New federal protective equipment standards announced • Alberta employment minister pressured to change farm safety • New industry-specific MSD courses in Manitoba • New rules for JHSCs in Ontario
FEDERAL
New protective equipment standards announced
The Canadian Standards Association and the federal government have announced Canada’s first national standard for protective equipment for front-line fire, police and paramedic workers. Most first responders in Canada have hazardous material or dangerous goods standards to guide them in responding to a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) incident. Now, for the first time, emergency services personnel will have a national protective equipment standard specific to CBRN incidents recognized across jurisdictions to guide and protect them in their work. The CAN/CGSB/CSA-Z1610, Protection of First Responders from Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Events standard specifies requirements for the selection, use and care of personal protective equipment for first responders to a CBRN incident. The standard identifies requirements for protective CBRN equipment, such as respiratory protection and whole-body protection. It also addresses the differences between a conventional hazardous material incident and a deliberate CBRN incident to understand how equipment guidelines may differ.
ALBERTA
Employment minister pressured to change farm safety
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) called on Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk to extend health and safety laws to protect farm workers. The AFL sent a letter to Lukaszuk calling on him to extend the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) and the Workers’ Compensation Act to cover all paid farm workers. The AFL also requested the Farming and Ranching Exemption be amended to allow for investigations into all farm-related deaths, serious injuries or injuries involving a child. This could be accomplished by extending section 38 of the OHSA, which permits a minister to convene a board of inquiry into the circumstance of an accident, to apply to the farming and ranching industries, said the AFL. There have been more than 160 accidental farm deaths in the last decade in Alberta, according to the AFL. Similar letters have been sent to the minister by NDP MLA Rachel Notley, the Alberta Liberals and Wayne Hanley, national president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada.
MANITOBA
New industry-specific MSD courses
WorkSafeManitoba has re-organized its Musculoskeletal Risk Assessment training program into three separate programs, making them specific to health care, offices and industrial workplaces.
Each course covers:
•musculoskeletal hazards
•relevant legislation
•the development of workplace documentation
•the role of the health and safety committee
•office, health care or industrial case scenarios and situations.
Amendments proposed to Workers’ Compensation Act
Labour and Immigration Minister Jennifer Howard — the minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Act — has introduced proposed amendments to the act that would add four new occupational disease presumptions for firefighters. The four new cancers that would be added to the list are multiple myeloma, primary site prostate, skin and, for the first time in Canada, breast cancer. Ten primary-site cancers have been listed since the first presumptive legislation in 2002: brain, bladder, kidney, lung, ureter, colorectal, esophageal and testicular cancers, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia. Manitoba firefighters have worked with the government to help bring together the scientific and medical research showing firefighters experience higher rates of certain cancers, said Howard. Manitoba was the first jurisdiction to have a firefighter disease presumption introduced in 2002.
ONTARIO
New rules for JHSCs
The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled provincially regulated employers that hire independent contractors or workers from temporary agencies must include them in the decision as to whether or not the company needs a joint health and safety committee (JHSC). In Ontario (Labour) v. United Independent Operators Limited, the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of the phrase “regularly employed.” United had 11 employees and between 30 and 140 independent contractors when an independent contractor was critically injured. The Ministry of Labour charged United for having failed to ensure the establishment of a JHSC. United argued there was no statutory obligation upon it to have a JHSC as it had less than 20 workers “regularly employed” at its workplace, and this argument prevailed at trial. However, the Court of Appeal has held this view is incorrect and has determined the term “regularly employed” includes independent contractors. Companies that use independent contractors now need to count them in determining whether or not they are required to establish a JHSC.
