235

Mr. Lordon, maybe I should start by saying that I certainly wish you well in your new role. As you know, the whole undertaking is a huge challenge and is one that's been tainted for the public, not the least of which was the infighting that took place within the board. I think I heard you say that in the little time you've been there it does not seem to be the problem that it was in the past.

However, in the past we've had expenditures in the range of $780,000 for professional services and special services. Could you provide the committee with details about what type of services you expect to be contracting and whether there's a built-in cushion in the budget for contingencies like board members hiring lawyers to try to resolve the squabbles within the board?

Mr. Paul Lordon: First of all, thank you for your good wishes. I do appreciate them.

I know that the function of the Canada Labour Relations Board and its successor, the Canada Industrial Relations Board—if that is the will of Parliament—is very important to the country.

On the question of infighting, I'm very sincere and I'm being very accurate: there was some infighting or activity that I would regard as infighting in the period subsequent to my appointment and immediately prior to my commencement of duties at the board, but we tried to bring everybody into a room together to sit down and talk about the past. I asked the members if we could start anew and abandon that previous position. The response has been very heartening. I can honestly say that in the eight weeks since I've been there, there really has been nothing that I would regard as infighting or as anything other than a strong will to consensually arrive at the resolution of issues inside the board. And I'm very grateful for that.

I have not made any budgetary provision at all for the resolution of matters between the board and its members in terms of a budgetary allocation. It may be that we might have to reallocate a portion of the budget from one category to another if that need does arise, but at present there is not a foreseeable need for that. There just is not. So we don't have provision for that and I might as well tell you that straight out.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I'm very pleased to hear that the board members are willing to put their differences aside and work together, because I know you're aware that any board that cannot govern itself or that at least has tremendous difficulty governing itself should have.... It would naturally follow that they would have a problem with credibility. The board's whole existence is the resolution of differences and here they can't resolve differences among themselves. Again, I wish you well in that regard.

I guess this entire exercise that we are going through today.... I wish we had a little more time, but I am going to cut right directly to the chase. To me, this exercise is about you people coming before us to justify your budgets. When we see things like 25 people reduced in the administrative.... I think it said—

A voice: Twenty-five percent.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Oh, 25%, that's right, and then 10 positions later on. And yet we don't see a corresponding reduction in the budget. That's going to take some justification from you.

• 1240

So I'm going to ask both you and Mr. Silcox to recommend to us an amount by which your budget could be reduced, and barring that, I guess I'm going to be in a position where I'll have to pick an arbitrary number to reduce the budget, just by crunching the numbers.

But I'm serving notice, Mr. Chairman, that I will be presenting motions to that effect at the Tuesday meeting.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Johnston. If you are posing that in the nature of a question to Mr. Silcox and Mr. Lordon, I think it's only fair to just advise them of the process here. They are not required to provide numbers.

Mr. Dale Johnston: I realize that. I'm posing this in the form of a request in order to help me arrive at a rational amount.

The Chairman: I will entertain the question and allow Mr. Silcox and Mr. Lordon to make a general response on their budgetary issues. Certainly, I suppose, if there is an opportunity, if you could convince Mr. Johnston, he might make a motion to increase your resources.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Dale Johnston: It's all about justification, so it's possible.

The Chairman: Which one of you wishes to go first on that particular point?

Mr. David Silcox: We're small, so I'd be happy to go first. I simply want to make the point to the honourable member, Mr. Chairman, that this tribunal is just becoming fully functional, so we haven't actually had a full year of full activity. We expect to be able to say next year that we have had and then we will know exactly what our level of operation will be.

Based on my experience of watching the operation of the tribunal, I can say that it operates with commendable efficiency, I think. It's quite small and it's quite effective for its size. We're not carrying full-time members because we don't need them. I think we're doing a good job, to tell you the truth, and we're keeping the costs down. We have permission for the expenditure of funds in excess of what we actually spent, and I think you should note that in fact we have underspent our budget. And we will continue to try to do that in the years ahead.

The Chairman: Mr. Lordon.

Mr. Paul Lordon: I have a number of things to say in response to the honourable member's question. The first point about the theme that we can't resolve others' differences if we can't resolve our own was precisely the theme I think the members of the board responded to. It's the appreciation of that fact that led to the development of, I think, a relative level of harmony.

With respect to the question of the costs, I want to respond to that in this way. I've looked at the figures quoted in the estimates and I don't see the $1.3 million increase yet. I've looked very carefully. I see that there's a very slight decrease in costs, and that is in personnel costs over the years. I'm going to go forward to try to find out exactly how the personnel costs are reflected in the operations and exactly why there is not a more significant decrease in personnel costs. I agree with the question and I think it does pose a very important issue. I undertook to provide information on that and will.

With respect to what should happen to the overall operating costs of the board, I want to say that I went there from the first day with this notion in mind: is the expenditure on this operation of government fully necessary and fully required?

• 1245

The thing I would note first is that we had a surplus of approximately $400,000 in the fiscal year 1997-98. That, under the policies of the government, is allocated as a reserve that we might use for certain contingencies that are coming down the line—that is, the implementation of the structural changes that are required by Bill C-19—costs incumbent on that, and costs incumbent on the fact that it will be necessary, to a certain extent, for us to change over the personnel of the board. That will, I believe, inevitably result in certain costs to the board for compensation and severance to people who will be leaving. Particularly, it's relatively obvious to us that the neutral members of the board will have to be terminated out of their terms and replaced by employer- and employee-nominated people.

In that respect, I contacted the Canadian Federation of Labour and the federal employers association, and asked them if they could consider the extent to which current members of the board could be nominated back into the board as employer or employee representatives, because it saves us money, it's better for the people that are there, and we retain the expertise and experience of those people. That's just one example of the kind of cost concern we've been worried about and the kind of cost pressure we're trying to address in an anticipatory way.

This leads me to my own observation on the issue, which is that through my experience in the public service of both Canada and of the provinces, which goes back approximately 25 years, I've learned that the most appropriate reference for costing in the future is what it cost in the past. The fact that the Canada board has operated with a surplus of $400,000 in the fiscal year just ended and has budgeted for essentially the same amount in the fiscal year we're now in leads me to believe there is some potential to make savings once the one-time or unusual costs are addressed.

If I were to estimate what the difference might be, I think the actual experience of having come in under $400,000 last year, taken together with some reasonable anticipation of savings from the positions that have been eliminated, and with the future costs we're going to have in terms of regionalizing the board, and taking into account the inevitable costs on severance of employees—that calculation would, in my view, show that we are probably going to require about the same level of funding for a year or two, and then we could expect to see significant declines in overall costing as we regionalize and as some of our operating costs go down.

Again, since we don't have experience there, I think a very modest cost decrease should be anticipated in the term of one or two years, to be very frank with you. I think the best indicator might be in the area of $400,000 to $500,000. That's the best answer I can give you.

The Chairman: Might I pose a small question here, Mr. Johnston?

Mr. Dale Johnston: Maybe I should screen it first.

The Chairman: Well, actually, this is a question of you, Mr. Johnston. It's an interesting kind of issue that arises. Certainly, when people disagree with the policy that governs something, passing a motion to reduce the budget to zero or some number is always one way of expressing your dissatisfaction. But it also strikes me, if I understood Mr. Silcox right, that he has a surplus in his budget, and Mr. Lordon says that after certain changes he may also have a surplus in his budget.

One of the things we always criticize departments and agencies for is spending all their money so they never have a surplus and getting into that year-end kind of expenditure. We always said, well, if you manage responsibly and you have those surpluses, then maybe you can argue for the application of those surpluses to other operations or to improve services or whatever, but we want to do away with that incentive to spend.

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It strikes me that if we were to pass a motion that took away those surpluses, we would be simply doing the very thing that has compelled people to spend the maximum in the first place.

That was just a question that went through my mind as I was listening to the very responsible answers from Mr. Silcox and Mr. Lordon.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Well, of course—

The Chairman: I'm not entering the debate. I'm just asking the question.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Fair enough, but a very short reply is that we certainly don't want to encourage budgeting for a surplus. What I'm trying to get to is: how much money do they need? This is what this exercise is all about—coming here and justifying how much money they need.

Am I allowed another question, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Sure.

Mr. Dale Johnston: To the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, last year, just before Parliament was dissolved, we got a glimpse or at least a premonition of changes to part II of the Canada Labour Code. Do you hear a lot of concern from workers in industry that there's a need to deal with this part of the code?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: As a matter of our services, we get less comments and feedback regarding the legislation and the status of legislation, for a very good reason: we are not mandated to be involved in the legislation, other than providing information about what legislation is available and what legislation applies. So we have not actually received, to my knowledge, any significant comments in that sense.

Mr. Dale Johnston: A great deal of your work is involved with disseminating information, and of course that can be a two-way communication. When you're communicating with these people, do you hear a lot of concern about the status of occupational health and safety?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes, we do. We do hear concerns on occasion about the inadequacy of some of the legislation-related approaches. Since we do not limit our responses just to legislation but tend to give people an idea of what the current knowledge is based on present research and available knowledge, in our responses, unless people ask the specific question of what legislation applies to them, if they ask a question about a topic or a subject matter, we tend to give them legislation as well as anything that goes beyond what is known.

The idea of what is being legislated for still is seen as a minimum requirement by the workplaces. That is true of both the management and the workers—that what is stipulated in the legislation is a minimum requirement, and you need to strive to do better. We try to give that additional information that would help them not just to comply with the legislation but also to undertake additional measures.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Shifting gears a little bit, how is the perceived year 2000 problem going to affect your budget? Have you been anticipating this, or are you well on the way, or what?

Dr. P.K. Abeytunga: Yes, we have. We have looked carefully into the hardware systems and the software systems at the centre. I think we are somewhat fortunate. The hardware upgrades we are planning to do, to be ready for the year 2000. It's not a huge expenditure. We are also considering some of the software upgrades.

For the two together, the combined cost that we have estimated is around $100,000 for the centre altogether, which I think compared to many organizations is a comparatively small amount.

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We do get quite a substantial number of databases from other institutions throughout the world where the database content is time-dependent and year-dependent. We have gotten in touch with them in terms of making sure we get the data by 2000. It isn't something that we would embark on doing ourselves, but we would rely on the data contributors to do that themselves.

Mr. Dale Johnston: Thank you. If there's any time left, I'll defer to my colleagues.

The Chairman: We have a very few minutes left, and I do have one item that I wish to raise before we adjourn at 1 p.m. So Mr. Anders, I will permit you a question or two very short ones.

Mr. Rob Anders: All right, then.

The Chairman: You're very efficient, I notice, in the selection of your question, most of the time anyway.

Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you very much.

I'm going to ask a question, then, of Johanne Tremblay. That is, in your opinion, should language equity and regional and sectoral balance be considered in the appointment of board members?

Ms. Johanne Tremblay (Senior Legal Counsel, Canada Labour Relations Board): In my opinion, yes, I believe it should be considered.

Mr. Rob Anders: All right.

This is my last question, I guess. Bill C-19 reads:

for the demonstrated purpose of undermining a trade union's representational capacity rather than the pursuit of legitimate bargaining objectives,

This is with regard to replacement workers in the provisions. I'm wondering whether the proposed board should be provided with guidelines to aid in the interpretation of these phrases.

Ms. Johanne Tremblay: Can you rephrase the last part? You mean that the code should provide guidelines?

Mr. Rob Anders: Right now, there is wording in Bill C-19 dealing with replacement workers.

A voice: Where they define the unfair practice.

Mr. Rob Anders: Yes. What I'm asking for is whether or not you feel the board should be provided with guidelines to clarify when there has been an undermining of a trade union's capacity, or whether or not the—

The Chairman: It's the interpretation of the intent of the law.

Mr. Rob Anders: Yes.

Ms. Johanne Tremblay: If you look at this new provision and other current provisions in the code, you will see that the wording of that provision is very precise if you compare it to other unfair labour practice complaint provisions. With respect to other unfair labour practice complaint provisions, the board has been able in the past to develop its own test in applying those provisions on a case-by-case basis by looking at other provincial labour relations boards' jurisprudence as guidance too.

So I believe that the new Canada Industrial Relations Board, as a new-structured board equipped with representative members, will be able to develop and clarify the scope of the test to be applied with respect to new unfair labour practice complaints.

The Chairman: Thank you.

I would ask members to remain for one minute—yes, one very short minute. If you moan, it's going to be two.

I'd like to thank all of you. I appreciate you spending the morning with us. It has been most interesting.

Mr. Lordon, you have taken over—you need no reminding—at an interesting time in the history of the board, and we appreciate your leadership of it.

Thank you all very much.

Now here's the very simple question. At the beginning of the meeting I talked about the fact that we had scheduled a meeting for May 28. It was going to be a problem for a number of members, as they had a meeting with the National Council of Welfare on May 28. We backed it up to the Tuesday.

Since then, I have had a representation from Mr. Crête, who also has a problem with the Tuesday. The request was whether we could slip it by one week to the following Tuesday. So instead of May 26, it would go to about June 3.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: What is this meeting about?

The Chairman: It's the National Council of Welfare on the poverty report.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Their poverty report? Yes, that's fine.

The Chairman: I'm just asking about that question. In fairness to Mr. Crête, it was similar to the request that was made by Mr. Johnston.

Now the consequence of doing that is that we still have to meet next Tuesday. I would propose then on Tuesday that we would have a short steering committee meeting to deal with the “Disability `Lens”' proposal that has been brought forward. Then we would move into a committee meeting in which we would have the votes on all of the motions necessary to finish the estimates process.

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Instead of having a two-hour meeting on Tuesday, we would have a meeting of an hour, an hour and a half or whatever. We would not have a meeting on Thursday. Then on the Tuesday following that, we would have a meeting that would be more of a representation and discussion with witnesses—there would be no voting—from the National Council of Welfare, which is one of the last organizations of the department that we have not yet met with.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.