Company Profile

East Coast Catering specializes in catering and accommodation services to remote site locations. Our company has operations in seven Canadian provinces catering to the oil and gas, marine, mining, and industrial construction sectors.  

In Canada, from coast to coast, ECC has a proven track record of providing turn-key camp solutions to mining and constructions projects, including the world-class Voisey’s Bay Nickel project.  East Coast Catering operated each phase of the camp from initial exploration to construction to the permanent concentrator complex.

ECC is the preferred provider of catering and janitorial services in Atlantic Canada’s mining, oil, and gas sector.  Currently, we serve the majority of offshore production / drilling installations and mine sites in Canada’s East Coast region.

Across all our operations, the company provides accommodations for over 5,500 people, serving close to 26,000 meals every day.

ECC developed and maintains a Quality Management System (QMS).  We are registered to third party QMS ISO 9001:2008.  The core of East Coast Catering’s management system is Management Commitment to Excellence in all aspects of our business focusing on: health and safety, diversity, community responsibility, and operational and financial performance.

East Coast Catering is committed to provide:

•         Workers with a safe working environment and resources needed to perform their job safely.
•         Clients with high quality value-added service.
•         Equal opportunity and diversity within the workplace.

East Coast Catering was established in 1984 and is based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION POLICY                                        

As of January 1, 2004, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) applies to all businesses and organizations in Canada that collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activity.  The Act establishes legal privacy rights for personal information and requires organizations to protect and secure all employee data collected by the employer.  In effect, the Act seeks to establish a balance between the business need for personal information and the individual’s right to privacy.

 

At East Coast Catering Ltd. (ECC), we understand the importance of privacy and the protection of the personnel information provided to ECC by job applicants and active employees.  We place the highest value upon ensuring confidentiality of the applicant/employee information.  With the implementation of PIPEDA Act, we at ECC reaffirm our ongoing commitment to ensure that the personal information which we obtain from and about our workforce is accurate and remains confidential and private.

 

We also reaffirm our ongoing commitment to protect all proprietary mechanical and operational data provided to ECC by our valued clients.  Another important element is that we monitor closely all employee data provided to our clients who partake of our services – provision of catering and accommodation personnel in support of offshore vessels, installations and supporting infrastructure.

 

We provide to our clients only information that is relevant to insure the integrity of our personnel contracting service – such as bio-data, work history, education technical accreditation, safety certification, certificate of competence, certificate of medical fitness, passport data, visa data and generally information that is deemed necessary to establish that the proposed employee is deemed fully compliant by the client and is eligible to be mobilized to the client’s work site.  We do not provide detailed drug screening results – just the result pass or fail.  We do not release employee medical data – just a pass or fail.  We do not provide details of police security checks – just whether or not they have been or have not been convicted of a crime in Canada.  In a world of ubiquitous computing and information sharing it is increasingly difficult to ensure appropriate use and protection of personal information.  As a result we put a high priority on privacy governance and management within our quality system in order to mitigate privacy issues and to insure we are PIPEDA compliant.

 

 

In addition, as a result of licensing by Transport Canada – Seafarer Recruitment and Placement Service (SRPS) license, we are statutorily required to insure that the ten (10) principles of PIPEDA – schedule 1 are met within the engagement and deployment process or related to our employees as well as within the commercial and logistical interface with our valuable clients.

 

1                 ACCOUNTABILITY – ECC’s Privacy Officer – Donna Templeman will insure that ECC is compliant in meeting PIPEDA Schedule 1 requirements. The Vice President or her designate- Privacy Officer, Donna Templeman will respond to all internal or external privacy complaints or non-compliances within seven (7) calendar days of the receipt of the complaint or non-conformance. ECC will ensure that all relevant Seafarer employee data is supplied only to need to know third parties (vessel owners or managers) for the one (1) purpose only – evaluate employee competence and employee certification and accreditations in order to determine eligibility for employment.  Confidential ECC employee data will only be supplied to vessels/clients that are named within ECC’s vessel registry.

 

Each client contact will include a clause whereby ECC employee data will be utilized for engagement of ECC employees only and will be destroyed when it becomes redundant, usually a maximum of seven (7) years as deemed necessary by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). ECC is committed to providing training to its management personnel to insure ongoing compliance with PIPEDA legislation as well as new developments in future legislation as a result of technology and innovation.

Fundamentally within our core business as an offshore labor contractor, we typically require a broad range of personal and technical information on each perspective employee – bio-data, work history, technical accreditation, safety accreditation, medical fitness, police certificate of good conduct etc.  In order to evaluate and mobilize employees to our valuable clients, we must transfer much of this personal information to vessel/installation owners and operators. So firstly – we – ECC – are fully accountable for security and protection of all personal data collected from our employees and shared in the custody of our third party clients.  An important consideration within this process is that all data collected is specific to our purpose and no other non-specific data such as for example detailed medical information is collected.  Within our initial Personnel Form (ECC-SS-CONTR-HR-DOC-003.0) each perspective employee provides signed consent that allows ECC to take custody of such data and allows ECC to release it to need to know third parties. Without exception, sharing custody of employee data with our clients is limited to purposes of employment and mobilization of our personnel to our clients vessel or installation.  Additionally it is critical that such data is entirely accurate.  When our client or our employee questions the validity or accuracy of such data, we, without exception, are entirely open to access by individual employees or client representatives and we accept valid corrections or revalidations and we communicate such corrections to all need to know parties.

 

2.         IDENTIFYING PURPOSE – ECC’s Contract of Employment is restricted to solely capture employment applicant personal data and work history as well as to provide ECC a snapshot of the highest level of certification and accreditation of its individual employee. The data provided to ECC on the Personnel Form is categorized by work category and posted within ECC’s secure internal employee data base.  Fundamentally this is ECC’s personnel data base that ECC utilizes to develop a pool of qualified certified candidates in a broad range of skill sets that can be drawn on by ECC when a client requests a personnel referral.  Clearly ECC’s access to a specialized offshore workforce is a valuable component of our successful service.  ECC, our perspective employees and clients all recognize the specific purpose of our data acquisition on employees – to establish competency accreditation and work history deemed necessary by the offshore oil and gas industry so as to allow engagement and mobilization.  As a result, we routinely evaluate a broad range of compliances within our training matrixes.  This is critical to our evaluation processes and allows ECC and its clients to make informed decisions on engagement and mobilization of our personnel to clients owned or operated vessels or installations.

 

3.         CONSENT – ECC’s compilation of individual employee data is without exception accumulated with full consent and knowledge of the perspective employee.  As mentioned herein, it is the PIPEDA consent and signature component within ECC’s Consent Form that seeks individual consent to collect information and data on each perspective applicant or perspective employee.  The core data collected is specific to ECC’s work scope – the provision of qualified and certified employees in support of our client’s vessels or installation.  As a result, we collect significant bio data including passport data, detailed work history, a check off list on whether or not the applicant meets all of required competency and safety accreditations and lastly the provision of personal and professional references.  This allows the human resource coordinators to more fully evaluate and process the perspective employees utilizing ECC’s interview assessment form.  Throughout all these processes employees provide tacit consent to ECC that allows ECC to collect relevant data only on all perspective employees and allows ECC to release such relevant data to the client.  Without exception, we do not require documentation of sensitive information related to personal finances or personal health issues. When the employee is accepted by the client for mobilization, the employee further provides consent by signing off on ECC’s Company Handbook by way of signing ECC’s crew contract which provides a broad range of details related to employee acceptance of terms and conditions such as compliance with alcohol and drug policies, compliance with safety and operational policies, accident reporting policies and generally a very long list of consent issues.  The employer – ECC – and the employee mutually sign off on a duplicate crew contract.

 

4.        LIMITING COLLECTION – ECC’s compilation of individual employee data is collected solely for the evaluation of job applicants to determine eligibility for employment. In all instances ECC’s limits the amount of information collected from perspective employees to only what is required by the intended purpose.  We do not collect information that is optional or secondary.  We do not collect information that is deemed sensitive or intrusive.  We do not under any circumstances utilize Government of Canada social insurance numbers (SIN’s) to identify employees or to collect data related to perspective employees.  All of data collection formats are specific to our business as an offshore and marine labor contractor and are intended to identify individual employee compliance and suitability.  Without exception; we collect and decimate personal data only by fair and lawful means without discrimination or deception.

 

5.        LIMITED USE, DISCUSSING AND RETENTION – ECC retains a hard copy and electronic copy of employee data in ECC’s employee personnel file and ECC’s employee payroll file. These files are held in secure storage at ECC’s offices – hard copy and electronic for seven (7) calendar years at which time they are shredded or destroyed.  In all instances without exception, ECC uses or discloses such information only for its intended purpose – employment of offshore or marine personnel in support of our client’s vessels or installations.  We do not use such collected information for another secondary purpose.  Due to Canadian statutory requirements we retain all collected information – hard copy and electronic for a seven (7) year window.  When we are statutory permitted to delete such information, we utilize a contractor to shred hard copy documents within our file morgue and systematically delete all electronic documents carried on our server.

 

6.        ACCURACY – All ECC job applicants who seek employment and file an ECC Personnel Form are evaluated for employment opportunities. ECC applicants who are deemed competent and hold valid certificates are evaluated on ECC’s crew training matrix. This insures correct, accurate evaluation.  Much of information and data collection is based on validating certificate of competencies as a broad range of compliance issues related to safety and functionality.  It is critical that information on such data is accurate and up to date and not expired.  Within our core business – provision of competent and certified offshore and marine employees, most of the certifications and accreditations have expiry dates and as a result we spend a lot of time monitoring expiry dates on detailed training matrixes.  This is our primary responsibility and we must ensure accuracy, completeness and currency without exception in support of our employees and clients.

 

7.        SAFEGUARDS – All hard copy and electronic employee data is secured solely at ECC office premises which are restricted for access only to persons who have an authorized entry code. Access to ECC employee personnel files are controlled by our Human Resource Specialist. Access to ECC’s employee payroll files are controlled by ECC’s Payroll Specialist. Access to these files is restricted solely to ECC’s management staff, restricted line personnel, and ECC’s employees. Any external requests for employee data must be approved solely by the President in conjunction with the employee.  ECC safeguards all electronic documents related to personnel information by securing a sonic wall on our server that protects such data from viruses or hackers.  All of our hard copy personnel data is secured in fire proof filing cabinets which are locked and only accessible during regular work hours by authorized employees within our human resources and payroll departments.  Our offices at 30 Queen’s Road are protected by a 24/7 monitored motion detection system.  On a daily basis, our IT contractor back-ups all electronic documents created within our office processes.  When we have highly sensitive or restricted documents, we use encryption for secure storage and transmission.  When we dispose of personal information in hard copy format, we use a licensed shredder contractor to destroy such hard copy documents. 

 

8         OPENNESS – ECC carries a disclosure policy within its employee data sheet (form #2200) – hard copy and electronic copy – that determines ECC’s commitment to compliance with all current PIPEDA legislation. In addition, in keeping with PIPEDA accountability principle, ECC in all instances will release on request all personal data collected from an employee.  The employee may request such a release of personal data to him or her by providing a letter of request to release to ECC’s privacy coordinator Donna Templeman.  Such information will be released by Mrs. Tucker to the employee within seven (7) calendar days.  In the event that an employee may wish to withdraw consent, ECC will release all such data to the employee and delete and destroy all documents stored electronically or hard copy format.

 

9.        INDIVIDUAL ACCESS – ECC, without exception, will on request provide ECC employees with full access to their employee personnel file or employee payroll file within seven (7) days of request without cost. In the event, that employee data is inaccurate or incomplete, ECC will make immediate corrections.  The request must be made in writing to ECC’s privacy coordinator Donna Templeman.  Upon request Mrs. Templeman will inform the employee of the full amount of data collected on his/her file, how it was or has been utilized as well as a declaration on what other authorized third party may have received the data.  Ultimately ECC’s policy is to comply within the individual access principle and section 8 of PIPEDA.

 

10.      CHALLENGING COMPLIANTS – ECC, without exception, will respond to all complaints related to the violation of PIPEDA legislation within seven (7) days of receipt of the complaint. In the event the complaint is not rectified within the initial seven (7) day period, either party may refer to the arbitration process as determined within their crew contract.  The initial complaint should be made to ECC’s privacy coordinator outlining violations of the personal information protection polices inherit in the PIPEDA legislation.  Where warranted by the finding of the investigation, ECC will grant full access of the collected information to the employee, amend any inaccurate or incomplete information or modify the specific personal information handling policies, procedures or practices that are at issue.