Speaking notes for OPSEU president Leah Casselman
Walkerton Inquiry Toronto Town Hall Meeting
October 29, 2001
Good afternoon. My name is Leah Casselman, and I’m the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
It gives me great pleasure to be joined today by three members of OPSEU Local 545 from the Central Public Health Laboratory here in Toronto. They are lab technologist and local president Emily Bartlett, and scientists Dr. Martin Preston and Catherine Smitka.
They will speak a little bit later. They will tell you about the important work they do to safeguard the health of the people of Ontario.
Unfortunately, their contributions do not seem to be valued by the present government.
As you know, Mr. Commissioner, OPSEU has been actively involved in the Walkerton Inquiry in Parts 1 and 2.
We had standing for Parts 1B and 2, and standing where necessary in Part 1A to protect the interests of directly-involved members.
You are systematically examining the workings of government as it relates to safe drinking water and we’re deeply committed to these same issues.
Your Inquiry has held expert meetings and public hearings on a wide variety of issues related to government oversight for water, regulations and standards, agricultural policy, source protection, water infrastructure, and others.
OPSEU has participated in many of these meetings. We have submitted 10 papers to you, making detailed recommendations on these and other topics.
I know you are aware of our recommendations. I will not take up your time now by repeating them, except to point out three things.
First, that these recommendations come from our members.
We consulted the front-line workers who are responsible for delivering environmental programs in this province – namely staff at the Ministry of the Environment – the MOE.
We consulted our members who operate many of the province’s water and waste water treatment plants. They are staff at the Ontario Clean Water Agency – OCWA.
I want to acknowledge the contributions of these members to the submissions my union brought forward to your Inquiry.
Secondly, that our research was done in the spirit of finding solutions for the future and not just focussing on the problems of the past.
Thirdly, that central to all of our recommendations is this one principle: The province of Ontario has the non-transferable responsibility for protecting the health of Ontario’s people and environment.
This responsibility cannot be transferred to the federal government or to the private sector.
When it comes to our drinking water, there are two main issues. One is protecting the source of our drinking water and the second is making sure our treated water is safe.
In order to have a safe source of drinking water, you have to make sure you have a clean environment.
You have to have laws in place to protect the environment. You have to make sure those laws are followed. You have to monitor and inspect environmental impacts. You have to make sure if there is a spill, that the responsible party cleans it up.
In order to make sure our treated water is safe, you have to have set standards. Standards for drinking water quality, standards for the operation of water treatment plants, and standards for the certification and training of water plant operators.
This is where the provincial government comes in. It is clear to OPSEU that there must be a single public entity that takes the lead role in protecting the source of our drinking water and making sure our treated drinking water is safe.
That doesn’t mean the province works alone. The province needs to work with other public agencies, like conservation authorities, to gather information on the environment, to get input for policies, and to co-ordinate scarce resources.
But somebody must be able to see the whole picture. Somebody must be in charge of the whole picture. And that somebody is the province.
The same goes for public health. Hospitals have the responsibility to treat sick people. The federal government has the responsibility to establish national guidelines and to research the risks posed by infectious diseases and contaminants.
The ultimate responsibility for public health rests with the province.
How do we ensure that these contaminants do not infiltrate our drinking water? How do we test to find out if there are any risks? How do we test faster so that people can get the right treatment so they don’t die?
These are public health concerns that people expect the provincial government to address.
Let’s look at the events in Walkerton. Once people started getting sick, what did people want? They wanted answers. They wanted to know why. What can be done about the sick? Will the illness recur in the future? Is the community’s water safe yet? What can be done to ensure it’s safe in the future?
Where did they turn for those answers? For the most part, to the provincial government and its public service.
The environmental officers, the surface and ground water specialists, the public health inspectors, the plant operators, the maintenance and administrative staff of OCWA, the scientists, the lab technologists, the clerical staff, the hydrogeologists and many others make it possible for the public to get the answers they need.
They collect the data. They answer the anxious calls from the public. They forward the samples to the lab. They develop the tests to do the analysis. They analyze the results of the tests. They communicate the results back to the field. They follow up on what the science has told them. They make sure the necessary steps are taken to
correct the environmental or health problem in the field.
You’ll be hearing from a lab technologist and two scientists from our Central Public Health Laboratory in Toronto. The central and 11 regional public health labs are part of Ontario’s Ministry of Health.
Let’s focus on the roles of the lab technologists and the scientists.
They hear the concerns coming from the field and they work to respond. They answer inquiries from doctors, medical officers of health, and members of the public.
Hospitals and private labs send their specimens to the public health labs because they have the capability and training to do more sensitive, advanced testing.
Lab technologists are always on the look out for trends in the results of their daily testing. For example, an increase of a positive test result for a particular bacteria may indicate an outbreak.
The technologists question why. They do further, more sensitive testing. If the tests are positive, they alert the lab’s epidemiologist who works with public health units to respond to the outbreak.
Lab technologists are a crucial link in the public health system.
During the Walkerton crisis, technologists at the Central and Regional Public Health Labs worked 12 to 14 hour days, doing the advanced tests for E. coli 0157:H7.
The Central Public Health Lab in Toronto is virtually the only lab that does this advanced testing. Technologists know of only one hospital in the province that does this testing as well.
Hospitals and health units sent the isolated E. coli bacteria to the Central Public Health Lab. The lab did the sensitive, advanced testing necessary to find the H7 strain.
You’ll be hearing later from Emily Bartlett, a medical laboratory technologist at the Central Public Health Lab. She figures most of her colleagues at the lab have more than 20 years of experience, herself included.
Scientists keep a close eye on what’s going on in the field as well. They use new technologies to develop tests for new and emerging contaminants. Tests which are later used by lab technologists to analyze specimens.
You’ll also be hearing later from Dr. Preston who developed a method of fingerprinting the E. coli 0157 bacterium for the purposes of tracking outbreaks. Dr. Preston’s work was instrumental in zeroing in on the source of the Walkerton outbreak. His work was referenced in the report by the Bruce Grey Health Unit to your Inquiry.
Dr. Preston is one of five scientists at the Central Public Health Laboratory who have been handed lay-off notices by the province.
Catherine Smitka is another one of the five. She is a microbiologist at the lab and an expert in fungi and infectious diseases.
She won the province’s prestigious Amethyst award in 1998 for developing a test which reduced the diagnosis time of candida in newborn babies from three weeks to 30 minutes – saving lives in the process.
The provincial government has told Dr. Preston, Catherine Smitka and three other experts in biohazards that they are no longer needed.
This is hard to believe. After Walkerton, after September 11, these are exactly the kind of people we need. We need their expertise to help us take a proactive approach to keeping our environment safe and to keeping us safe.
We’ve asked Health Minister Tony Clement to rescind the layoffs of the five scientists. We hope he’ll do that.
I want to thank Emily, Martin and Catherine for the work they’ve done and hopefully will continue to do for the people of Ontario.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of the public sector workers, many of them members of OPSEU, for the work they did to respond to the crisis in Walkerton.
In the early days of the crisis, many of them worked 12 to 14 hour days.
A number of staff from the MOE and OCWA left their families for more than six months to go live in Walkerton to restore safe drinking water to the community.
The response was an example of the public service at its best.
These workers came from a diverse number of workplaces:
- the Ministries of the Environment, Natural Resources, and Health,
- the Ontario Clean Water Agency,
- the Central and Regional Public Health Laboratories,
- the Grey Bruce Health Unit,
- the South Bruce Grey Health Centre,
- the London Health Sciences Centre,
- ambulance paramedics and many more.
It was a gigantic team effort.
But that team – the Ontario Public Service – is in trouble.
When we consulted our members at the MOE for our submissions to your Inquiry, they told us time and time again that there isn’t enough staff to do the job.
They told us that workloads are too high.
They told us that morale is plummeting.
That the emphasis is on paperwork. In our members’ words: counting what they do, instead of doing what counts.
That staff aren’t always given the tools they need to do the job.
That they don’t receive the training they need.
That the emphasis is on reacting to a crisis, not on developing programs to prevent the crisis in the first place.
This is what one MOE staff person told us and I quote:
“MOE staff grew up wanting to protect and save the environment…We went to school to learn about the environment and looked for jobs where we could make a difference. What better place to be than the MOE? I am frustrated.
I’m supposed to be protecting the environment but I’m being told it’s not our responsibility or it’s not significant. We don’t have the resources or the political support. It’s a struggle every day.” End quote.
I don’t think it should be a struggle every day for public servants to carry out their jobs.
The province needs the public servants who are with me here today.
It needs the public servants who are struggling in under-staffed and under-resourced offices, laboratories and water and waste water plants across the province to protect Ontario’s environmental and public health.
We hope your report, Mr. Commissioner, recommends to the government and to the public that a well-resourced public service is key to providing safe drinking water to the people of Ontario.
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