Annual workplace deaths in Canada remain high: study

Canadian workplaces are still seeing hundreds of fatalities each year, despite decades of new regulations and safety knowledge. According to the University of Regina’s 2025 Report on Work Fatality and Injury Rates in Canada, 1,056 workers died from work-related causes in 2023, and the number is not declining.

The report also notes that Manitoba continues to have the highest five-year lost-time injury rate among large provinces, and that occupational disease fatalities are rising in several jurisdictions.

This reality is pushing unions and safety advocates to call for more aggressive investigation practices that prioritize safety and accountability.

Criminal negligence and the enforcement gap in workplace fatalities

The United Steelworkers union (USW) has tracked the use of the Westray Law, which amended the Criminal Code in 2004 to allow for criminal negligence charges against employers in workplace deaths.

Yet, as Andy LaDouceur, Health, Safety and the Environment representative for the USW, explains, occupational health and safety board investigations into workplace deaths often fall short of holding employers accountable.

“What's missing is that investigation for criminal negligence. The police always show up when there's a workplace fatality, and they're basically looking for foul play. Criminal negligence would be at a different level,” says LaDouceur.

“Foul play is usually a little more obvious … whereas criminal negligence is looking at what didn't they do, that could have contributed to or paused this workplace fatality or serious injury?”

Investigating these cases requires a deep dive into safety records, policies, and workplace culture, LaDouceur explains, as well as interviews with multiple employees. While police are present at the scene of workplace fatalities, their focus is typically on clear-cut criminal acts, not on the more nuanced failures of duty that constitute criminal negligence: “That requires resources.”

“[Police have] got a difficult job. And to add more work without adding more resources, I think is where one of the big gaps is.”

Workplace fatalities: why criminal charges rarely stick

Since the Westray amendments, there have been only 27 charges and 12 successful prosecutions under the law, despite more than 200,000 serious workplace injuries and deaths during that time.

The disconnect between the law and its enforcement is further complicated by the legal and procedural barriers to prosecution.

“There's nothing in the criminal code that says it doesn't apply to the workplace. It just historically hasn't really been applied,” LaDouceur says, adding that the lack of dedicated resources leaves means in cases where the cause isn’t clear, families and workers are left without justice or closure in cases of workplace deaths.

“The actual resources required, the dedicated investigator or anything like that, dedicated prosecutors, they're non-existent. I know some provinces have put the resources into it for dedicated prosecutors, but it's still not giving us enough investigations, charges or convictions.”

Evidence, coordination, and the HR role

The process of moving from a regulatory investigation to a criminal charge is fraught with challenges, particularly around the handling of evidence. According to the University of Regina report, the complexity of workplace fatality investigations often leads to missed opportunities for accountability.

For this reason, the USW has called for more coordination between parties involved in investigations. For example, LaDouceur explains, if an OHS investigator finds evidence on the scene of a fatality, the manner in which they turn it over to police could compromise or discount that evidence.

“That’s where there needs to be that cross-jurisdictional training and interaction. So that if a health and safety inspector finds evidence, they know what to do with it,” he says.

“We want that coordination among the regulators, the police, the crown attorneys, so that when there's a possibility that that evidence could lead to charges, that nothing is done with that evidence.”

Fear of reprisal and the importance of listening

The University of Regina report and the USW both highlight the problem of under-reporting, which is often driven by fear of reprisal.

This is especially true for new and non-unionized workers, LaDouceur says, who may not be fully aware of their rights or may lack the support needed to challenge unsafe conditions.

“There is a section in the Act about no reprisals in the health and safety legislation. But like anything else, an employer can still fire someone and make them go through the process to challenge it and get reinstated,” he notes.

“If you're in a non-unionized workplace, what's the mechanism for that? At least if you're in a unionized workplace and you bring up a safety issue and you get fired … you can grieve it.”

The University of Regina report found that in 2023, every jurisdiction reported lower injury rates compared to the average rate from the three previous years, with Alberta, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador showing the greatest decreases.

However, the overall number of fatalities remains high.

Due diligence and learning from the past

Due diligence is a recurring theme in both the research and union perspectives. The University of Regina report emphasizes the importance of thorough inspections, regular review of safety recommendations, and proactive hazard identification.

For LaDouceur, due diligence also means employer proactive communication with frontline workers themselves.

 “I would like to see employers listening to workers about the health and safety on their job, because they are the ones that are at risk,” he stresses.

He also emphasizes past “near miss” incidents as valuable learning opportunities that are too often missed by employers.

“Nobody thinks it's that big of a deal. Decades later, the same thing has happened, and someone loses their life because the lessons weren't learned, they weren't fully implemented,” he says.

“And a lot of times, addressing the hazard isn't that expensive.”

The USW’s “Stop the Killing” campaign, highlighted in the union’s 2025 media release, is advocating for mandatory training, dedicated resources, and a public awareness push to make workplace deaths as socially unacceptable as impaired driving.

“Our goal is not so much to see an employer in jail, as much as it is to see improvements in health and safety, to see fewer fatalities,” LaDouceur says.

“But without a deterrent, we don't know how to make it happen. Without accountability, how do you change the system? We do preach individual accountability. But at the end of the day, the person with the greatest control over the workplace is the employer.”