Quebec expanding health and safety inspections in 2023

Inspectors to offer services throughout the year in several sectors

Quebec expanding health and safety inspections in 2023

Quebec will be expanding its health and safety inspections throughout the province starting in 2023, according to a report.

“Temporary foreign workers are important to help meet the challenges posed by the labour shortages and so it is vital that all efforts be made to ensure they are being well treated,” said Jean Boulet, Quebec’s immigration minister.

Under the latest initiative the Commission des Normes, de l’Équité, de la Santé et de la Sécurité du Travail (CNESST) will offer consulting services to the employers of temporary foreign workers to help them meet their obligations, according to a report from Canada Immigration News.

A new squad of health and safety inspectors will offer services throughout the year to several, including:

  • agriculture
  • retail
  • manufacturing
  • hospitality
  • food processing
  • healthcare

Since 2019, Quebec had a squad of workplace health and safety inspectors for temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector providing seasonal services.

Inspectors will hold free information sessions, including some in Spanish, about health and safety standards in the workplace for temporary foreign workers and their employers in different parts of the province, including:

  • Montérégie
  • Estrie
  • Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec
  • Laval
  • Laurentides
  • Lanaudière

The inspectors will also offer personalized consulting to employers to help them understand their responsibilities towards temporary foreign workers, according to the report.

Temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in British Columbia have experienced many types of abuse perpetrated by employers and their agents, according to a report from the Migrant Workers Centre (MWC).

“Quebec sees temporary foreign workers being at least a partial fix for its massive labour shortages. Many of these foreign nationals, though, are largely unaware of their rights and responsibilities under Quebec’s labour laws,” said Colin Singer, an acclaimed Canadian immigration lawyer who wrote the Canada Immigration News report.

“The businesses and non-profits that employ them have to be held accountable for providing the right working conditions and for meeting the province’s employment standards.”

From March 2020 to June 2021, more than 79,000 workers arrived to work in Canada’s agricultural sector, according to the federal government.

In December 2021, the federal government announced it is looking to further improve safety measures for temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector. The statement came after an Auditor General report noted that inspections at living spaces and workplaces conducted by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) have been problematic. In particular, 88 per cent of quarantine inspections in late 2020 were deemed "problematic", up from 73 per cent the previous year.

In May last year, the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change questioned the safety of migrant workers while in quarantine.

In August 2020, the federal government announced a $58.6 million additional investment to the TFW program to help safeguard the health and safety of Canadian and migrant workers from COVID-19.

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