The Trudeau government wants to send the message that it is unacceptable to harass healthcare workers and their patients. A bill tabled on Friday proposes to create new offenses to more severely punish the blocking of hospitals and other hostile activities already prohibited by the Criminal Code.
“It is clear that we are reacting to a situation which has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic”, explained the Federal Minister of Justice, David Lametti. He specifies, however, that reprehensible behavior on the fringes of health service points is “not a new problem”.
His government tabled this bill promised during the election campaign on Friday, as protesters opposed to the COVID-19 vaccination mobilized near hospitals in the country. Quebec then drafted its own law to ban demonstrations near schools, daycares and hospitals.
For its part, Ottawa will not criminalize protesters who remain peaceful around hospitals, without blocking access. The federal government rather establishes as an “aggravating factor” the fact of attacking health personnel, or of blocking access to hospital services, vaccination clinics, COVID-19 screening centers, clinics of abortion or pharmacies.
Any “act aimed at provoking fear” will thus be punished more severely in health professionals or their patients, which is already theoretically prohibited by the current Criminal Code. These offenses would be reduced from a maximum penalty of 5 years to 10 years in prison.
Minister Lametti expects “general support” for the proposal among the opposition, and wants to have it passed in the Commons as soon as possible.
10 days of paid leave
The same bill also proposes to provide 10 days of paid sick leave to the fraction of Canadian workers under federal jurisdiction, another Liberal campaign promise.
Entitled C-3 and sponsored by the Minister of Labor, Seamus O’Regan, the text should improve the working conditions of around 583,000 employees who were not already benefiting from these ten days of sick leave, especially in the fields of interprovincial and international transport, banking and telecommunications. It will not change anything for federal civil servants or for 94% of workers, who are under provincial jurisdiction.
To this, Minister O’Regan says his government is sending the provinces “a clear signal of the right thing to do.” It intends to convene the governments of the provinces and territories to discuss the idea of extending this protection to other jurisdictions.
The federal government estimates that some workers, who until now have not had a minimum of three days off for personal reasons, should be absent on average between 4 to 7 days per year for health reasons. This is expected to cost their employers between $ 450 million and $ 885 million.