June 10, 2011

The Duty to Accomodate Workshop available soon
The soon to be released Joint Learning Program workshop on the Duty to Accommodate is starting its pilot phase. The first pilot session for Stakeholders will be June 13 and 14 in Ottawa.

This will be the first of four pilot sessions to be held around the country to test the content and material in the kit. The other sessions will be held in Montreal on June 28 and 29, in Halifax, on July 6 and 7, and in Vancouver on July 13 and 14. Nathalie Audet and Céline Préfontaine will facilitate these sessions. Based on the feedback received from the participants and the facilitators of the pilot sessions this draft will be adapted following the pilots.

The DTA workshop will be delivered as a one-day workshop. The target audience is Public Service Aliance of Canada members and their corresponding supervisors and managers. The purpose of the workshop is to familiarize employees and managers with the meaning of duty to accommodate, the legal framework as well as the benefits of workplace accommodation for all employees working in the public service. 

This workshop will also examine myths and realities associated with workplace accommodation and will help to define Duty to Accommodate as it pertains to the prohibited grounds under the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Employment Equity Act, case law and other relevant legislation.

The DTA workshop will be one of the six topics covered by the Joint Learning Program. The workshop should be launched during fall season.



Third Orientation Session of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Canada Border Services Agency, the Customs and Immigration Union and the Joint Learning Program
The third orientation session under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), the Customs and Immigration Union and the Joint Learning Program (JLP) was held May 9 to 13 in Ottawa. By the end of the week, the 18 participants were provided with a strong foundation of facilitation skills and an overview of the JLP program and learning materials. Thus, Ghyslaine Hamel, Nancy Akerley, Bruce Roy, Annik Carrière, Djamel Bouhabel, Gabriel Duteau, Paula-Marie Beaudoin, Valérie-Anne Coté, Stefan Archambeault, Marc-André Charlebois, Marie-Josée Caron, Annie Rochon, Diane Plante, Chantal Rajotte, Yvon, Beaudoin and Sylvie Lee, will have the opportunity to join the CBSA-JLP pool of facilitators. Roger Vaillancourt and Marcia Vergara were the facilitators. This MOU includes the delivery of a one day workshop on creating a harassment-free workplace for all Agency employees and training of the facilitators required for the initiative. The MOU was signed in May 2010 and will be in effect until 2016.