There are diverse and significant occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards in Canada and globally, as well as high rates of injuries relative to national/provincial averages. In Canada, occupational health and safety is regulated primarily at the provincial/territorial level and is broadly based on an internal responsibility system that requires the development of company-level health and safety management plans and encompasses workers’ right to know, to participate in health and safety decision making and to refuse unsafe work. Most injured workers have access to workers compensation benefits funded by compensation premiums paid by employers, which also pay for inspection and prevention programs. Workplace deficiencies identified in inspections can result in orders and potential financial and legal penalties including, in rare cases, criminal prosecution. One way to explore potential strengths and weaknesses in this system is to compare source and type of injury for the marine aquaculture sector documented in compensation claims data with targeted deficiencies reported by inspectors and the main regulations cited by inspectors relative to the full envelope of regulatory options available to them. This presentation discusses findings from an analysis of claims data, inspection results and health and safety regulations in three Canadian provinces with marine aquaculture industries: Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick on Canada’s east coast and British Columbia on the west coast.
Objective and research questions: The objective of this research is to identify overlaps and gaps between each of these elements of the aquaculture health and safety system in order to identify potential ways to improve the effectiveness of provincial health and safety systems in detecting hazards and reducing injury risk. The research questions are:
Methods: A desktop review of health and safety regulations in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and British Columbia; analysis and comparison of inspection results across the three provinces with: a) the regulatory scope available to inspectors to identify overlapping areas of focus and gaps; and b) information in provincial injury compensation claims on source and nature of injury data to explore the fit between injury patterns and inspection outcomes.
Findings: Compensation claims data for marine aquaculture indicate higher than average injury rates across all three provinces, along with similarities in the nature and source of injury. Information on source of injury is, however, unspecified in some of these data (i.e. New Brunswick) for up to one-third of injuries. There are both similarities and differences in inspection outcomes across the three provinces that may partly reflect the different histories of the industries. Inspections and deficiency reports tend to focus largely on deficiencies in physical infrastructure, training and in meeting formal health and safety system regulatory requirements. Relative to sources of injury in claims data, inspection reports have relatively little to say about deficiencies in on the water operations and about hazards associated with working on the water and hazards that might contribute to the high rate of soft tissue injuries in the sector. Compensation claims data potentially under-report hazards and injuries related to diving and some other activities captured in inspection reports.