Canadian Occupational Safety

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Canadian Occupational Safety is published six times yearly by HAB Press, 312 Adelaide Street West Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5V 1R2 www.cos-mag.com Issue dates are February/March, April/May, June/July, August/September, October/November, December/January. Subscription price: Canada: $69 plus tax; US: $69,International: $96 Canadian Occupational Safety makes every effort to ensure accuracy in all items reported, but cannot accept responsibility for the representations or claims made by sources used. It is also not responsible for claims made by its advertisers. Readers' Choice Awards The winners of our fourth annual Readers' Choice Awards will be revealed in the August/September issue. Find out who COS readers chose as their favourite personal protective equipment suppliers, health and safety consultants, trainers, educational institutions and much more. Thank you to everyone who voted! www.cos-mag.com/readerschoice2019 Celebrating safety superheroes The deadline has come and gone, and we are no longer looking far and wide for the superheroes of safety. Our judges are hard at work reviewing the nominations. Celebrate with us and all the winners at the ninth annual Canada's Safest Employers gala dinner and awards presentation in Toronto on Oct. 22. www.safestemployers.com Safety Leader of the Year The nationwide search for the most outstanding safety professional is on. The winner will grace the cover of the December/January issue of COS and star in an exclusive video. Nominations close June 28. www.cos-mag.com/safety-leader Follow us: @cosmagazine Join our group: Canadian Occupational Safety Subscribe: Canadian Occupational Safety Health&Safety Q&A How do I handle a critical injury in the workplace? Norm Keith, partner at Fasken in Toronto, answers this question from a COS reader and offers his step-by-step advice. www.cos-mag.com/HSQAcriticalinjury Ontario MOL priorities Peter Augruso, assistant deputy minister at the Ontario Ministry of Labour, reveals what his health and safety inspectors will be focusing on this fiscal year. www.cos-mag.com/MOLpriorities2019 EDITOR Amanda Silliker amanda.silliker@habpress.ca 416-649-9502 ASSOCIATE EDITOR - VIDEOGRAPHER Alexia Kapralos ART DIRECTOR Steve Maver PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR Jacqueline D'Souza jacqueline.d'souza@habpress.ca 416-298-5144 ADVERTISING: SALES MANAGER Paul Burton paul.burton@habpress.ca 416-649-9928 CIRCULATION CO-ORDINATOR Keith Fulford keith.fulford@habpress.ca 416-649-9585 COLUMNISTS Legal Cheryl A. Edwards Cathy Chandler Professional Development Glyn Jones Safety Culture Dave Fennell CUSTOMER SERVICE Tel. 416-609-3800 (Toronto)/ 1-800-387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax 416-298-5082 (Toronto)/ 1-877-750-9041 (outside Toronto) customersupport.legaltaxcanada@tr.com CANADIAN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY'S EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Guy Chenard, CRSP, C.E.T. Safety Consultant Dave Gouthro, CRSP, CHSC, CHSO Occupational Health & Safety Consulting David Johnston, CRSP Director, EHS, Toronto Hydro-Electric System Ltd. Eldeen Pozniak, CHSC, CHSMSA, CRSP, Director, Pozniak Safety Associates Inc. Laura Rourke, CRSP, Peng, TSRP EHSS manager, Tigercat Industries Dan Strand, CRSP, CIH, ROH Director, Prevention Field Services, WorkSafeBC AMANDA SILLIKER FROM THE EDITOR visit us online cos-mag.com CANADIAN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY JUNE/JULY 2019 ON NOW LATEST VIDEOS Printed in 3 2019 JUNE/JULY 2 0 1 9 READERS' CHOICE C A T E G O R Y COMING UP Protecting the backbone S mall businesses are regularly touted as the backbone of the economy. In Canada, 1.12 million workplaces employ fewer than 50 employees, and employers with fewer than 100 workers contribute an average of 30 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of their respective province. But, health and safety is not necessarily their forte. According to the Ontario Ministry of Labour, small businesses typically have one workplace incident every nine years. This means that safety might not be their top priority simply because they don't encounter many major problems. A small business owner is constantly wearing many hats and sometimes their hard hat gets left at the door. Many research papers have found that workplace injury and fatality rates tend to be higher in small businesses than large ones. This month's cover story (page 22) looks at how we can reverse this trend. If small businesses truly are the backbone of the economy, then we need to make sure workers are not being hurt or falling ill at these organizations. Of course not all small businesses are created equal — some truly do have safety at the top of their list and have even won awards to prove it. Some great ideas that small businesses have put in place to keep safety top of mind include: finding an employee to be a safety champion, sharing costs with other small businesses and providing feedback to government when new legislation is being proposed. I was encouraged to hear about an initiative of the Ontario Ministry of Labour to help get small businesses acquainted with health and safety. It is hiring summer students who will visit 10,000 small businesses across the province to give them an information package, administer a short survey and answer any questions they may have. The non-confrontational nature of the students helps small business owners open up and feel more comfortable. Perhaps this is something other jurisdictions might want to model. The topic of cheating is nothing new. Students have been writing answers on their legs and sneaking a peak at their neighbour's test forever. But with the advent of online learning, it's much easier for students to get away with it. While I knew cheating was an issue in colleges and universities, I had no idea it was an issue for health and safety training until I met the folks at Learner Verified at a conference last year. They gave me the rundown of how much of an issue this is and instantly I was terrified for health and safety professionals. You are looking at credentials of your workers and assuming they are legitimate, when in fact, they very well might not be. Then, that person is on your work site completing high-risk work, ultimately putting themselves, other workers and the company's reputation in danger. We dive into this topic and speak to experts in our feature story on page 16. Please let this serve as a wake-up call to be as diligent as possible with credentials. When workers come to your site, don't just take their credentials for face value — do as much background checking as you can. The good news is when you are offering training to your workers, there is technology available so you can rest assured that your workers are actually the ones completing the training. I strongly suggest taking a hard look at these offerings and weighing their cost against the cost of a serious workplace incident caused by a worker you thought was properly trained, but when, in fact, his friend completed the course for him. Also in this issue, legal columnist Cheryl Edwards explains why she believes high fines and jail time do not improve health and safety (page 12), Linda Johnson looks at the pros and cons of exoskeletons and examines Ford Motor Company's experience with the devices (page 20) and two new electrical safety standards are explained on page 18 — a must-read for any company whose workers wear FR clothing.

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