 Welcome everyone before we begin, we would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional territory of the indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. And we thank them for allowing us to meet and to learn on their territories. The original to the original case of this land on which we stand, we acknowledge the land of the Huron Wenda, the patent, the Seneca, and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is covered by the beach with one spoon wampum belt covenant. And I remember between the Haudenosaunee and the Ojibwe people and allied nations to peacefully share and care for the lands and resources around the Great Lakes, where I am right now and I think some of you are also in this region. And if you are not in this region, I will encourage you to think of the region where you are and the original people that inhabit this land, those lands. To all that was here for thousands of years before us across Turtle Island, we honor the struggles and the lives of those who gave themselves for it. For those here today, we acknowledge the ancestors beneath our feet, and we acknowledge the land. Our ears to the ground, we can hear them, the Cree, the Metis, the Dene, the Salto and Anishinaabe, the Dakota Nation and the Dakota Nations, the Inuit, the Blackfoot, the Inu, and all nations that came before us, and those yet to come. An affinity of footsteps of those who long called this land home, the unfolding of bundles, the undoing of colonization and the opening of this land to allow treaty to welcome, to allow treaty to come alive. We affirm our relationship to each other and to the land. We acknowledge and pay respect to the indigenous nations and ancestors of the land. Once again, I want to acknowledge the land of the Huron Wenda, Paton, Seneca, and most recently the Mississaugas of the first of the Credit First Nation. This is the territory covered by the dish with one spoon wampan bell covenant and agreement between the Haudenosaunee, the Andeojiwe, and ally nations to share and care for the land and resources around the Great Lakes, where I am and some of you are right now. I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge also and pay respect and tribute to the 200 and class children whose mass grave was just recently revealed in BC. It's not easy to share and to acknowledge that history. But I think it is our responsibility to do so. And so not just to pay respect and acknowledgement to the land, but also to the people in particular those who went through that very painful experience of the Indian residential schools. So today, we have four speakers that's not necessarily the order in which they will appear. But the presentations today will cover the rights and responsibilities of workers and employer and employers during the, in the context of COVID-19. So in that case, I will turn it over to our first guest speaker. Eduardo Weske. And just a little bit about Eduardo here. Eduardo is an average worker and work and program coordinator with the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario workers, OCAL. Eduardo has worked directly with migrant agriculture worker communities across Ontario for over 15 years now, and he has presented occupational health and safety workshops to migrant workers on farms and in the community as well. Earlier today, he also told us that they also work and collaborate with employers. And so that is good to know in case any of you may want to reach out to Eduardo and OCAL. So Eduardo, I'll turn it over to you and then I'll introduce each speaker as they come. All right. Sounds good. And I think with Marvara, maybe would you mind introducing her as well? Because I think we kind of, we, I might pass it over to her a bit quickly. So just in case, maybe. Thank you. I don't mind introducing her at all. So first of all, Marvara, thank you also to you as well so much for agreeing to speak today. Marvara Kamar, I apologize if I find this pronouncing your name. This is an epidemiologist with seven years of academic and practical experience in public health. Recently Marvara was involved in a project in collaboration with OCAL and Ontario. You're going to have to help me with that, or FVGA. Yeah, involving the identification, compilation, creation and dissemination of COVID-19 resources, targeting the needs of international agricultural workers. Currently Marvara is working with OCAL on the Cairo's working employment project as a public health content coordinator. So with that I'll turn it over to Eduardo and Marvara. Okay, well, thank you very much everyone. Thanks for having us. And so I'm Eduardo Uescas was mentioned. I work for the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario workers. So we just wanted to share some information with you and sorry this box. I don't know if this was happening earlier, but I think we're going to just try to hopefully it disappears when I present. But we wanted to share with you some information around health and safety responsibilities and rights for employers, supervisors and workers just to be able to kind of feed our discussion that we're excited to have with you all about working together and recognizing kind of everybody's roles and rights during COVID. We're focusing on occupational health and safety rights because we're an occupational health and safety organization, but in the discussion I'm sure other folks may be able to contribute knowledge around human rights and some of the other rights that workers also have and can claim. And also too we want to recognize that when we're talking about rights it's a bit complicated as we all know. You know, sometimes rights on paper don't necessarily mean that things work out, you know, in real life as straightforward at all and especially with, you know, international and cultural workers. In some situations there's a lot of challenges that people continue to experience so again we'll be, you know, presenting, you know, laying things out but I think we'll get more into that into into the discussion as well. So I just wanted to quickly just, you know, really fast talk a bit about Oak House so we're a network of occupational health clinics distributed across the province of Ontario, we were founded in 1989. And our teams, each clinic has a team of medical and scientific experts and really our goal is to protect workers and their communities from occupational disease injuries and illnesses and support workers in promoting their social mental and physical well being. And we also like was mentioned work with employers or our resources are free and we work with employers as well to to support their health and safety programs as well. Since 2006 we've been working with migrant agriculture workers as was mentioned so here just some some quick pictures of us on the ground in different communities, running both medical occupational health clinics as well as workshops on the farm and in the community to share occupational health and safety information with workers as well. So this is a bit of an outline that we wanted to, you know, go through so I'm going to be talking a little bit about the Occupational Health and Safety Act just to give a bit of the premise that's the legal framework under which we actually identify the rights and responsibilities I'm just going to touch a little bit on the Ontario Ministry of Labor training and skills development. That's the government ministry that that oversees the and enforces the OHSA the Occupational Health and Safety Act. And then I'm going to jump into health and safety at the workplace employer supervisor and worker responsibilities, health and safety representatives and joint health and safety committees, as they really play an important role in the workplace and themselves have, you know, important activities and responsibilities as well. Then I'm going to focus in on worker rights and then working together, you know, addressing health and safety concerns at the workplace, as well as a little bit of information around, you know, what is in place or what can we think about when, you know, concerns are not addressed at the workplace, and then, you know, touching on worker and to reprisal protections that are important as well. And then I'm going to pass it over to Mavera, who's going to look at specifically the employer requirement to have a COVID-19 safety plan. And that's kind of, she's going to share some, you know, an overview of what that is, but some key considerations around what currently is in place and employers are required to put in place at the workplace around COVID-19 safety. Okay, so to get started, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, as I mentioned, is the legal framework that looks at the regulating of workplace health and safety in Ontario. And I know that there's under the Kairos Network, there's some folks that are from other provinces as well. This would be, you know, very similar across provinces. We're based in Toronto, sorry, in Ontario, so we focus on that. But the Act sets out the responsibilities, the rights of all parties in the workplace. So it sets out the responsibilities of employers, supervisors and workers and the rights as well. It also sets out the procedures for dealing with workplace hazards and for the enforcement of regulations. And it also important to kind of recognize around the Occupational Health and Safety Act, because it's a provincial legal act, it applies to workers regardless of immigration status. So that's something that we often talk to people about and often sometimes people aren't aware. And so, again, the rights that the Act provides workers, it would provide to workers regardless of their immigration status. And the OHSA provides minimum standards. So by this, it's also around, you know, depending on the work contract or if the workplace is unionized, there can be additional, you know, details provided through those agreements. That go beyond the Act, but the Act provides the foundations. So the Ontario Ministry of Labor Training and Skills Development, again in different provinces, it would be a different Ministry of Labor. But it's the provincial government ministry that's responsible for enforcing the Occupational Health and Safety Act and for the focus on preventing occupational health injury and illness at workplaces. It sets, communicates and enforces occupational health and safety requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. It inspects workplaces and investigates complaints. It investigates work refusals or critical injuries. And it ensures that regulations are followed and looks at kind of what happens in those situations to then determine potentially further prevention requirements and things like that beyond those situations. Again, the Ministry of Labor, as we're going to kind of touch on, is a resource of concerns or not addressed at the workplace level. And they provide support regardless of immigration status. So again, the Ministry of Labor being provincial does not enforce immigration legislation. So again, their activities, all of their work is supportive of workers regardless of their immigration status. So I just really wanted to quickly touch on what is referred to as the internal responsibility system. So this is a key concept or framework reference in Occupational Health and Safety. Under the internal responsibility system, the idea is that everybody at the workplace, employers, supervisors and workers, has an important role to play in health and safety. And that the idea is that by working together, that's how health and safety is achieved. So again, everybody's doing their part and working together in collaboration will provide a health and safety workplace. The IRS often is criticized by some because it really paints kind of an ideal picture of working together and resolving health and safety concerns. However, it lends to recognition that in a workplace, there isn't that collaborative relationship between workplace parties. Obviously, there requires them to be something there in place. So again, it's a concept widely used, but something that even in discussion, we can unpack a bit more. But again, it is definitely a driver of talking about collaboration and working together at the workplace. So recognizing the working together, I did want to ask a quick question. I know we're a small group of people, but I tend to ask this question when I run this workshop for workers themselves. But recognizing that it's important to work together, who do you think does have the most responsibility at the workplace for health and safety? So I can't see the chat, but I know Mavera was going to look at it, but feel free if people want to throw into the chat. You know, who they think at the workplace has the most responsibility for health and safety. The one who has the most responsibility for everything, so management. Okay, yes. I have one that's everyone. Okay. Oh, another question should have or does have. I would say should have who's who would have a requirement to have the most responsibility at the workplace around health and safety. Is it offered us? Okay. Well, so yeah, I put this in because it's very interesting when when I've presented this to international or migrant agricultural workers, they end up answering workers. And they often say it's themselves. It's this idea that they're the responsible people to protect themselves from health and safety hazards and keeping safe at work. Again, even though the Occupational Health and Safety Act, you know, talks about everybody having a responsibility, it's clear that employers actually have the most responsibility under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. And the reason for this is obviously they're the ones that control the work environment, the equipment, the work tasks, the pace, and therefore, you know, they have the most responsibility for ensuring health and safety at the workplace. And so I I pointed that because again, I would say the majority of workers when I present this answered workers so it definitely lends to having it be a bit, you know, of a shift right away from people feeling like they might be alone in looking at their health and understanding that there's there's requirements and expectations there as well, right, which I know are complicated, but but it definitely seems like something that we need to impact with with more workers. So starting off with that I was just going to spend a bit of time looking over or going over the employers Occupational Health and Safety responsibilities at the workplace. So starting off, you know, the employers are responsible for informing workers about any hazards and dangers that could be related to the work that they're doing. So this could be substances that that workers could be working around or with. Maybe it's equipment, maybe it's just the practices of the work practices that they're doing. It's up to the employer to inform workers about any hazards related to the work they're doing. Here we put, you know, SARS-CoV-2 so at present day during the pandemic, it's up to the employer to inform workers about the risks of this virus and of COVID-19. Similarly, it's the employer's responsibility to show workers how to work safely. So, you know, provide training health and safety training. And, you know, this is a requirement workers, you know, without knowing, you know, they might be new to the job or they may be new to the task. So again, it's the employer's responsibility to show and explain. It's also the employer's responsibility to create, explain and enforce health and safety rules and policies for all aspects of the workplace. So this, you know, this would kind of result in, you know, creating a health and safety program for that for that workplace. And Mavera is going to talk a little bit more about that in the context of COVID, which is the COVID-19 health and safety plan that is now a requirement. And I'm not going to touch too much on this because Mavera is going to mention this, but within that setting of the rules and policies and that safety program, employers are, you know, should be following that applying the hierarchy of controls, what's referred to as a hierarchy of controls, which you can kind of see as this little triangle. And it's, you know, well discussed in occupational health and safety. And what really it focuses on is to ensure that an employer, when they're putting in their controls and their health and safety programming, they're focusing and prioritizing the controls that are the most effective in protecting workers from the hazards. So, you know, at the top, you have elimination. So trying to eliminate the hazard altogether or substituting, you know, the hazard or changing it or removing it for something that is less harmful to then going downwards to less effective intervention. So engineering controls could be, you know, designing work environments to reduce exposure to the hazard, things like ventilation or opening up a space or maybe putting some barriers to the bottom where it's just PPE and equipment. So again, they should really be focusing on the most effective interventions and controls. So the employer should be also making sure that the workers use and wear any protective equipment that is required. They all should be looking at focused or they are also responsible sorry for ensuring that the supervisor is competent. So that's kind of, and we're going to get a little bit about into about supervisors. But oftentimes the supervisor is actually the person who might be working the most closely with workers, right, but it still is the employer's responsibility to make sure that the supervisor is competent to make sure that that they know the work they know the health and safety laws and how they apply to the work. And number six is a very important responsibility under the general duty clause of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that an employer should do everything reasonable to keep workers from getting hurt or sick on the job. And this is a very important responsibility because it really captures a bit of what is the goal of kind of their, the employer's role in all of this is just to basically be looking out for doing everything recently possible to ensure people are not getting sick or injured on the job. There's also some requirements for employers to post some safety posters so the health and safety at work prevention posters should be up in the workers' languages as well as a poster identifying what to do if a worker is hurt on the job or hurt or becomes ill at the job. So that's the WSIB poster here at the side. And there should also be a copy of the Health and Safety Act in the workplace so that workers could also have access to that, to that book, which is a little green book here as well. This is an important requirement as well so since 2014 employers in Ontario are required to provide basic Occupational Health and Safety Awareness training to workers but also ensure that supervisors take their training that aligns to this content. And this training provides workers and supervisors with the basics in terms of health and safety awareness training. So this is really important because if you know every worker in Ontario, some of us have taken this, every worker in Ontario should have taken this and for international agricultural workers, this would provide them a good foundation to understand the responsibilities, their rights, their health and safety rights as well as what to expect from their employers and supervisors. So in our experience it's been a bit of a mixed bag. We've ended up connecting to workers who have not received this training. We've also helped farms provide this information to workers but it definitely doesn't seem to have been reaching everybody. Employers also have a responsibility to ensure there's a health and safety rep or a joint health and safety committee at the workplace depending on their type of workplace, both in terms of the commodity as well as the number of workers that are employed full time. And in the next slide I'm going to touch a little bit more about that but health and safety reps and joint health and safety committees are very important. They have a lot of important duties and activities that really support health and safety at the workplace. So under the employer responsibility you also have a responsibility to support the mandated activities of the rep or joint health and safety committee, which includes for example doing a monthly workplace inspection, identifying any concerns from workers and making recommendations to the employer, which then require response by the employer. They help investigate work refusals or critical injuries. So again the employer is responsible for supporting those important activities. And here it's just touching a little bit more about that in terms of the requirement for reps or joint health and safety committees. So greenhouses or mushroom, dairy hog, cattle or poultry workplaces require a full committee. And at least half of the committee have to be made up of workers and both the committee members and or the rep have to be actually nominated by workers or chosen by the workers elected by workers right on. So that's kind of an important part too so workers are electing you know somebody or a few people if it's the committee that you know they they feel will do a good job and represent their health and safety. You know priorities and here you also kind of again have a bit of information around those important functions of both a rep and a committee so again it's a very important part of health and safety in the workplace and in our, in our experience, a lot of workplaces are still challenged and and don't necessarily have a well functioning joint health and safety committee and I know they're, you know, vicki and Morris are on this are on this session to that are going to chat so I know that there are some some places that I've been doing this for quite some time but we, we have, we have identified that in other workplaces. This is not necessarily, you know their challenge to put this together. So just quickly supervisors also have responsibilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The responsibilities very much mirror those of this of their employer. So here it's almost a repetition of what I've just went over with employers. However, you know they're really, again noting that they're often maybe the ones that are working more directly with workers. They, they're tasked to explain show workers train workers. But again, in, in the grand scale of things if something's not working with the supervisor if the supervisor is not complying with the responsibilities, it's still the employer who is most responsible because the employer is actually responsible again for the supervisor being competent right so that's kind of a thing to to realize here. And again, the same number five is that same general duty clause to do everything reasonable to keep workers from getting hurt or sick on the job also, you know falls onto the supervisor. And then just transitioning to workers. I'm, you know, like other folks at the workplace workers also have responsibilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. These include that you know workers should follow health and safety policies and procedures once those are explained to them and they're informed to work safely, always wear equipment or any, any health and safety or safety equipment that is required by the employer. And we tend to hear you know sometimes we've run sessions with workers in the past where they mentioned equipment being, you know, a bit uncomfortable or when it gets hot, you know, whether it's different types of personal protective equipment can get uncomfortable but it definitely is a responsible responsibility of workers to wear that equipment when it is required to keep themselves and others safe. Also they have the responsibility to report any hazards that they see at the workplace so the idea here is that workers might be the ones that are really seeing what's going on at the workplace. What's going on with the practices so under the act they're actually responsible to report on anything that they see, including here in, you know, the COVID part would fall under under that as well in terms of reporting symptoms of illness could fall under the Occupational Health and Safety Act around that. And yes, and just generally not to change any equipment or tamper with any equipment that can make it dangerous for themselves or others, and also not to engage with horseplay pranks bullying, or anything like that too is also a worker responsibility. I'm going to now talk a little bit about worker rights and this is kind of a bit of a crux that we really focus on and talk to workers about. So under the Occupational Health and Safety Act workers have three central rights the right to know the right to participate and the right to refuse unsafe work. So the right to know so workers have the right to be informed and be made aware of any hazards that they may encounter at the workplace. So this right really goes along with what I mentioned was the responsibility of the employer and supervisor to inform workers about hazards. And the idea here is that as a worker we have the right to know what in our work could potentially make us sick or injure us right so that's kind of a right. The workers have under this right it's also the right to be trained on how to work safely so not only understand the hazard but also understand on how to do the work safely to protect ourselves as workers. So again it might be a new worker it might be a new task and you instead of equipment so they have the right to be informed and to know how to do that safely. So this right also falls on to health and safety reps and joint health and safety committees to have the right to engage our sorry to the right to know any reports or any information that the employer has around health and safety, the joint health and safety committee or the rep have that right as well to access that information. The workers have also the right to participate. So we often ask health and safety questions and we often talk to workers to say you know, it doesn't matter how many times you you ask a question if you don't understand something or if you think something's not clear in terms of, of how it's going to keep you safe or or on how safety is being considered, you know, ask again, and, and, you know, raise the concern, this is this is your right. You know that off, you know, touches on reporting concerns or identifying hazards participating in discussion and really again referring back to the internal responsibility system the idea that workers have the right to participate and and be part of finding solutions at the workplace to ensure safety. And that's, you know, discuss or that's a key right under the act. And again, this also includes electing so participation also includes electing and communicating with with the rep and joint health and safety committee member. So I just wanted to share this really quick case study this is a real, real life case study from a farm that we've worked with willow tree farm and it kind of shows exactly kind of an ideal situation of how workers, you know, leverage this right to participate in health and safety. So on this farm, a group of workers that they're there for Mexico, they identified that they were experiencing back pain from the type of basket that they were using to basically transport sweet potato. So they were using this kind of wooden basket here that that I've included a picture that often these baskets are very awkward to carry you have to, you know, they're quite heavy there to be carried by one person that don't have really good grip or handles. So a lot of workers were identifying that they were experiencing back pain. So the workers raised this concern to the employer and the employer started looking into other carrying bins that could be used instead. And they actually resulted in purchasing these bins so this is a real picture from that farm the workers asked that they prefer not to be identified so we've covered their faces but these are the new bins and not only are these bins cheaper so the employer actually saved money on these plastic bins, but these bins were a lot easier to carry workers could carry them together, as well as even individually they had better grips and were a bit smaller so they would make more trips. And the workers basically talked about how a lot of their back pains, got a back pain got a lot better. So this is kind of a key example of, you know, workers identifying concern and leveraging the right to participate in occupational health and safety to resolve this back strain. But we know that, you know, oftentimes that doesn't sometimes work out like that on in different workplaces. So the third occupational health and safety right is an important one, and it also is important right now during COVID. So under the occupational health and safety act workers have the right to refuse unsafe work. So if a worker feels that the work they're being asked to do is unsafe, or it's going to put themselves or somebody else in danger. They have the right to stop and refuse to do that work until their concerns are addressed. So there's a bit of a process that goes along with the right to refuse unsafe work so the worker has to stop what they're doing, let a supervisor or employer know. And then that supervisor or employer has to investigate, along with the health and safety rep or joint health and safety committee to try to address the worker concern. So that might look at figuring out what can be done to to address that concern it could be new training maybe the worker just needs to be trained or explained how to do that work safely or maybe the job itself has to be changed altogether to ensure that it's not creating a hazard for workers. If the concern is resolved that worker can then, you know, go back to work and everything proceeds well, you know, but if it doesn't, if the concerns not addressed, then the worker has a right to continue to refuse that unsafe work. And that's when, you know, outside the worker can appeal to outside parties including the Ministry of Labor training and skill and skills development. But this this is an important right to really be a bit of a stop and and consider when when people could find themselves feeling like the work they're being asked to do is going to jeopardize their health and safety. Sorry, I know I'm, I'm kind of, this is a bit of a long lot of information so almost done but this is also a key part of responsibilities at the workplace so in Ontario every workplace needs to have a violence and harassment in the workplace policy or anti violence and harassment policy. And this policy needs to include, you know, forms or identify how workers are to be educated on anti harassment and anti violence. You know, how these practices are going to be prevented and what to do and clear procedures in case these cases do arise. You know, here there's some information around what to do if you if you encounter violence and harassment but generally speaking as a responsibility workplaces need to have this policy in place. So just to kind of wind down a bit. Generally speaking then in terms of health and safety. If a co worker has concern your in terms of the internal responsibility system and working together the idea of working together with with workplace parties the ideas to you know talk to co workers. You know speak to employers and supervisors when you have a concern and speak and really leverage the role of a health and safety rep and joint health and safety committees and the rep in the communities are really important for for the context of a lot of workers who might not feel comfortable speaking directly to supervisors employers reps and committees can really help with that. However, in the case that concerns are not resolved at the workplace. You know then it's important for workers to seek outside support and and address a situation where they might feel that they're, you know, they're in risk or facing a hazard and not safe and healthy at the workplace. So this can include, you know, community advocates. There is legal clinic support. Some, some workers connect to their count country consulates under the Occupational Health and Safety Act the Ministry of Labor is also identified as, as a key resource in that concerns are not addressed so this slide speaks to that contacting the Ministry of Labor is Occupational Health and Safety Contact Center and explains a bit of how workers would do so. Again the line is a bit complicated and we know that a lot of times when workers do end up contacting the Ministry of Labor and it might be through some advocates through some supports of community groups. But that is, you know, this is some information around how to get to that and they do have translation support as well. And then the last bit of this is the right of workers against reprisals. So a reprisal is, you know, a punishment or you know it's basically a situation where an employer either reprimands punishes, threatens to punish or dismisses a worker for basically abiding by their health and safety rights or exercising their rights or raising concerns. And so again this is illegal and workers have the right against reprisals. And so the Ministry of Labor does identify themselves, you know, if a worker is facing reprisals to connect with them as well to seek support. So the actual process of reprisals is a bit more complicated. It's not the Ministry of Labor who actually investigates the actual occurrence of a reprisal. A worker would actually have to file a complaint with the Ontario Labor Relations Board. So here's a bit of information and I can share, we'll share this information after the presentation too. But around how to do so, there's some resources including the Office of the Worker Advisor as well as the Worker Health and Safety Illegal Clinic and the Law Society of Ontario can also provide support for non-unionized workers who might need guidance around filing a reprisal complaint. And then this is the last slide for me and sorry I think I'm a bit over but so unfortunately, you know, this is really important. And as Mavera is going to talk to a bit more is everything I've kind of mentioned and the whole idea of working together and, you know, having workers really talk about and raising concerns and raising concerns around anything they feel is unsafe at the work, it really hinges on workers feeling confident that they're not going to face reprisals for doing so that these rights are actually secured but unfortunately, you know, we do hear about cases of reprisals and workers continue to be concerned about their work being threatened if they do raise concerns. And this is one case that was a more recent case of a worker, you know, winning an anti-reprisal case against an employer when the employer tried to fire them for raising COVID-19 safety concerns at their workplace. And what's important really quickly to acknowledge is that even the title, this talks about this being a rare reprisal case, because it's recognized that the average worker, if they're, you know, it would be very difficult for the average worker to connect and see through an anti-reprisal case. And so unfortunately, I think that's where the fear and the hesitation from a lot of workers does come from speaking out because of a lack of exactly how they would be able to protect themselves against a reprisal. So that's all for me and I'm going to pass it over to Mavra who's going to dive a bit deeper into an employer requirement, which is the COVID-19 safety plan. Thank you. So Eduardo covered a lot of information and I'll be applying this to COVID-19. Next slide, please. So what is a COVID-19 safety plan? So assessing your unique workplace is pivotal in ensuring you choose the correct control measures to minimize the risk of COVID-19 entering the workplace and potentially triggering an outbreak. A COVID-19 safety plan is a type of checklist that follows federal, provincial, and municipal public health guidelines and outlines key COVID-19 considerations and control measures that should be implemented. It often includes COVID-19 resources embedded within it, including training materials, public health unit contacts, COVID-19 testing locations, and primary and emergency healthcare services. Every farm and the workers employed at each farm are different and have different needs. And so it's important that a COVID-19 safety plan cares to the needs of the specific farm and the workers on the farm. Due to the ever-changing nature of this pandemic and the public health guidelines forever changing, we can review and update the safety plan. That's a very important piece of all of this. The MLTSD has created an outline of a COVID-19 safety plan and what it should include, so the following slides will be following that outline. As mentioned, in order to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in your workplace, your COVID-19 safety plan should be customized to your workplace and workers. It's important to assess the characteristics of your work site, region, workers and tasks that can impact the risk and control of COVID-19. Next slide, please. Ensuring collaboration of all workplace parties in Health and Safety is key and is part of the internal responsibility system, which is the main framework of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, as Eduardo had mentioned. Supervisors, Health and Safety Reps and GHC play an important role in the health and safety of a workplace and ensuring they understand their responsibility under the act and have relevant training is a key step in keeping this farm safe from COVID-19. Another important consideration, although not mandatory, is ensuring these entities are representative of the workers. So, for example, having supervisors who can speak Spanish in a farm that has predominantly Spanish-speaking workers. What this will do is it will open the communication channels and will support workers in exercising their right to participate. Next slide, please. Controlling exposures to occupational hazards is a fundamental method of protecting workers. So traditionally, I provide this hierarchy of control graphic and it's been used to determine how to implement feasible and effective control solutions. So the idea here is at the top, those controls are potentially more effective and protective than those at the bottom. So following the hierarchy of control normally leads to implementation of an inherently safer system where the risk of illness such as COVID-19 and injury has been substantially reduced. So an example of an engineering control would be redesigning work areas to limit crowding and allowing physical distancing. And an example of an administrative control would be COVID-19 related policies, procedures, education, scheduling and signage. So as Eduardo mentioned, workers have the right to know. A key part of the safety plan is to orient your workers. Some international agricultural workers have voiced reluctancy to ask questions or identify concerns related to health and safety. It's important to create a supportive health and safety culture that builds workers' confidence and promotes participation. Reviewing all COVID-19 related topics, policies and procedures in the language most suitable for workers and in a format that ensures comprehension is mandatory for a successful safety plan. So I will be going over key COVID-19 issues that have been outlined by MLTSD. And I'll be going not too much in depth, just lightly talking about each one. And what I say is by no means all-encompassing and I would recommend for employers to refer to the MLTSD version of their COVID-19 safety plan. So isolation and quarantine. So examples of this within the safety plan would be having policies and procedures in place for newly, oh sorry, go back. Thank you. Having policies and procedures in place for newly arriving workers and for those who potentially test positive during the season, making sure you have procedures to safely transport workers to and from quarantine and isolation sites and communicating to workers how they can access food and essentials. As employers, you are expected to ensure food is fresh, good quality and meets the workers needs in terms of variety and quantity during workers' quarantine and isolation period. Finally, also having COVID-19 specific return to work policy is very important. In terms of income support and WSIB, discussing compensation is very important. When workers initially arrive, they are paid for the two weeks in quarantine. And if they contract COVID-19 at the workplace, they're covered under WSIB. The knowledge about WSIB coverage may support workers' confidence in reporting symptoms or illness, recognizing that they will be provided income support while they recover. And this is important because they'll make sure that COVID-19 doesn't further spread across the farm. In terms of emergency healthcare, in general and especially during quarantine periods, workers must have needs to contact the employer and have information on how to access emergency healthcare. This is exceptionally important, especially in light of the recent deaths of international agriculture workers while in quarantine and isolation. Providing clarity on how workers can access help and support can help save lives. In general, having COVID-19 education and screening tools in place, having policies and procedures in place, so things like what types of screening is going to happen on the farm, what signage is going to be posted, how are workers going to be self-monitoring, et cetera. In terms of testing, understanding where workers can get tested, training workers on what the testing procedure is like and what the results mean, so what does a positive result mean, what does a negative result mean. In terms of outbreak management, this should include how to prevent and limit the further spread of the virus by sending positive cases to isolate, informing any workers who may have been exposed, delivering positive cases to the local public health unit and MLTSC, what to expect from their investigations, how to cooperate with them, and how to respond once the outbreak is contained. So with this, once the outbreak is contained, it's very important to go back to your COVID-19 safety plan and reassess it, where did something go wrong, how could we prevent this from happening again. Next slide, please. So this is how distancing and cohorting procedures in place, making sure workers understand what cohort safety is and how to maintain it. Also recognizing that the risk of COVID-19 transmission is higher and more enclosed in private spaces. So you should ensure that air handling or HVAC systems are maintained according to manufacturer's instructions. Additional steps could be using portable air cleaners, keeping windows and doors open when possible, adjusting your HVAC system to increase the amount of fresh air and reduce recirculation. Continue ventilation even after business hours and using available outdoor spaces whenever possible. So for example, for meetings, at break times and meal times. In terms of hygiene safety practices, ensuring you have hand-washing facilities in place, workers have access to sanitizing, having masks, respiratory and glove safety, procedures and policies, understanding when you should use a mask, when you should use a respirator, etc. In terms of shared housing, while this is public health jurisdiction, it's important to consider how else to limit the spread of the virus. So for example, manipulating sleeping arrangements to allow for physical distancing and providing ventilation and air cleaning in the housing areas. In terms of shared transportation, this is an important one because it can increase the risk of COVID-19. So having policies and procedures on workers only traveling with their cohorts, screening workers before traveling, for example, and making sure vehicles are well ventilated. So what I've just gone over are more requirements in terms of COVID-19 issues that should be included in your safety plan. And once again, as I mentioned, I didn't include every single detail about each topic just in terms of timing. And then, sorry, next slide please. And then as a public health professional and as an epidemiologist, I would implore employers to consider including these topics in their COVID-19 safety plan. So vaccination is a key public health control measure to declare this pandemic over. And as a public health expert, I would recommend employers consider their role in terms of vaccination. So it's critical to let workers know they cannot be forced to vaccinate against COVID-19 and will not be sufficed. Providing information to workers about the COVID-19 vaccine will help them make an informed decision, will support vaccine confidence and will minimize the risk of COVID-19 in the workplace. In terms of primary and mental health care, physical, mental and emotional well-being is critical for the overall well-being of individuals, providing workers resources to access primary and mental health care, and especially those services in the workers preferred language can contribute to the overall health and safety of workers. Next slide please. So applying this to your workplace will help minimize the risk of COVID-19. It acts like a guide to confirm you've covered your bases. You haven't left any stone unturned. And what's very important for you to effectively use this plan is to communicate with international and cultural workers based on their literacy, language, cultural and knowledge needs. Next slide please. So if we're this to work, there has to be a commitment to anti-reprisal, fostering confidence in workers and communicating with workers. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mabra and Eduardo, I know that there's a lot of good information that you share with us and maybe later on, if you have any questions, anybody else, we can include those in the question and answers period. Just so we can move along because it's getting closer to, I'd like to introduce Mr. Morris Gerber. How do you pronounce your name Morris? I don't want to do that myself. Gervais. Gervais, thank you. So Morris is a second generation farmer who owns and operates Berry Hill Farms just outside of Berry, Ontario. Morris grew up on Berry Hill Farms. It was a tobacco farms, which was established by his parents, Adrian and Evelyn in 1968. But in the late 70s, the farm exceeded the tobacco industry by beginning to grow, pick your own strawberries. Throughout the 80s, Berry Hill Farm expanded its offerings to include farm-fredged sparrows, as well as pick your own raspberries and blueberries. Morris graduated from the University of Wealth, sorry, with a degree in agriculture in 1889 and accepted full-time employment with Molson Breweries. While continuing to work on the farm during the spring and summer, but following almost four years of employment with Molson, he realized big corporate life was not for him and began farming full-time alongside his parents in 1993. The farm now produces over 200 acres of fruits and vegetables, everything from sparrows to apples, and the majority of which is sold either by pick your own or at his own farm market. Morris refereed junior hockey for 10 years, and since retiring, he continues to play beer league. I don't know what that is, I'm going to have to ask you that in the question and answer periods. Beer league hockey twice per week. He's also an avid hunter and is particularly passionate about beer hunting. Morris and his wife Kendra, home, school, their four children, Avery, 20, EI team, Audrey, 13, and Isaac, 12. Also, Morris is part of a known neighbor. It's a group of people in the region that come together to work together, I guess, in support of migrant workers. Also a member of the Bury Growers of Ontario, Ontario Sparrows Growers Marketing Board, the Ontario High Boost Blueberry Growers Association, and the Cinco County Farm Fresh Marketing Association. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Morris. Gary, please, the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you for that. Sorry, I gave you all that information. I should have briefened it up a little bit so you didn't have to hear all my whole life story. But anyways, thank you. Oh, it's good to hear. It's good to hear it. I appreciate that, and I'm sure people do. So, I mean, I don't know, really, I guess what you want to hear from me is how we've handled COVID-19 here on the farm. Is that mostly what you want me to explain? I'm struggling to kind of reference my, frame my comments. No, it's what, whatever information you want to share with the audience and with the topic is responsibility during COVID-19. So the floor is yours. Okay, all right. Well, what I want you to say. I guess maybe what I'll do is I'll just go through how the COVID-19 experience has been with us here on the farm and how we have fortunately been able to keep everyone, everyone safe. And I guess I'll write at the start here. I will ask one question. Maybe we can save it for the question and answer period later. But, you know, through all of the previous two presentations, it's framed as rights and responsibilities. It's clear to me that workers have rights and that employers have responsibilities. But the question I have would be, do employers have any rights in Ontario? And I guess I'll frame it. I'll frame it just kind of quickly with something that happened to us early on in the pandemic, not with the migrant workers, but with, we hire also plenty of Canadian citizens who live in the area and work with us on the farm. And early on, we had a parent of one of the young people, a student that we hired for the summer, and they were quite concerned. They said, what are you going to do to keep our son or daughter, whoever it was, safe? And my manager, who was actually quick thinking on his feet, he said, well, he told her what we're going to do, what we have in place, the plan we have in place to keep their son or daughter safe. But they said, what are, what are you, the employee going to do to keep the rest of us here at the farm safe? And so throughout this, it's been employers I think have been treading very gingerly on these topics, because for example, could an employer say this student has not been following quarantine guidelines, public health guidelines, when they're away from the farm? Okay, so then as an employer must I welcome that person back to work. I kind of operate from the framework that employers have very few rights and workers have all the rights and I have all the responsibilities. So if someone could, so that's how we operate and I try to keep people as safe as I can, and be a responsible person, but it's a question I don't know the answer to. So maybe at the end we can find it, would an employer in that situation have the right to refuse a worker who is not following public health guidelines? I don't know the answer to that. We try to get away. We try to handle it in, you know, as professional a manner as we can. But that's something I'd like to hopefully can learn from this discussion today. So in terms of the, I would say in framing how we've been able to handle COVID-19 with our workers from Mexico. This year has been easier than last year than 2020, and it has been safer because of all of the developments that have happened when I think back to how we quarantined our workers in 2020. We gave them extra space. So our bunk houses went from, you know, it depended on the facility, but some some facility that would have housed 12 workers instantly was cut in half because the bedrooms had bunk beds and we couldn't accommodate and give them space. So all accommodations were more spacious, but really we didn't understand the virus early on like we do now. We didn't understand the risks and both the workers did not and I and we did not as employers and all of us we were learning from it. So I think that was what we did. We as required we provided sanitation devices, lots of soap and hand washing and bleach and we, you know, told them to keep their social distance, but did they do it in the bunk house when they were eating? We know they had space for when they were sleeping, but did they do it when they were in their homes living? Don't know. So we were probably just fortunate to escape in 2020 without an outbreak. This year we were planning in 2021. We were planning. We had changed a little bit and we had decided that we were going to have a one dedicated bunk house as a quarantine facility in case someone should test positive. But early on that became clear that that wasn't going to be a good plan. And when the first group of workers arrived and they had with them test kits, switch health COVID-19 test kits, we realized that, wow, number one is great. We're going to have the tools to know if workers are positive or not, because we didn't have that in 2020 at all. But I realized that if one worker were to test positive and they were all living in the same facility despite the fact they had adequate sleeping arrangements, that whole facility could potentially be infected and or have to reset and do another 10 day quarantine. So we were fortunate. And of course with that group, I said, listen, now guys, and of course they had a better understanding coming from Mexico. They were a year into it too. They had a better understanding. We had a better understanding. I'm able to very well communicate with them because I've become fluent in Spanish over the years. So I said, listen, guys, you got to wear your mask all the time. And of course we're providing masks and we're providing all the cleaning and the sanitization. And so you got to do this, guys. You got to do this. You have to. And so I was I really stressed the importance of that on them. So for the first seven workers that arrived, they did a good job. We were fortunate. No one was positive. Everyone tested negative and we were off to a good start. But then it became clear that what other farms across Ontario were doing to further mitigate the risk of an infected worker arriving was farmers begin quarantining workers in hotels, in private rooms, private facilities. So that if one worker were to test positive during the quarantine period, not all others would be infected and healthy could come out of quarantine after 14 days and begin work. So it was because it's a balance. You have to. And I figured this was going to be more expensive as an employer, but I didn't want to face the risk of being delayed in my planting, right? Because if I can't get my crops planted, it's going to cost me a lot more than a little bit of additional hotel quarantine time. So we started with that and the first group, it was successful. We organized the hotel provided breakfast that was included in the breakfast was included in the rental of the room. The lunches were we preloaded the rooms with food for them. Each room had a microwave and a and a fridge. So they had some food storage for lunch, food and snack foods and we preloaded that. And then for dinners, we had a local authentic Mexican restaurant who is happy for the work delivered to their to their bedroom door a a an authentic Mexican meal every day. So that's how we handle that for the 14 days of quarantine. And yeah, it worked well. It was no fun for those guys. I felt, you know, terrible, like to be in a in a room for 14 days. But they as they always do, they made the best of it. They joked and laughed about it. And I learned their term for for the holiday in with a 27 27 inch flat screen TV and full internet access. The golden cage, the gilded cage. And so when I would go to take the guys when they were finally out, I'd say, okay, the birds are coming out of the gilded cage. Those pacharitos want to sell you the haulas haulas the oros. And so they were all happy when that was when that was over and done with. So that's how we got through that. The third set of guys that I want the quarantine by this time, the government had offered us access to rapid test kits. And other farmers had been saying, you know, they were integrating rapid testing into their Colvin plan in order to further, you know, further attempts to stem, stem outbreaks. And so for the third group that was exiting from quarantine, they had received their day 10 switch health test that was negative. But I said, you know what, as an extra level of security, we're going to administer a rapid test to the workers and five out of six workers were negative. But one worker tested positive on day 14 of quarantine, despite the fact of having had a negative test on day 10. So we were very fortunate in that because that whole plan and procedure prevented us. If I had relied on the switch health test, I would have brought a worker back thinking he was COVID negative. He would have been living in congregate housing and we would have had an outbreak here on the farm. So we were very fortunate that we did that. So that's become now part of our plan and procedure after that worker tested positive. The guidelines that the Ontario Ministry had given us was that the if you get a positive on the rapid test, don't count on that. Take them to the local health unit to get a proper test. And and sure enough that verified that verified that the worker was positive. So he had no symptoms, no symptoms throughout. And so he had to do an extra 10 days in the hotel room in the house of the auto. And it was tough, right? We communicated daily by WhatsApp. All these guys seem to have WhatsApp on their phone. And that has become the way that I was able to touch base with these guys quickly and efficiently every day, every morning. We'd have a quick quick WhatsApp message back and forth. And that's how we knew that the that everyone was was doing well. And they had all the information they knew if they should, you know, feel sick. They could call 911 or that and actually, yeah, or that they could call me if they felt they needed medical attention or something was changing. So that worked pretty well. In addition, it was very valuable to have been hooked up with the unknown neighbors group here locally, because it was very difficult for these workers to fulfill their obligations to report their symptoms to this arrive can app, I think. And so the worker through the local Kyros unknown neighbors group was able to assist the workers was able to assist the workers in in reporting. And, you know, it's been they didn't understand it's been crazy like there's been this year in 2021 there's been police showing up at the farm want to know where guys are quarantining. There's security guards with security agencies coming up wanting to know. And so, you know, I don't even know. I don't even know if those if they went to the holiday in to check on them. Actually, I see a lane on there. Maybe Sandy would know if I've forgotten to ask the guys if they had a visit from the police at the holiday in or from the security agents at the holiday in. But, you know, the government has been, you know, attempting to to check up on this to make sure everyone is quarantining properly. But, you know, it was a great relief to these guys to know to have someone to communicate with it. Yeah, no, listen, you're not going to jail because of this, because if you listen to the, you know, the phone call from from the government of Canada is a failure to report might result in fine or jail time or whatever. So we were able to reassure them that no, no, no, just because you don't report to your what's arrive can app. You know, you're not going to, you're not going to be sent back to Mexico or there's not going to be repercussions for you. They can't, they couldn't seem to understand that, you know, governments trying their best at this, but it's all it was all still rather remain still rather mixed up in, you know, how the government has been attempting to keep this all organized and under control. So, you know, and, you know, that being said, you know, the rest of it within our plan has been pretty much the same this year we we make an attempt to have the guys work in cohorts. They travel in cohorts as much as possible. They have we came up with a plan, you know, there was a whole big deal. Last year about workers rights being denied because farmers were were saying that guys couldn't go into town to go grocery shopping. So in other words, they brought the grocery stores to the farm and said, listen, let's everybody stay on the farm and let's and let's stay safe. So, you know, but I guess that came out to be human rights violation. During a pandemic, we can't all decide to stay on the farm and stay safe for everyone's good. So, so what we decided to do this year in talking with the guys, we've made an arrangement. I said, guys, the stores aren't open. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to do in Berry. You know, traditionally on a Friday night, they'd go shopping. They'd eat at the Chinese buffet have a nice meal cooked at a restaurant that they, you know, go shopping at whatever Walmart or whatever. But, you know, stuff was closed. There was big line up. So what they've decided to do is apart from the guys that drive themselves into the. Some guys have driver's licenses and they drive themselves to do their banking and their well their banking we've switched to all online. They don't have to go to the bank anymore. We do direct deposits and there's no need to go to the bank. So really, all they need to do is grocery shopping and any other personal affairs that they need to do. But what they've decided, what we've decided together as a group is in order to minimize the risk. They know they know now that they're safe here on the farm. They all know have had several negative COVID tests. They're working outdoors in their cohorts, right? If they're ever working indoors or around the Mexican or around our Canadian staff, they've got all the proper protective equipment that they need. So they realize that they're safe here and they realize that the greatest risk is not on the farm here. It's in town. It's in Berry when they're interacting with the Canadian citizens. So they've come up with ways that they only really go into town every other week, you know, to do their grocery shopping. Everybody doesn't go every week because we've decided that at least at this point it's not a good it's not a good risk, right? And of course they know that when they go into town, that's the most dangerous time for them. And so they are certain to wear proper protective equipment and we have hand sanitizer in the cars and we say, guys, keep your space. Keep your space because that is where the risk is not working amongst each other here in the field in the fresh air and far apart most of the time, right? So so far that's kind of how we have handled it here. And I don't know if it's been good luck or good management, but we've been fortunate and able to keep everyone safe. Everyone safe so far. But yeah, I've been listening to all this. That's that's that's my question. So I have responsibilities clearly. Yes. But do I have any rights and do workers have any responsibility when they come on to my farm, my property to work? Do they have any responsibility to help keep me and my family safe? I don't know. That's maybe how I'd ask it. I hope to I hope to learn. I hope to learn that through this perhaps today. Thanks very much, Maurice, and I'm going to introduce you to Vicky French. Is that how you pronounce your name Vicky? Hi, yes, it's Vicky French. Thanks so much again, Vicky for agreeing to come and speak with us and share your information with us. Vicky is the manager of Cookstone Greens Certificate Organic Vegetable Farm. I understand. I think Vicky was saying you have about 10 people working with you this time. But any other information you want to share with us, the floor is yours. Thank you. Yeah, our experiences are very similar to Morris's. However, we employ just a small fraction of what Berryhill Farms does. So with our guys last year, when, when the virus hit its peak at the end of March beginning of April, we only have three guys, but we were expecting two more. The guys were delayed until the end of April. And again, everything was so new and unknown to us. Here on the farm, we have three accommodations. We have a house and two other trailers. So we knew immediately that we'd have to open up that one trailer much earlier in the season to accommodate for the 14 day quarantine. And having employed the same guys year after year, we do have a relationship with them and it was easy to communicate, you know, what groceries they needed, anything to make them feel comfortable over over the 14 days. We increased our internet usage, things like that just to kind of ease into those 14 days. After those two guys came out at the end of April, the next three months were absolutely ridiculous. I think one of the biggest challenges that we had here was the lack of communication and the delays of our guys coming from Mexico, like nobody had any answers. What we understood was that the offices in Mexico were shut down. So it did cause a bit of a delay in last season's crops, but we may do and here we are in 2021, and we have a better better handle on everything. So when we were prepared at the end of last season, what we had decided with our 10 guys is that we would staggered their arrivals to accommodate for the 14 day quarantine. So there was no overlap. So when we have three guys come this past January, then we had one guy come in February, two guys come in March, two guys come in May. And then we have two guys coming in June. So it's easy to accommodate their quarantine and we also have a smaller trailer here on the farm to which we do call the quarantine the isolation trailer. So we had, so then that we made that work. And same with Morris, we are guys that at the beginning of the pandemic, it would either be myself or my husband Mike and we would take one guy and then we would shop for everybody. And then as things kind of eased a bit in the summertime, we would take all the guys. We would only take them shopping every other week, which we actually have maintained this year with with them. And we have a gal from Brad who you know all the Mexican goodies and things, things that would make them feel at home. Yeah, we met with like the healthy unit to check out the accommodations last year and this year to make sure everything was top notch for the guys. And lucky enough this year, each guy has their own bedroom. So I think they kind of like that after years, years prior having to share a room with somebody. We also stagger their shifts. So with our eight guys now and two guys coming, we have them start their day an hour before any of our Canadian staff do. So then it gives Mike and I an opportunity to go over their schedule and then throughout the morning. And then we deploy about anywhere between six and eight Canadian gals, and then their shifts are also staggered. And then the, our Mexicans they have their break and they have their lunch in their trailers, as well. And we've got an endless supply of PPE. Connie and Sandy were kind enough to drop off additional PPE to what we already have here on the farm for the guys. And with the guys in quarantine and what we're expecting for the month of June and one guy in July. What's up is definitely the way to go to communicate with the guys, making sure if there's anything else that they need additional top up groceries. And then obviously making sure that we continue to follow all government provincial and municipal guidelines because us being in central county here. And what else. Yeah, since, since the beginning of the pandemic, and especially in 2021, we've only had one integrity commissioner come by, and he. Hey, is so and so here on the farm. Can I see him. And so I had to call Ruben to the door of the trailer because the integrity commissioner just wanted to see that there was that one worker, although two workers arrived at that same time, but he just want it was very random, unexpected. It was the only time in the past last year and this year that we had anybody ever come by to check in on our guys. A very similar story to what Morris mentioned about like a Canadian worker. We had like a neighborhood farm gate customer, ask us how we were going to keep like everybody else safe. And I basically had to draft, you know, a very diplomatic letter and it's everybody's responsible to everybody's responsibility to be safe. And in the letter I basically said I expect my Canadian staff to be just as mindful, and, and safe and in their daily lives right. Um, so yeah we've had, we've had some challenges but I think we're hopefully going to come out of this on the positive side. So, the one question I did ask. So, you know, Morris in the chat, he had access to the rapid test kits. And we, I just want to know how we, if he has a contact which he can share another time, because we do find like with the switch health. We have a direct lady that we call we say hey approaching you know, day seven day day nine day 10 let's get planning we have a guy that comes to the farm to do the tests, rather than having to mail them in. And that that extra step would be extremely helpful. Um, I'm just looking at the talk what PPE equipments are you including. So we have like our gloves, because here on the farm we do a lot of micro greens and vegetables. So we have like gloves we have aprons we have like arm bands, and the masks and such, and are migrant workers don't work with our Canadian farms. So, right now, for example, the guys are in the field they're covering lettuce beds or they're seeding or they're planting onions and then the six gals that I have right now. They're down in our main packing shed packing vegetables. So we were we can social distance everybody here on the farm. I hope that answered that. I did take some notes. Um, and then the only thing that I would mention if it could be extended to somebody is we found that when we met with the health unit to discuss housing, there was like a lot of uncertainties, like, is this going to be in place for the next year or how long, you know, you know, this bedroom once used to bunk two guys. At what point, can we put two guys back in this bedroom type of thing and it wasn't even a bunk bed. It was like two beds, you know, across the bedroom type of thing. We just wanted to know things like that. I think that's it. Um, from our experiences here at Cookstown Greens with, um, with our with our staff both our migrant workers from Mexico and North Canadians. Great. Thank you so much, Vicky. Really appreciate all of your presentations and the information that you share. I think I will open at this time for questions. No, I was just, I guess, interested in Morris's question about it is a good question in terms of it's very tricky when the source of the risk is people. It's not, you know, the hazard is that we're protecting people, but they're also the source of the hazard. So how, how do you protect everyone on your farm from the people that are going off your farm. You know, the circumstances of what's happening on your farm generally, but you don't know for the local workforce, which is, which is the case for most workplaces that they don't know what's happening. I think for the screening and the education, I guess, and the risk assessment and the cohort in what you're doing I think are are are the, so the rights are of the employers are, I guess are the ways that you can educate and screen and and implement administrative controls that reduce the risk of mixing the mixing workers. I think but it is it is a it's a challenge, I think, and and definitely in the last year at the very beginning, you know, more sort of this the concern, the instinctive concern was was local, local people in Ontario were concerned about workers international workers bringing the disease when we recognize that it was more prolific here, and the workers from from the level of circulation in Ontario and I think that's and now it's a concern in both directions but there's so much management of the of the incoming with you know with all the structure around the quarantine and all that. So I'm not sure that's an answer but I guess that's the reason employers are under the Health and Safety Act, given the duties and the responsibilities is because they're deemed to be the people that control the work and control the where it goes in the organization so that they, but I appreciate that actually you're not always in control, I think so that's a good, it's a good point. I'm, I don't know if I work with Eduardo at OKA. We were thinking about this webinar we were obviously thinking in terms of the rules and the regulations and the legislation and everything that is in place that each and every one of us need to adhere to and to observe and to follow and so on. And with that understanding that is, you know, we are all in this together and what I do will affect others. But it's that level of education and information sharing that I think that you alluded to, which is very important right that conversation. And of course I mean there are clearly there are some very specific responsibilities on the part of the employers and on the part of the employee. But as long as there is that mutual understanding that we all need to play our part in terms of keeping everyone safe. I think that's the more or less the spirit of in which the webinar was organized. Excuse me, I see Dorothy's hand. Dorothy, go ahead. Yeah. So, I've been doing health and safety for a long time and actually was a work for the Manitoba government at one point was something called an occupational hygienist, which means I would have been out enforcing the law. I was allowed to install working for the Manitoba government at this time. But so one thing I think in terms of Morris, or should I say Morris, in terms of your question is that I think that it's really hard these days for employers to get information that that helps you figure out what it is you're supposed to be doing. And, and so if you have a right, I would think one of it is to, you know, to be able to count on things like the government and the enforcement agencies and the other agencies are dealing with to get good accurate information from them so that you know what you can do. In terms of the question you posed about the folks who are coming to work on the farm but not living there. And that there needs to be you shouldn't have to make up those rules. It should be sort of same rules pretty much for everybody. I was really pleased to hear that you're doing that sort of those different kinds of rapid testing and then following up and that that it seemed like you were getting some good support to be able to do that. But I think that there's been a lot of confusing information given out at particularly during this pandemic. And for those of us in occupational health one of the big frustrations is that long before this and certainly another epidemics, we've known that viruses like this mostly go through the air. And what's happened through the public health authorities is that they have. They're sticking to their it's it's droplet we need to worry about surfaces and the air stuff isn't quite so important is what they've been saying or fairly often, although most of them have changed their minds including the public health public health Ontario. The unfortunate thing is that they haven't changed the their recommendations and guidelines and enforcement stuff around what kind of protected gear is needed as a result of that. And they're still really stuck on cleaning and disinfecting disinfecting really as I said in the chat really is unnecessary and most people have been sick. So open water will disable the virus. A lot of disinfectants really were pretty nasty people asthma and things like that so if you have to use them there are less toxic products. So, I think that that's one of the things that's been confusing for folks is sort of you know it's, this is droplets stuff and you only need to worry about six feet whereas if it's in the air. You've got to worry about the air. And if you're in enclosed quarters whether it's a packing shed or a bunkhouse. Unless you're cohorting people and got other things going on, people are sharing the air and if somebody said it's, you know, the virus can be in the air for quite a while. You know, these barrier face coverings and stuff really won't stop people inhaling all the virus that might be there. So, if you're interested more in that there's, we've got variety materials around it and doing some webinars about it. So I think that that whole thing but you know how are we getting information and where employers able to get good information from is really important. You know, it's because if you and your supervisors are responsible for making sure that folks who work for you have the straight goods you need to get them to. Thank you so much Dorothy anybody else any questions. I want to actually answer Vicky's question she mentioned something about housing and when we'd be able to share, put people back together and, you know, go back to guess normal. And the biggest thing that that's reliant on is two things, case counts and then the amount of people backs needed. So once we see cases going down the first dose increasing and then also the second dose increasing that's when public health in general will start listing different public health measures including math. Social distancing and opening up the province again. So I, I'm not sure, like I can imagine but probably by September based on the way public health has outlined vaccination roll out that probably by September October those types of measures will start being listed because a lot more people will have their second dose. So that's kind of what that would be based on. Thank you. My bra. Any other questions. Anybody comments. I did put the comment in the chat I think both. Both. More specific to you know the level of communication with the workers and among the workers and in the joint problem solving aspect that is the basis of the health and safety legislation to that's the idea is to talk about hazards and solve them together and communicate. If you have a concern and and and and figure things out together even the work refusal process is really meant if you're communicating you should never get to work refusal because you're dealing with the hazard as it arises and you're, you're talking about possible solutions and you're working it out and in the process you're communicating about the risk or educating about the risk so that it you know it relieves concern if it's more of a concern than a risk, not kind of thing so I, you know, I applaud that and I think that it's a big solution that we try to it seems like it's so obvious but in fact it's not it doesn't always happen when people are busy and and sometimes there's a language barrier and and sometimes there's other other things going on or the level of fear is such that people can't can't hear right because when you're really really afraid you can't actually hear and digest things until until that fear is is diminished so I do think that's important in the WhatsApp, you know, the dialogue and that kind of thing is really important and checking in. I think one thing I maybe meant to mention was that there's an important distinction needs to be drawn between the different streams of the temporary foreign worker program. So, I think if you have heard of some of the outbreaks early on that were in greenhouses perhaps in southern Ontario meat packing plants out west. If a foreign worker is coming under the seasonal agriculture workers program. It's my responsibility to provide housing and the housing is provided at minimal cost I think they pay $2 a day for electricity costs if they work four hours a day so it's all regulated about housing is inspected by the local health unit. And there are guidelines in place with respect to capacities and number of bathrooms and all of that stuff so this seasonal agriculture worker program has become known kind of as the gold standard of how to run a program compared to other parts of the world where migrants. There are little to no standards in other countries. If you are on the low stream low skills program or the there's I forget the name of it but there's a program where employers can have workers arrive with a two year contract. That is completely outside of inspection the government of Canada as far as I'm aware doesn't inspect housing conditions or living conditions. The employer does not have to pay for the transportation of the worker from their home country to Canada so what happens is labour brokers get involved. Labour brokers promise workers in the and impoverished countries jobs in Canada they pay whatever they need to pay they can afford to pay to get to Canada. And then those labour brokers rent them houses where the workers are packed in like sardines and we've seen cases of this where workers working in like you say sometimes greenhouses sometimes meet packing plants sometimes working cleaning hotel rooms for hotel corporations. There's no oversight on that program and there who knows who knows if it is and so a lot of these outbreaks a lot of these outbreaks in those sectors that you hear about. I believe and I don't have solid data for this some other government people will have data to indicate that but that is where the workers are afraid to report. They're afraid of reprisals they're afraid of all of this then what will happen is at the end of the two year program. They have to have enough money to pay to get back home and the labour broker in the meantime they're so impoverished they've spent they've sent all their money back home to help their families in their in their home countries. Now they can't afford to pay for a flight home. They can't get another contract where are they going to live. They get a job working for cash somewhere and they're still beholden to their landlord to live in these cramped accommodations and they can't go for health care. They're afraid to come they're afraid to come out into the public. And so as farmers in the seasonal agriculture worker program it's discouraging and disheartening for us to be lumped in with this program because they're two distinctly separate and opposite programs. And I think if we're a group of seeking social justice and improvements I think that you can always build a better mousetrap. I don't care if it's a seasonal agriculture worker program or not but I think if you want to go for the low hanging fruit on ways to protect workers and to ensure more social justice. I think that two year program has much many more improvements that could easily be made and instead of yeah is there going to be farm employers in the seasonal agriculture worker program that don't treat their workers properly. Absolutely and that shouldn't be allowed clearly but I don't think that the percentage of poor employers in that sector would be any different than a poor employer in any other sector. But I do think that the two year system has way more room for abuse and poor outcomes for all concern but especially the workers. So I think anyways I think that distinction is is important to make between the two streams of workers. So the other one the other one where it's tough it's tough go to is nannies living caregivers are in that two year program. Right and they can end up in really really tough situations as well. Right. But anyway I just want to share that distinction. Thanks very much Morris and everyone is getting close to the hour. Are there any more questions or reflections. Vicky posted their question that I wanted to check with with all cow and with Morris very specifically asking about a contact in order to get rapid test kids. Is there any information that you can share with Vicky here or can we follow up after Eduardo. Oh sorry. I think maybe maybe Morris has more information around that we were a bit less and I know Val just mentioned maybe the rapid test but. Yeah Vicky if you send me an email I can I can share my contact information for those rapid tests. It's a bit of a they don't just send them out the next day. There's a training program that you have to take to know how to administer the test properly and read the results. There's a little learning curve and there's a little online training that you have to take. But once that's done they'll ship you the test kits and you know go from you know go from there. Vicky do you have Morris's email. I do not. So if that could be shared that I appreciate that I would appreciate that and thank you. I'll do it right now. I'll put it in the chat right now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And there's also a. Oh sorry. Go ahead Eduardo. Oh I just was but I was really interesting Morris where you were mentioning in terms of the differences between the both programs and our program. Since the beginning of our kind of focus program working with agriculture workers we've worked more with the SOP program and now are starting to work with more of the tier program and it's definitely complicated you kind of hear different things across experiences of workers under both programs but it's it's really you know really you know interesting here kind of your perspective around that difference because it does you know that's it's important to consider the differences between both. I do find that I was going to ask you and Vicky if you had any recommendations or or kind of thinking around because like Val said you know it from hearing both of you speak it's clear that you've you know you've developed a really good workplace culture where you know you're talking your your problem solving your your listening and I'm just wondering if you have kind of recommendations for other workplaces that might really be looking to figure out how to establish a bit of that because like Val said you know that avoids you know, or you know that resolves and workers have you know ability to talk about their concerns and then it all kind of plays out really well or do you see kind of something that's changed or or something you've done differently that that really has helped that. So in having only been running the farm for nine years and having managerial experience and other jobs and such, I would like my employees to be a reflection of myself. So in order to create a cohesive like work environment, it starts from me and Mike, so in the way we lead and the way we work and the way just like kind of who we are as people. So, I think for Mike, because he is with the guys day in and day out, and we only have like eight guys right now and two more guys, they really respect that. And it then makes you know when we do have to deliver a message or have an important meeting, then it, we get more of a reciprocated response from the guys. So, making sure that I found since the beginning so nine years ago that I want the guys to also be part of a cohesive team. So, for us here with the, you know, our tasks are rather tedious, and they are repetitive, but making sure that all the guys have a fair amount of time doing that same task. So no one guy is then doing that exact same task and it's taken nine years to do that and we look at what tasks we have on the board for today and tomorrow and the weekend in the season. And making sure all those tasks are shared equally among the guys so then there's no animosity. That was changed like immediately when Mike and I came aboard making sure we have like when we wash the fees that it's a shift so you know two guys are on Friday two guys are on Saturday and two guys are on Sunday and there's no it's not the same guys. So it's, it's, it's hard work, creating that right. And you hope that it gets better year after year. And also, for us like I know it can be hard not having like a foreman or a leader amongst the migrant workers. I know there's times that we wish we had one, but I think that then that then there is no animosity amongst the guys right then everything is. And we do have we have two guys that have been with Cook Sound Greens for 15 years, and then other guys over the past five years are new guys right so when we get new guys and like last year we got three new guys. I think we're getting two new guys, pairing them up with a veteran guy. But yeah and then and then just keeping the lines of communication open so you know making sure that they can come to Mike and I if they have a problem or a question. I know at the very beginning when you have new guys one of the things is like how do we, you know how can we send money back home or like you know, like Morris said, you know, having access to like a Mexican restaurants and then they feel comforted right because we're all human beings. And like when we set up the housing, you know making sure that we have, you know enough blankets and like oh guys did you, you have enough food, groceries right because I could only imagine what it would be like to be in quarantine for for those 14 days and just showing them that you care goes a long way. And there is obviously the language barrier where, you know, speaking with the Canadian girls, you know, since the beginning of the pandemic, oh you know, you know you're living safely oh you know where what have you been up to you know just kind of asking those key questions to making sure everybody's living mindfully. And just those those other gestures, extending to the guys just make, you know, shows that you care to. But yeah, it's taken years to create a more harmonious culture because they do tell us stories of other farms that they worked at and they were not pleasant work conditions. But yeah, it's, you know, every season we hope that it's better for the guys and that systems are more efficient for them, and then they want to come back and work and work for Mike and I. I hope that answered the question. That's great. No, that's great. Thank you so much. Vicky and Eduardo and Morris and my bra. I've learned quite a bit and I hope that everybody else who was here with us, you know, learned a little bit of something that they didn't know before. I'm glad to hear from some of you that, you know, you feel better this year than you know obviously compared to next year to last year rather. Obviously we've learned a little bit, you know, how to deal with with this pandemic. There's a little bit more information. Obviously there are still challenges, right. But that's part of the idea of having these webinars and this type of programs where we can find ways of supporting one another in ourselves to help the community as well to keep everybody safe and when I say community I'm including, you know, migrant workers, farmers and the community at large because we are we are all living here and we all need for one another. Let me see. I also wanted to check. So Vicky you will get that information from Morris but I think Doris he was saying that it will be useful to have that information as well about the rapid test kids with everyone so I'll find out with maybe Shannon and Connie how we can get some information or resources that you know to to the list. So we have your emails and we're going to do some follow up and share that information with with with you as well I I don't want to put Morris is contact on the spot you know that everybody's going to have it. But at least it to you can communicate and for Doris question because it might involve more than just one contact right I mean you have to think in terms of, you know regional I think was, I don't know if it was by your door to but somebody post post on the chat there that the local chambers, what that was Valerie, local chambers of commerce had some kids to deploy with people employers who have best of 50 employees. So we'll share that info and we'll do some follow up if you don't hear from us, you have our emails. Shannon, myself, Connie, Cheryl, and so on, you can contact cited before I do. Thank you, or, you know, closing thank you to each and every one of you want to check one more time Eduardo is your hand is still up. If there was a mistake sorry about that I'll put it down. That's alright I just want to make sure. Yeah, I want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to share with others and really appreciate that again the we know that the challenges are ongoing. But this is what the work that we continue to do and hopefully we will continue to support one another I heard Eduardo at the beginning said, you know you don't know Morris or Vicky but now you know but all counts resources and information are also available to employers. So hopefully you'll be doing cross cross reaching out and helping one another I think that the information that we all have the more we share the better equip each and every one will be including workers. So thank you so much and unless there is any pressing matter or question. I would like to bring this to a closure and without. I don't want to forget that the next webinar is on the 15th, June the 15th, and that is going to be the screening granted that there are no and there are no issues from showing the film, the film me grant that will be screened on June the 15th is a minute video that follows the lives of three female migrant workers and we will use that as a starting point for a discussion in terms of how the issues that the film highlights, how are these issues magnified with the COVID-19 pandemic issues of isolation, you know, and so on so for communication for sure. But more than that, the film focus on gender related issues as well because it does focus on how the whole process of, you know, going to another country, how does that impact on female workers. So I'll invite you all to hopefully we'll see you on the 15th. And with that I want to thank you and have a great afternoon. Thanks everybody take care.