The short answer is, "yes".

The targeted employer program in Alberta was introduced in 2002 and thanks to its success in reducing the injury rates of targeted employers it will be continuing for the 2009/10 fiscal year.

Targeted employers have disabling injury rates of at least 2.5 times the provincial average.  This year, 550 employers with disabling injury rates of about 9.7 and higher will be targeted in the following industries:  Commercial/Industrial Construction, Residential Construction, and Oil & Gas.  Small employers (between 40 and 59 full-time employees) will be subject to at least 2 inspections by an OHS Officer while large employers (60 or more full-time employees) will undergo at least 5 inspections over a twelve month period.  While OHS Officers will focus on different types of contraventions in each targeted industry, the common focus appears to be on fall hazards and fire and explosion hazards, which are covered by Parts 9 and 10 of the OHS Code, respectively.

The likely result of these inspections is the issuance of orders.  An order can be issued when an OHS Officer identifies a contravention of OHS Laws.  An order is not a friendly reminder to correct a minor problem.  It is a stern direction to comply with the minimum requirements of the law.  An order can even require a work site, or part thereof, to shut down until a contravention is corrected.  It is an offence to fail to comply with an order.  An order indicates the possibility of a prosecution as a result of the legal contravention(s).  Any orders received should be thoroughly reviewed for accuracy and appealed, if necessary. 

Legal counsel specializing in OHS can assist - and should be sought - when reviewing and appealing orders.

Here are the results of the 2007/08 fiscal year targeted employer program:   

Program	Targeted Employers	Site Visits	Orders Issued
Upstream Oil and Gas	341	1357	644
Residential Construction	610	1680	970
Commercial / Industrial Construction	731	2341	1258
Strategic Insepction	86	227	191
Totals:	1768	5605	3063

As you can see, each targeted employer was visited about 3 times and almost half of all site vists resulted in the issuance of orders.

If you are not a targeted employer, you should ensure that none of your subcontractors are targeted, as having targeted subcontractors on your work sites increases the likelihood of an OHS Officer attending to carry out an inspection.

For more information on the targeted employer program, click here.

My last post presented Alberta's most recent injury and fatality statistics.  I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss how those statistics impact the enforcement initiatives of OHS Regulators.

OHS Regulators, like Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) in Alberta and The Ministry of Labour in Ontario are legally authorized to enforce provincial OHS laws.  They do this by way of orders and prosecutions.  My next post will discuss orders in more detail but for now let's focus on prosecutions (the more serious of the two).  Since the primary objective of prosecuting is deterrence, OHS Regulators have a vested interest in convicting offenders - and publicizing those convictions - in an effort to prevent other would-be-offenders from breaking the law.  
 

Swine flu has pretty much come and gone from the front pages of our newspapers and the breaking news headlines of our daily news broadcasts.  Thank goodness it wasn't as serious as most major news outlets were making it out to be.  But if there's one thing I took from following the news coverage it was how rapidly influenza can spread to become a global pandemic. 

What started with the World Health Organization monitoring several strange cases of influenza in Mexico as early as March 18, quickly became 854 cases of pneumonia in Mexico by April 23 with 7 confirmed cases of A/H1N1 in the United States by April 24.  By May 1, 11 countries were reporting 331 cases and as of today's date, 46 countries have reported 12, 515 cases.

Most companies I was in touch with throughout the recent scare didn't start implementing some of the basic steps of their pandemic plans until more than 7-10 days after the story of swine flu first hit north american headlines (WHO's first update was dated April 24).  Had this particular type of influenza been any more serious, this reaction would have been far too little too late.  Some companies I was in touch with didn't even have a pandemic plan.  Yikes!  Hopefully this close call made them realize that they need one.

Would all or most of your essential employees be able to carry on work from home should there be a global pandemic?

Alberta Workplace Health and Safety recently released a guideline with respect to Pandemic Planning.

All the more reason to manage your organization's systems - such as the OHS management system - electronically.    

On April 17, 2009, Workplace Health and Safety released the 2009 revisions to Alberta's OHS Code.  Employers have until July 1, 2009 to comply with the new requirements before they become enforceable.

Part 9 of the OHS Code, which deals with Fall Protection, was the subject of some of the most significant revisions.  There are several new requirements in Part 9 dealing with work positioning, leading edge fall protection systems, equipment compatibility, fixed ladders, fall protection on vehicles and loads and procedures in place of fall protection equipment.  Further, some of the revisions expand employer responsibility with respect to fall protection plans and fall protection training.  In particular, subsection 141(2) now provides a prescriptive list of 10 topics that must be covered in fall protection training sessions.  According to Jason Laurie, the primary architect of these revisions, most fall protection training in Alberta falls short of complying with these new requirements.  

Enforcement of Alberta's OHS laws has increased almost ten-fold since 2005 when there were only 12 prosecutions resulting in $554,050 in fines.  In 2008 there were 22 prosecutions resulting in $5,083,000.  It has never been more important to ensure that your organization is complying with the minimum requirements of Alberta's OHS laws in order to avoid the costs associated with work-related incidents.  To further amplify how strictly Alberta's OHS laws are being enforced, on April 21, 2009 Workplace Health and Safety laid a total of 53 charges against three companies stemming from the deaths of two foreign workers at an oilsands project in northern Alberta.

It all boils down to implementing and maintaining an effective OHS management system that demonstrates due diligence and complies with the minimum requirements of Alberta's OHS laws.

Does your organization have one?

The hazard identification, risk assessment and control process is the foundation of an effective occupational health and safety management system ("OHSMS").  National and International OHSMS standards require this process to be carried out as the basis of an effectively functioning management system.  The rest of the OHSMS cannot function properly without thoroughly and effectively identifying hazards, assessing their risk and implementing controls to minimize their risk.   

For the past year I have been participating in the development of a CSA Standard (CSA Z1002) on this very process.  This is a much needed standard as Canadian legislation in this area is lacking.  Only a handful of jurisdictions specifically require this process to be carried out while legal requirements in most other jurisdictions only imply that this process be carried out. 

For instance, Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act requires supervisors to "advise a worker of the existence of any potential or actual danger to the health or safety of the worker of which the supervisor is aware", which implies that hazards have to be identified.  On the other hand, Part 2 of Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Code, titled "Hazard Assessment, Elimination and Control" requires employers to "assess a work site and identify existing and potential hazards before work begins..."  It goes on to require that employers implement the hierarchy of controls for any identified hazards.  But even this fairly progressive legislation has its faults.  It doesn't provide much practical advice with respect to carrying out this process and even the OHS Code Explanation Guide falls short of describing what I would consider a reasonable hazard identification, risk assessment and control process.  Employers are left to interpret these legal requirements and in my experience it is rare to find two employers who are carrying out this process in a similar fashion.  The result is a whack of spreadsheets and hard copies being stored in all corners of an organization.
 
The most effective method of carrying out this process is through an effective Job Safety Analysis that results in adequate safe work procedures.  The real key with respect to due diligence is to demonstrate that the risk of EACH identified hazard has been assessed and that the risk was minimized by implementing effective controls.  This is something that the safe work procedures provided by SafetySync do an excellent job of displaying visually.  You can't argue with the value of that due diligence evidence.  Be sure to check it out.

We've got a long way to go as far as standardizing this process but SafetySync is a great place to start.  CSA Z1002 should also provide much needed guidance in this area, help get employers on the same page in relation to this process and go a long way in protecting the health and safety of workers.  

Image at Left: Screen shot of sample risk matrix chooser in SafetySync software.  Administrators simply click on the corresponding box for the appropriate Probability and Severity.

  Please allow me to introduce myself:
  My name is Adam Neave and I am an OHS professional currently residing in Calgary. 

In 2003 I obtained a degree in OHS from Ryerson University.  Since then I practiced in both Toronto and Calgary as an OHS Consultant at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP - a full service national law firm specializing in OHS and workers' compensation matters.  While at Gowlings, I worked under the direction of Norm Keith - a leading Canadian OHS lawyer and author of Canadian Health and Safety Law (among many other books).  I had the opportunity to co-author A Practical Guide to OHS and Workers' Compensation Compliance in Alberta with Norm, along with several articles that were published in OHS Canada and Worksite News.  I also had the chance to assist in the successful defence of hundreds of OHS charges across Canada; investigate work-related incidents in accordance with CSA Z-796; facilitate training sessions for thousands of managers, supervisors, OHS and HR professionals; speak at conferences put on by Lorman Education Services and The Canadian Institute; and represent clients at all levels of workers' compensation appeal in Ontario and Alberta.

I recently acheived my Canadian Registered Safety Professional and my Certified Health and Safety Consultant designations and became a Licensed Paralegal through The Law Society of Upper Canada.  Even more recently I accepted a position to develop and facilitate a post-secondary OHS curriculum at The College of the North Atlantic in Doha, Qatar.  I will be heading to the Middle East in August.

In the meantime I will be contributing to the SafetySync blog.  I first met Brian Nodwell and Brad Caldwell at the Alberta Health and Safety Conference and was immediately impressed with SafetySync - an online OHS management system tracking program, which was far better than any other I had seen (and still is).  After having been involved in defending OHS prosecutions I can say sincerely with all of my heart that I hope the days of OHS management systems on paper in a binder or on spreadsheets will soon be behind us.  In my experience most were poorly administered and did little to prevent fatalities or serious injuries and even fewer were able to demonstrate due diligence when push came to shove.  SafetySync is progressive and user friendly and will go a long way in preventing hair loss for OHS professionals that decide to start administering their OHS management system electronically.  

I am very excited to stay tuned to the continuous improvement of the SafetySync software and to contribute to one of the best OHS blogs that the internet has to offer.