Saskatchewan revamps workers’ compensation legislation | Manitoba doubles investment in workplace injury, illness prevention | Manitoba extending health coverage to seasonal workers | Canada aims to strengthen offshore oil and gas OHS practices
SASKATCHEWAN
Saskatchewan revamps workers’ compensation legislation
Saskatchewan has passed The Workers’ Compensation Act, 2012, which amends existing workers’ compensation legislation to improve client service, fairness, efficiency and accountability.
Some of the amendments include the following:
• increasing the maximum wage rate to $59,000 for workers injured after the legislation takes effect
• indexing the maximum wage rate for current and future claimants to ensure benefits are consistent with inflation
• introducing administrative penalties up to $10,000 for employers who breach obligations under the act.
MANITOBA
Manitoba doubles investment in workplace injury, illness prevention
Manitoba has a new strategic action plan to prevent workplace injury, according to Jennifer Howard, the province’s Family Services and Labour Minister.
The five year plan for injury and illness prevention incorporates recommendations from three reports issued in early April as part of a wide-ranging review of workplace injury and illness prevention.
The new strategy details plans for the following:
• doubling funding for prevention services
• creating new requirements under the Workplace Safety and Health Act that more clearly define workers' legal rights, require mandatory orientation of new workers and provide stronger protection when a worker refuses unsafe work
• investing in resources that will ensure every high school student has access to workplace health and safety information in the classroom or online.
Manitoba extending health coverage to seasonal workers
The Manitoba government is ensuring that seasonal agricultural workers participating in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program have provincial health coverage while working in the province.
Effective this summer, seasonal agricultural workers will become eligible for Manitoba health coverage while they work in the province — waiving wait times for eligibility — which is consistent with the approach used in Saskatchewan.
There are between 300 and 400 workers who come from Mexico and Caribbean countries to do seasonal agricultural work in Manitoba every year.
Currently, seasonal workers are required to have health insurance through a private insurer and pay out-of-pocket for their own coverage.
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
Canada aims to strengthen offshore oil and gas OHS practices
A registry project created to collect proposed amendments to the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act were tabled in the House of Commons on May 2. They will also be tabled in the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador legislatures.
The amendments will enable the following:
• place authority and fundamental principles of occupational health and safety within the accord acts
• clarify the roles and responsibilities of governments, regulators, employers and employees
• grant the offshore petroleum boards authority to disclose information to the public related to health and safety
• ensure the new occupational health and safety regime clearly applies to workers in transit to or from offshore platforms.
