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Achievements 2001–2002

MSDS Compliance

MSDS Compliance is the Commission’s “scientific arm.” Our scientific evaluators review MSDSs and some labels of products associated with claims for exemption to make sure they provide enough health and safety information to comply with WHMIS requirements. They take into account the relevant federal, provincial and territorial legislation and the latest scientific information available on the product ingredients and their known health and safety hazards. Evaluators provide advice to the Commission’s screening officers, who decide whether the MSDS complies with regulations, and issue a formal order for revision if it does not.

Table on MSDS Violations

Backlog Reduction

One outcome of organizational renewal has been an increase in claim submissions. A major element of strategic planning for the Commission has been to deal with the claims backlog, which now numbers more than 900. Some 25% are refiled claims.

2001–2002 was the first year of implementing the 5–Year Backlog Reduction Plan; a key element of this plan was recruiting and training new personnel, particularly in the MSDS Compliance Division. In addition to hiring extra screening officers and MSDS evaluators with Program Integrity Funding obtained from Treasury Board, several internal vacancies had to be filled. Staffing the evaluator positions has proved difficult, as comparatively few candidates have the necessary qualifications (a degree in biology with experience in the evaluation of hazardous chemicals and toxicology) and competition for these candidates is intense both within and outside government. The Commission made use of all possible options to fill these vacancies, including employment equity programs, job fair recruitments, deployment, and internal and external competitions. A co-op student from a university toxicology program was also hired for the first time as a proactive step for future recruitment. Most positions are now filled, and staffing will continue into the next fiscal year for the remaining positions.

The delay in staffing, the further delays that will be occasioned by the learning curve for new employees, and the significantly higher-than-estimated volume of new claims in the past three fiscal years have prompted a detailed review of the 5-Year Backlog Reduction Plan.

The statistics on workload analysis and prediction needed for the review were produced by the Claims Management System, a computer application originally developed to record and track the progress of claim submissions. The review also identified and assessed new options for claims management. Inputting formulation data for each claim into a computerized database, we were able to determine the frequency of specific hazardous ingredients in the backlog of claims. This enabled us to develop priorities based on Toxicity Profile Summaries for the most frequently occurring hazardous ingredients and to adjust the unit time cost estimates for various stages of claim processing. Also, entering formulation data into the database early in the process will now greatly facilitate grouping the claims for review efficiency and increase the scope of such groupings beyond what is possible using only the criteria involved for fee purposes.

The new 5-Year Backlog Reduction Plan is still in development, but it is clear that, to reduce the volume of unprocessed claims to a reasonable level over the next five years, the Commission’s resources must be increased to an output capacity of approximately 500 claims annually. Operations and Corporate Services staff will continue to work out the elements of the new plan for backlog reduction in the coming year, and undertake discussions with Treasury Board officials on options for resolving shortfalls in resources.

Client Services

Client Services helps suppliers and employers protect trade secrets while still meeting health- and safety-related disclosure obligations under WHMIS. We register claims for exemption, issue registry numbers and ensure the security of claim information. Claim registration allows a company to import or sell their product while the Commission is reviewing the claim and making its decisions. We also provide information and guidance to suppliers, distributors, producers, employers and other stakeholders about regulatory requirements and the Commission’s mandate and procedures.

At this time, the Commission deals with about 120 separate companies, many of which have numerous products on which they wish to claim exemptions. Approximately 40% of claim submissions come from the United States.

Claims Received and Registered by Year (Cumulative)

Claims Management

Despite delays in staffing operational positions, and a continued high level of claim submissions, the Commission surpassed its claim processing targets last year. A total of 350 new claims were received and 369* were registered, respectively 15% and 21% above the previous year’s totals of 305 in both categories, and well above the 300-claim target. Client Services also dealt with some 200 inquiries during the past year.

The computer system used to register, record, track, manage and analyze claims was completely rebuilt with new software in 1999–2000. It is now providing the greater flexibility and capacity the Commission requires to handle its workload. Further improvements are identified and added on an ongoing basis.

Geographic Origin of Claims

A number of renewal initiatives have progressed through the design, consultation, testing and approval stages and have now reached implementation. To make claim processing more transparent and efficient, advice documents prepared by the MSDS Compliance Division have been shared with claimants for some time now, and a pre-assessment process has been established. Pre-assessment is part of a voluntary MSDS compliance program for claimants, in which they have an opportunity to remedy obvious technical shortcomings in an MSDS before formal review by a screening officer. In addition, preliminary steps have been taken for the legislative amendments necessary to permit compliance measures agreements and a procedure for issuing draft orders to claimants.

One factor that, in the past, has often slowed the processing of claims is the lack of complete information about the products/substances in question at the time a claim is filed. HMIRC has explored the option of requiring a statement of disclosure of 100% of the composition of any product on which a claim is being made; however, enforcement would require an amendment to the regulations. We have now asked claimants to provide this information voluntarily, and so far the voluntary approach is working well.

New Fee Schedule

When Treasury Board published its new cost recovery policy in 1997 and updated it in 1998, HMIRC initiated a review of its fee structure, which was no longer congruent with government policy, particularly in terms of charges that relate to services for the public benefit. A new fee schedule successfully made its way through a process of development, claimant feedback, revision and approval by the Council of Governors, and was submitted to Treasury Board.

After Treasury Board approval, new fee regulations were drafted with the aid of the Department of Justice. There followed a formal submission to Treasury Board; the Minister of Health granted approval, as did the President of Treasury Board, and by the end of the fiscal year the new regulations were published in the Canada Gazette for public comment. The new fee structure came into force on June 13, 2002.

The new system is simple to administer, since it replaces the previous complicated groupings with one flat rate. It also reduces the amount of fees paid by claimants, on the basis that many aspects of claim registration and review benefit the public, rather than the claimants. The fee for refiled claims (renewal of exemptions on previously accepted claims on which the time has expired) is reduced, as is the amount of supporting information required, and the fee reduction for small business has been retained. Claimants may provide the required information in any form or format. For convenience, a new and simpler Application for a Claim for Exemption Form will be posted on the Web site.

In October 2001, we introduced a credit card option for fee payments, simplifying the process both for our clients and our own accountants and eliminating currency conversion problems for foreign clients.

During 2001–2002, Client Services recorded net payments of $860,000 through cheques and credit cards.

Outreach

In April 2001, the Vice-President, Operations, visited WHMIS co-ordinators and other occupational safety and health (OSH) staff in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia to discuss cooperation in detecting unfiled claims. Later in the year, similar trips covered Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces. If information about a controlled (hazardous) substance is omitted from a product’s MSDS without a claim being filed, the worker’s right to know about the hazards he or she is dealing with has been compromised. However, detection of unfiled claims is not within the Commission’s mandate; it is the responsibility of the provincial/territorial OSH agencies. Good working relationships with these agencies, therefore, are essential. The meetings helped Commission staff to gain more understanding of the issues and challenges OSH agencies face, and to gauge the demand for any support services from the Commission in the provinces and territories.

The Commission has produced a field reference tool to assist provincial/territorial inspectors in detecting and reporting indicators of unregistered trade secrets and proprietary information in the hazardous ingredients section of MSDSs. The document was revised with comments from the provinces and territories to make it more user-friendly, and some referrals from the provinces and territories have been received.

Commission representatives also attended HAZMAT, CLC and IAPA conferences in 2002 to maintain currency with industry health and safety developments and inform participants about HMIRC services. The Commission has acquired a customized display stand for use at such events, to establish a presence and provide a means of exhibiting and distributing informative material.

In addition to participating in events directly related to serving Canadian stakeholders, the Commission has provided support for the Canadian delegation involved in international discussions on global harmonization of requirements for communicating chemical hazards. In 2001, HMIRC representatives were asked to accompany the Canadian delegation to one of those meetings, where we presented the Canadian experience with trade secret exemption mechanisms and commented on draft documents.

Client Questionnaire

The Client Services questionnaire initiated in the last quarter of 2000–2001 was continued last year. Survey questionnaires are sent each month to companies that have filed claims, to obtain feedback on their level of satisfaction with information obtained from Client Services and from the Web site, on whether they thought their claim was handled promptly and efficiently, and how they rate the service provided overall. Numerous supportive comments have been received, and 84% of respondents indicated a satisfaction level of 8 or better on a scale of 10.

Dispute Resolution

Dispute Resolution provides all parties involved in a claim with a range of options for dealing with issues that arise from the decisions and orders of the Commission. It supplements and works in conjunction with the appeals process by attempting to identify and resolve problems before an appeal becomes necessary. Our success is demonstrated by the fact that no appeals have been filed in the past two years. When it becomes necessary, the Commission convenes tripartite boards with representatives from industry, labour and government, to confirm, vary or rescind the decisions or orders being appealed

Although serious disputes and appeals do not figure largely in the Commission’s work, when they do occur, they can be both lengthy and costly. In the interests of achieving our ultimate goal—to promote the health and safety of Canadian workers—we have streamlined our procedures and become more transparent and accessible in all respects. This effort included a new conceptual framework for Dispute Resolution (DR) developed in 2000–2001. The DR team was active last year preparing the new process for implementation and putting some features into practice. The key goals of the new framework are:

• To prevent or minimize disputes
• When disputes arise, to identify them quickly and resolve them in an expeditious, cost-effective, fair and open manner, recognizing that appeals are not always the best remedy
• To provide parties with options for resolving disputes in a non-adversarial, collaborative and informal atmosphere, particularly in the case of scientific issues.

The new DR framework spans two business lines. As well as dealing with dispute resolution proper, i.e., the formal appeals procedure, it makes changes in the claims process to reduce the incidence of disputes and appeals at their source by making MSDS review more transparent and consultative.

Meetings with the Justice Department took place to sort the components of the new framework into those that require statutory amendments, those that require regulatory amendments, and those that fall under the Commission’s administrative authority. Of the latter, several initiatives at the Client Services end have already been put into practice.

We have implemented feedback mechanisms throughout the claims process, both to help eliminate misunderstandings and disputes, and to improve our own performance. New guidelines and manuals ensure a standardized approach at all stages (and serve as a training tool), procedures now ensure improved contact with clients and clients are provided with more information. A voluntary MSDS pre-screening process (to identify any obvious deficiencies and enable the claimant to correct them before formal screening begins) is in place, and awaiting staff resources for implementation.

The advice document prepared for the screening officer by scientific evaluators has been shared with claimants for two years as a pilot project, and continues to be provided under the new DR framework. Some 75% of claimants respond to the advice document, and of those, about one third require some level of discussion with the screening officer. Discussions take place in person or by phone and so far, very few issues have been difficult to resolve. We are turning our attention next to developing guidelines for facilitated discussion to deal with more contentious issues, and to refining our training programs and tools, as well as setting up procedures for monitoring and evaluating performance.

The appeal process itself has been significantly modified. New elements include a simplified procedure for appointing appeal board members, longer appointments to provide continuity and to address training issues, and a procedural manual covering all aspects of the process. In addition, a Commission official would be permitted to participate in an appeal hearing to clarify technical information in the findings of a screening officer.

Some aspects of these changes require statutory or regulatory reform, and work is continuing on advancing the amendments that will be required to complete the new process. A number of amendments are also sought to streamline the regulations and to bring them into line with government-wide changes intended to modernize legislation.

Corporate Services

Corporate Services is the Commission’s behind-the-scenes “fourth business line.” We may not be visible to the outside world, but we make much of HMIRC’s visible activity possible. We are responsible for strategic planning, internal and external communications, information technology and the Commission’s human resources needs. We provide administrative support, manage the records, the finances and facilities, and oversee the comprehensive security program that safeguards trade secret information on the Commission’s premises. And we play a leading role in managing major projects that cut across business lines—for instance, shepherding the statutory and regulatory changes that emerged from renewal through the approvals process.

Human Resources

The Human Resources function assumed increased importance at the Commission in the past year, as HMIRC dealt with a shortage of personnel to deliver on its mandate. Key director-level positions were staffed for Client Services, Screening, MSDS Compliance, Corporate Services, Regulatory Affairs and Appeals, and Communications, to provide leadership and continuity for renewal. Three new positions in IT, HR and Finance were created with the assistance of Treasury Board funding, in addition to the new scientific staff recruited over the course of the year and the position of Regulatory Affairs and Appeals Director. The new full-time financial officer and informatics officer positions will improve the interface with our service providers at Health Canada, and at the same time reduce our dependence on them.

We have also implemented a new corporate training policy and procedures. Training and orientation have emerged as significant priorities for the Commission. We want to ensure that existing staff members can maintain their productivity and performance while implementing the changes stemming from renewal. We also need to help the growing number of new employees adopt renewal values and increase their ability to respond to client needs. More attention has also been turned to management training and development, and to succession planning, since staff turnover in a small agency has significant impact.

Communication

Given the Commission’s dual role in protecting both trade secrets and worker health and safety, effective and proactive communications are critical to our success. In the last year, we developed a strategic plan for communications that integrates and builds on the successful communication tactics we have employed since the start of our renewal program.

Being a relatively small agency, the Commission lacks the capacity to undertake resource-intensive communications approaches such as an extensive advertising campaign. Accordingly, we will continue to develop our communications program based on an up-to-date and relevant Web site as our primary communications vehicle. Targeted outreach and other communications tactics will be used to stimulate interest, drawing current and potential clients and stakeholders in Canada, as well as current and potential industry clients in the United States, to the HMIRC Web site. Although the Commission does not advertise its services, we make efforts to ensure that we are included in the contact lists published in trade magazines, so that members of the industry are continually reminded of our services. We will also continue ongoing efforts to gather feedback from clients, such as through the client satisfaction survey form, e-mail comments and questions received through the Web site, and periodic dialogue workshops with stakeholders, along the lines of our successful “Dialogue 2000.” The plan also addresses better contact with Canadian workers and U.S. companies, which already submit 40% of the claims we register.

The Commission’s bilingual Web site, launched in March 2000 after extensive client consultation, is continually updated with new information, HMIRC documents, instructions for filing claims and appeals, and related links. The site also features e-mail access with automatic acknowledgement, basic search capabilities, and a "What’s New" page to keep visitors abreast of recent developments at the Commission. A link to our site is included in Health Canada’s new portal site. We have also been successful in negotiating additional links to our site from industry sites, such as that of the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association, as well as increasing the number of links from our site to other related Web pages.

The Web site has been very well received and has achieved a great deal with limited resources. It was praised in the Official Languages Commissioner’s 2000–2001 report for language accessibility, praised for accessibility to persons with disabilities, cited as a model for other departments and showcased at several government workshops.

Most important, reaction from users shows that it is an increasingly relevant and helpful tool for claimants and the public. Many claimants have let us know that the Web site is their primary reference when making a claim. The number of weekly visits to the site has grown by about one third in the last year, from 538 in the first week of April 2001 to 845 in the last week of March 2002. The site recorded more than 44,000 visits in the fiscal year, with the most common use being to view and download HMIRC publications.

Projects

By the April 1, 2001 deadline, HMIRC became fully compliant with the government-wide Financial Information Strategy—an initiative to enhance decision making and accountability, and to improve organizational performance through the strategic use of financial and non-financial performance information. We have also implemented new monitoring tools for accurate tracking and reporting of progress on Workplan projects.

As the Commission’s offices could not accommodate the additional staff it now requires, HMIRC moved to new premises, where some reconstruction was carried out to strengthen security. The relocation in September 2001 was carried out efficiently and without disrupting service to clients. To further improve productivity at the new location, we completed an ergonomics review and ensured that all personnel have the optimum working tools and a safe environment.

Work proceeded on a number of proposals for legislative and regulatory reform that will enable the Commission to complete its renewal initiatives. The fee structure project is now finished; ongoing projects include elements of the Dispute Resolution process.

Corporate Services continues to work with the Small Agencies Administrators’ Network, which helps smooth the way for agencies like HMIRC in meeting federal requirements for such initiatives as the government Financial Information Strategy, or dealing with modern comptrollership issues. We have initiated a modern comptrollership project at the Commission, and implementing this wide-ranging management approach will be a priority in the coming year.