Ontario council will help develop safety strategy: Chief prevention officer
Ontario’s new prevention council will be George Gritziotis’ link to stakeholders, he said.
The council’s function will be to advise Gritziotis as the chief prevention officer. It will also help him tap into the stakeholders in the broader workplace community, said Gritziotis, Ontario’s first chief prevention officer.
“It’ll be very important that we keep our fingers on the pulse of what’s going on out there to make sure that we develop a strategy that’s meaningful and delivers on the Dean report,” he said.
The Dean report was born out of a panel led by Tony Dean, a University of Toronto professor and former Ontario cabinet minister, to overhaul the province’s health and safety system in the wake of a Christmas Eve 2009 construction tragedy that killed four workers.
Purpose of council
The council’s duty is to advise the minister of labour on a wide range of issues, including prevention of workplace illness and injury, development of an occupational health and safety strategy and any significant proposed changes to funding and delivery of services under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.
For employers, the council will be important because it raises awareness about health and safety. It will also help smaller employers ensure they have the supports they need to build a health and safety culture in the workplace, said Gritziotis.
In the past, an inspector would go out and enforce the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act, which Gritziotis said is important but is only one piece of what should be an integrated strategy.
“Now what we’re saying is how can we put all this together in a way that makes sense to the employer and provide them with supports to be able to respond to the standards that are required under the act?”
Once the council is fully formed it will have 11 members — four from labour, four employer representatives, one non-union worker representative, a WSIB representative and an OHS expert. Nine members have been confirmed by the ministry.
Issues on the table
There are a lot of issues for the council to tackle, including the safety issues present in an aging workforce, such as soft tissue injuries, and workforce shortages which mean new workers and an emphasis on training, said Roy Slack, an employer representative on the council.
“I think the main challenge will be prioritizing. I mean there’s all kinds of things and we certainly can’t do everything, so what are the things that are going to have the most impact,” said Slack, president of Cementation Canada, a mining company with offices in North Bay and Sudbury.
Slack, who has worked in the mining industry for years, said he thought it was important to have representation from his industry and from northern Ontario on the council, which is part of the reason he accepted appointment to the council.
He hopes to bring some of the successes mining has had with safety to the council, he said.
“Mining has done a lot of work in safety. We have different challenges and we think we have something to bring to the table.”
The council is a diverse group and will have different occupational health and safety ideas, said Slack.
“To see different challenges and solutions other people have that’s one thing I’m very interested in,” he said. “I’m going in with an open mind and I think we all have the same focus... how can we help to make Ontario a safer place to work in, simple as that.”
Labour perspective
For labour representative Patrick Dillon, the next key culture shift that has to take place in the workplace is to change the mindset of employers and workers so they believe prevention is achievable.
“I am a very strong believer that there is no incident in the workplace that caused injuries or deaths that couldn't have been prevented,” said Dillon, business manager at the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, based in Toronto.
One of his focuses will be to discuss incentive programs in health and safety. He wants to see evidence these programs help increase safety.
“I think that we really have to take a look at that,” he said, adding he plans on challenging others on the council to show him how incentives work.
Dillon said he wants more money and thought to go into prevention efforts and less into incentive programs.
“It’s just mind boggling to me that there’s not more emphasis put on prevention.”
