Canadian Safety Reporter

CSR | August 2014 | News Published 12 times a year by thomson reuters canada ltd. Subscription rate: $129 per year customer service Tel: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5106 E-mail: carswell.customerrelations @thomsonreuters.com Website: www.carswell.com One Corporate plaza 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1T 3V4 Director, Carswell Media karen lorimer Publisher John hobel (on leave) Acting Publisher/Managing Editor todd humber Contributing Editors liz Foster (416) 298 5129 liz.foster@thomsonreuters.com sabrina nanji (416) 649-9348 sabrina.nanji@thomsonreuters.com Marketing Manager mohammad ali mm.ali@thomsonreuters.com (416) 609-5866 Circulation Co-ordinator keith Fulford keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com (416) 649-9585 Safety Reporter Canadian www.safetyreporter.com ©2014 thomson Reuters Canada ltd ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-7798-2810-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher (Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business). Canadian Safety Reporter is part of the Canadian HR Reporter group of publications: • Canadian hR Reporter — www.hrreporter.com • Canadian Occupational Safety magazine — www.cos-mag.com • Canadian payroll Reporter — www.payroll-reporter.com • Canadian Employment law today — www.employmentlawtoday.com • Canadian labour Reporter — www.labour-reporter.com See carswell.com for information every three years. the new training standard only recently came under the jurisdiction of the Mol and the occupational Health and safety act — previously it was admin- istered by the Workplace safety and insurance Board. since it's been almost two de- cades since the mandate was up- dated, the changes are a long time coming, said lisa McCaskell, se- nior health and safety officer at the ontario Public service em- ployees' Union, who added only time will tell if the changes will give teeth to health and safety strategies in the province. "it's a good thing that the gov- ernment is looking at it and has finally put some meat on the bones of the standard," she said. "But if employers aren't commit- ted to seeing health and safety laws made live in the workplace, i'm not sure how much training will make a difference. We really need to see that commitment — employers living up to their re- sponsibilities." Prevention tactics need to be beefed up, said McCaskell, pointing to the aCe model — as- sess, control and evaluate a situ- ation — outlined in the current standard. she said she would like to see a mechanism built in, especially for those in industrial workplaces, where new chemicals and mate- rials are always being used. "(the standard) doesn't men- tion the precautionary principle at all. that's a principle that ba- sically says that, even in the ab- sence of complete evidence, if there's an idea that there could be harm, precautionary mea- sures will be taken to reduce or avoid exposures to whatever that harm may be," said McCaskell. the timing for the update couldn't be better, according to Gerry Culina, manager of gen- eral health and safety services at the Canadian Centre for occu- pational Health and safety, who pointed to a new demographic. "More and more young people are becoming more and more aware about health and safety and asking questions about it. We have a more informed audi- ence," he said. Blended learning — a new trend for jHsCs — uses elec- tronic learning modules for the first time, which provides train- ing for those who didn't have ac- cess to it before. "it's been so necessary for those remote areas and those with restricted dollars. We can train so many more people that would have never have received training at all. Because it wasn't the course that was expensive but the travel and accommoda- tion, the time away," said Culina. "now, employers are saying, 'for a small fee, i could get an employee trained.'" Balancing act When management and work- ers come together, there may be apprehensions and a butting of heads, said julien. for workers, it is common to be concerned about any possible repercussions or reprisals from management for speaking up about potential hazards. simi- larly, management-side repre- sentatives could worry about li- abilities if they miss a hazard or if an injury occurs on the job. But by bringing both sides together in a committee, these gaps may be bridged, said julien. "Committees are key in that they help build the culture, they help get people in a room togeth- er from the various sides and say, 'listen, we're in it together, we're going to look at this together be- cause all of us want people to go home safe at night.'" To participate in a focus group, email the labour ministry at mol. trainingprograms@ontario.ca. JHSC < pg. 1 Mandatory refresher training every 3 years community members — who- ever wants to take it." Stigma reduction there's already been a strong uptake of mental health first aid training in the north, said reid, and most community members are very aware the training is available. one of the critical benefits of the training had been a real re- duction in stigma around mental health issues, she said. "from an evidence-based perspective, the course does three things. one is (to) improve mental health literacy among participants. one is to decrease stigma… that means decreasing social distance between some- one who has taken mental health first aid and someone with men- tal illness. and an increase in helping behaviours is a third outcome of mental health first aid training," said reid, adding the commission is also working on training adaptations for first nations Peoples, inuit Peoples and seniors. this training is an important component of overall health be- cause it helps spark a dialogue around mental health, said Chorostkowski. "(it) helps open the conversa- tion about mental health and mental illness," she said. "there can be a lot of stigma and a lot of fear around men- tal illness, and having a course like this helps to overcome that stigma and reduce that stigma. and the reason that that is really key and really important is that stigma can definitely be a bar- rier to people accessing services, which obviously impacts their long-term outcome. "it's really important to open the conversation, let people know how to have those con- versations in safe and support- ive ways, so they can get people connected with resources which will improve their longer-term outcomes." MENTAL HEALTH < pg. 3 Decreasing social distance, reducing stigma

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