Canadian Safety Reporter

JANUARY 2014 New prosecutor on the way Continued from page 1 worker safety. "The primary responsibility for workplace safety does have to lie with the workplace," he said. "The government's role is a regulatory and leadership role. It can't, and in fact shouldn't try, to manage. Everyone has a role to play." Kelly Regan, minister of labour and advanced education, is taking the OHS role her department plays seriously. "We are already addressing a number of them right off the bat," Regan said of the report's recommendations. She said issues regarding compliance are being considered the most urgent, with the department going so far as to hire five new safety officers in an effort to make inspections more targeted. "We're also in negotiations with the public prosecution service to add an additional prosecutor to our roster," she said. "We want everybody in the workplace to be thinking about safety every day. We want people going home to their loved ones at night." The province also recently launched a five-year workplace safety strategy. The new strategy — developed in partnership with the WCB — aims to make Nova Scotia the safest place for workers in Canada. John Brookfield, the health and safety representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Nova Scotia, said safety campaigns need to focus on employees if they want to be successful. "Of course, the government and employers need to play a role," Brookfield said. "But any truly successful attempt is going to have to also involve the workers in a workplace, whether they're unionized or not. The workers often are far more aware of the hazards that are faced on the day-to-day in the workplace than the employer and government enforcers." He agreed with Lapointe's recommendation that the procedures surrounding inspections need to be more methodical. He went on to say the department needs to be methodical in its pledge to pursue criminal charges for occupational health and safety accidents, sending a clear message to employers. More than anything, Brookfield said, the focus needs to be on prevention. "We want to see that there's a robust approach to prevention on the whole across the entire province. It's not just the catastrophic accidents — the ones that make headlines — that Nova Scotia workers are suffering from," Brookfield said. "We want to make sure that every worker in Nova Scotia has the opportunity to go home whole at the end of each and every working day." AUDITOR'S REPORT: 16 OHS recommendations The auditor made the following recommendations for the Department of Labour and Advanced Education: • establish inspection targets for OHS division to ensure staff focus on higher-risk industries • evaluate inspection results against annual plans to determine if targets were met • better communication between the department, Nova Scotia Business Registry and the WCB so information on new businesses can be obtained regularly • develop and implement inspection checklists • have recipients sign inspection reports as an acknowledgment of receipts of the reports and related orders • require evidence of compliance with orders for violations that pose serious health and safety risks • monitor, and ensure approval is obtained and documented in the files, for extensions to compliance order dates greater than 60 days • comply with policy concerning manager review of investigations • comply with policy so two officers attend the preliminary investigation of a workplace fatality • develop and implement policies and procedures that provide guidance to inspectors on follow up and enforcement of outstanding orders • establish a complaint logging and tracking system to ensure all complaints are recorded and investigated in a timely manner • develop and implement performance standards for response times to incidents and complaints • monitor whether inspectors are updating the activity of information system as frequently as required • use a time tracking system to develop performance standards for planning and monitoring • review system information capabilities to determine what information should be collected in order to fully utilize the system for analysis and decision-making • implement a file review process for inspection and investigation files that include documentation of the review and sign off by the manager. 8 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2014 www.safety-reporter.com Published 12 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. 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