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Minutes of the 70th Meeting of the Service-Wide Occupational Health & Safety Committee held on September 16, 2021

January 7, 2022

  1. Adoption of Agenda

    The agenda was adopted.
  2. Update from Committee Advisor

    The Committee Advisor presented the statistics related to the usage of the webpages hosting the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Modules for the month of August. She indicated the various information that can be retrieved and requested input from the Committee on how they would like to receive the information. A. Peart indicated that receiving the statistics on a quarterly basis with a comparison to the previous quarter would be the starting point to allow for meaningful interpretation of the data and could also be used to identify opportunities for promoting the material. M. Gosselin indicated that he will request agenda time at an upcoming OHS Community of Practice meeting to promote the pages and suggested that the bargaining agents could also do so within their respective organizations.
  3. Presentation: Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs)

    Duncan Shaw, Senior Director, Occupational Health and Safety, Labour Program, was unable to attend the meeting due to conflicting priorities and will present at a later meeting.
  4. Update from the Sub-Committees:
    1. OHS Training/Learning Sub-Committee

      Nil.

    2. Harassment and Violence Prevention Tools Working Group (A. Peart)

      A. Peart advised the Committee that the working group has been meeting every two weeks over the summer, reviewing and drafting various materials to be shared with the Committee in a single package. She advised that the package is drafted for input, but is awaiting its return from translation, which should happen today or Friday. Once the translations have returned, the Committee Advisor will put the English and French versions into a single cadre of documents to be shared with the Committee for input and feedback.

    3. Legalization of Cannabis (C. Fraser)

      C. Fraser advised that the joint sub-committee met last week to discuss the communiqué. It was noted by the bargaining agent representatives present that there had been few, if any, issues arising from the legalization, which occurred in 2017, over two (2) years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. This was noted to be of significance as the lack of issues can therefore not be related to the pandemic. It was determined that the Joint Employment Equity Committee (JEEC) and SWOHS would be consulted to determine if there was still a need for such a communiqué given the lack of issues.

      The Committee determined that the joint sub-committee could be stood down and reformed should the need arise in the future.
  5. Standing Items
    1. Asbestos

      Nil.

    2. Legionella

      Nil.

    3. Harassment

      Nil.
  6. Round table:

    F. Murphy announced that he will be stepping down from his role at SWOHS after the next meeting, and that a new candidate will be located.

    Y. Fournier asked if anyone had information linking asbestos to brain cancers. A. Peart advised that she has considerable information on cancers linked to asbestos that she can share. The Committee Advisor noted that the Occupational Cancers Research Centre will be presenting at the next meeting.
  7. Next Meeting

    The next meeting is scheduled for November 18, 2021.