The head of the Quebec general contractors association says he has been reassured by Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet that contractors can expect leniency and support over the next months as they adapt to a new health and safety regime introduced by the provincial government.
Eric Cote, president of the Corporation des Entrepreneurs Generaux du Quebec (CEGQ), said the association is no longer urging a delay of key elements of Bill 59, such as beefed up union health and safety representation on sites.
During a phone call with Boulet on Jan. 23, Cote said, he discussed mitigation of potential conflicts with the minister as the new measures roll out on new jobsites this winter.
The key concern of the CEGQ has been confusion surrounding the appointment of new union health and safety representatives to new construction sites, possibly conflicting with the existing system of employer health and safety officers.
“The minister said we are in a transition period. And we want to support the entrepreneurs to comply,” Cote said. “We didn’t get a postponement, but we got a tolerance period.”
Bill 59 was passed in September 2021, the first implementation phase was launched in October 2022, multiple new health and safety measures came into effect on Jan. 1 and the phase-in will be complete in 2024.
The new reps will work part-time on a site that employs between 10 and 100 construction workers and full-time on a project that employs 100 or more workers or where the project value exceeds $12 million.
Cote said the uncertainty includes how the new rep and the existing health and safety officer will work together; whether the new rep will be an existing employee with new health and safety duties or a dedicated new health and safety worker; how the new rep is selected in a setting where there are multiple trades active on a site; and how much the new system will cost contractors.
Some of the new safety reps might be very competent, he said, but “some of them might not be as good as we expect.”
The CEGQ president said Boulet seemed to suggest January was a good time to bring in the new system given the sector is slow in winter. Contractors and unions would have a grace period to iron out differences before the sector picks up in the spring. Meanwhile, discussions between contractors and unions are continuing.
“We expected February and March and April, our jobsites will open up and it will be the trial by fire,” said Cote.
Occupational health and safety in Quebec is administered by a commission known as CNESST. Five construction unions including CSD Construction staged a one-day protest last month at the CNESST offices in Montreal, urging the provincial government not to delay reforms.
Not only do the unions not foresee confusion to the degree predicted by the CEGQ, said Santino Agostino, adviser with CSD Construction, they feel the measures in Bill 59 do not go far enough.
“Before the alternative was that to have a health and safety officer on your site, you needed to have over 150 workers or the site needs to be over $8 million of value. This excluded a lot of sites where the danger wasn’t any less,” said Agostino, suggesting the addition of union safety committees and reps adds a “second set of eyes” to jobsites.
“There’s no such thing as overkill when you’re talking about health and safety.”
Improvements Agostino would like to see include a system of floating union health and safety teams going from site to site, including very small projects, to ensure there are trained professionals who act as advocates for workers.
Agostino admitted there is going to be a period of adaptation at first in spite of the CNESST’s best efforts to answer questions through responses to FAQs posted on its website.
“It’s a new law, in an industry where everybody’s kind of always go, go, go,” said Agostino. “We’re going to have a role as unions to inform our members as well.”
In a statement, the CNESST said the information section on its website has been consulted 36,000 times as of Jan. 11.
“The CNESST will continue to ensure a presence on the various construction sites during 2023 in order to properly support employers, prime contractors and workers in the implementation of the new measures,” stated the agency.
The unions have a hotline set up to respond to questions right from jobsites.
“I think by the end of the day, everybody will finish by understanding what their role is and how to do it,” Agostino said.
Cote said Boulet assured the contractors of his “support” as disputes are ironed out in the coming months.
“The engagement from the government is to make sure that the people get to actually speak in exchange and find rapid solutions,” said Cote.
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