An information request has revealed SaskTel spent just under $13,000 last year to comply with a Liberal government order to offer free feminine hygiene products in bathrooms of all genders. The request was made by Yorkton., Sask. resident and Buffalo Party supporter Tim Kasprick, and shared exclusively with Western Standard.The response included a May 10, 2023 email by Julia Van Drie from Ottawa’s labour ministry to Federally Regulated Employers — Transportation and Communications (FETCO). “Minister O’Regan has a mandate commitment to provide free menstrual products in federally regulated workplaces to help ensure women’s participation in work,” Van Drie wrote. “As of December 15, 2023, federally regulated employers will be required to make menstrual products available to workers at no cost who need them while at work.”Van Drie told FETCO, which has 38 member companies, the initiative would “improve the well-being” of the organization’s half-million employees.“This change marks a significant milestone in our government’s efforts to advance safer, more equitable workplaces, and is inclusive of all workers who menstruate,” she wrote.The same day, FETCO president and CEO Derrick Hynes emailed member companies about the requirement. “I will review this but also ask you to do the same to see if there is anything in here that causes you concern," he said.Stephanie Yang Morris, a SaskTel HR director, did not welcome the news in an email to SaskTel colleagues.“FYI — Unfortunately, it looks like this is moving ahead for later this year,” Morris wrote May 11, 2023. “If you have any comments, let me know and we can pass them along to FETCO.”Morris later wrote Carol Kraft, then associate corporate counsel for SaskTel, to ask if the Crown Corporation could possibly be exempted.“At a quick glance, I’m thinking this may not catch telecommunications (hopefully!),” Morris wrote. “Can you check to see if this will catch us and apply?”Whatever legal opinion Kraft wrote in response was fully redacted.The sweeping regulation probably only saved users one quarter per use. A May 12, 2023 email by Jennifer Ziegler, SaskTel’s director of asset management, said menstrual products were available at head office for 25 cents apiece.On October 6, 2023, SaskTel Corporate Services put in an order to Grand and Toy for feminine hygiene products. This included 2,500 Kraft hygiene disposal bags for a total cost of 191.20, 2,500 Hopseco maxipads for $708.40, and 2500 Tampax tampons for $624.95. The total cost, including PST of $11.47 and GST of $9.56, was $1,545.48.Product dispensers cost far more. An invoice issued October 25, 2023 for 220 dispensers at $46 apiece cost $6,992. With $419.52 PST, and $359.60 GST, the total bill was $7,761.12. A subsequent order of 68 cost $3,472.08 including taxes.The total cost for 288 dispensers, taxes included, was $11,233.20, pushing the overall bill to $12,778.68, all for an organization of only 3,300 employees.A federal webpage clarified, “The regulations specify that menstrual products must be in all toilet rooms, regardless of their marked genders. This means that every female-identified, male-identified and all gender toilet rooms will need to have menstrual products.”Kasprick told Western Standard he found the federal order “so absurd” he had find out the cost. He said the numbers represent only a short-term snapshot in one business. He said the costs would multiply many times over in future years, as more products were ordered, and inspectors checked whether the regulations were satisfied.“It's not just one and done. This is supposed to be forever. So we're wasting millions of dollars,” he said. “If you were the manufacturer of these products, I guess it's a great day for you, because you have now expanded the market into areas you never thought you'd get into.”Kasprick said supplies in male bathrooms will remain mostly unused, then restocked at further expense, taking time and money that could be put to better use.“I'm taking all this stuff as an expiry date like everything does,” he said. “This is actually quite, quite big, if you can think of all the other things we could have done, but we did this instead.”
