April 3, 2020
TO ALL IBEW FIRST DISTRICT LOCAL UNIONS
Greetings:
On Thursday, April 2, Minister of Public Safety, Bill Blair, in cooperation with the provinces has released Public Safety Canada’s Guidance on Essential Services and Functions in Canada During the COVID-19 Pandemic. This guide outlines essential services in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, which are broken down into ten critical infrastructure sectors. They include:
- Energy and Utilities
- Finance
- Health
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Food
- Water
- Transportation
- Safety
- Government
- Manufacturing
According to the guide “Public Safety Canada has developed a set of functions deemed essential in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to help provinces/territories, Indigenous communities, and municipalities protect their communities while maintaining the reliable operation of critical infrastructure services and functions to ensure the health, safety, and economic well-being of the population. These services and functions can also help the private sector self-identify as essential”.
The IBEW represents workers in most of the infrastructure sectors and many IBEW workers fall into the essential services category. Please continue to work with your members to ensure that their health and safety remains the top priority.
Please review the federal governments resource page dedicated to all things COVID-19 including Employment Insurance information, other support for workers, supports for business and more information on these and other measures HERE.
You can also stay up to date on COVID-19 information on the IBEW Canada website on our COVID-19 page.
Stay safe and stay healthy.
In solidarity,
Tom Reid
International Vice President
TR/ln
cc: International Representatives IBEW,
System Council #11
IBEW, CCO