(Montreal) The Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) affirmed Friday that it will “do everything possible” to support workplaces in the changes brought by the adoption of the Act to prevent and combat psychological harassment and sexual violence in the workplace.
The organization held a press conference in Quebec on Friday morning, in the presence of the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, to reaffirm its role of informing on the legislative changes in progress, while it is responsible for applying the laws in work matter.
“Various means of communication are planned to support and equip them (workplaces), including an improvement in training and webinars offered by the CNESST, modifications to some of our web pages as well as the distribution of a model of revised and improved prevention and care policy which takes into account new legislative requirements,” affirmed the CNESST in a press release.
The CNESST awareness campaign, “The risks to psychological health at work are not fiction”, has also been broadcast again since March 25, for a period of three weeks.
The CNESST also emphasizes that employers who wish to organize an awareness and information activity on psychological health at work can do so by using one of the organization’s 18 psychological health advisors.
The Law aimed at preventing and combating psychological harassment and sexual violence in the workplace was approved on Wednesday, after being unanimously adopted in the National Assembly last week.
In an interview with The Canadian Press broadcast last Sunday, Minister Boulet stressed that his new law focuses on upstream prevention, but that it is “difficult to assess” whether there are more or fewer complaints.
However, the trend is increasing. In 2022, the CNESST received no less than 4,909 requests for appeal concerning psychological or sexual harassment, compared to 4,398 in 2021.
The new law provides in particular that in the event of denunciation, an “objective, neutral and impartial person” must investigate, to prevent and correct, and subsequently there can be the appeal stage.
It also protects against reprisals employees who make a report or who participate in processing the report of another employee.
– With information from Patrice Bergeron, The Canadian Press