The new workplace safety strategy for Saskatchewan is adding psychological injury as a priority area.
The new workplace safety strategy for Saskatchewan is putting a focus on mental health and compliance enforcement, to help the province reach Mission Zero on workplace injuries.
A new five-year strategy was released on Monday, outlining the plan to address workplace fatalities and serious injuries in Saskatchewan from 2023-2028.
“It’s a matter of recognizing that the workers need support and the support can exist,” said Don Morgan, minister of labour relations and workplace safety, at the announcement.
In the new strategy, healthcare, transportation and construction will be key industries of focus as those select three have the highest injury rates, said Morgan.
Targets include reducing the number of serious injuries and fatalities in Saskatchewan workplaces and increasing the open dialogue with employers, employees and labour groups.
“This is a continuation of a lot of the things that we’re working on, in the same way,” Morgan said.
“We want to focus on education, training and making workers aware of what their rights are, as well as making sure that we’re doing everything we need to do on the enforcement and prosecution side,” he said,
Morgan said in the wake of the first introduction of a safety strategy, the province’s injury rate fell to 4.56 per cent from 4.9 per cent.
“That’s not nearly enough,” he added.
Healthcare and transportation as industries accounted for 29 per cent of all serious injuries in the province between 2010 and 2021. Construction equated to 51 per cent of fatalities from occupational diseases in the same time frame.
Inspections were a priority outlined in the 2019-2021 strategy, and Morgan said the new strategy is looking at more “targeted” inspections for employers with repeat violations.
Resources are also to be increased for the prosecutorial arm of the ministry, for legal enforcement.
New to this strategy is also a focus on preventing psychological injury, including harassment. Mental health is named in the strategy as one of the common issues affecting most Saskatchewan workplaces.
“Not many people were comfortable reporting prior to the legislative change and since then, we’ve seen a steady increase,” he said.
Most recent data shows that the WCB accepted 238 mental health-related claims in 2021, up from 174 five years earlier in 2017, and Germain said the average claim cites around 70 days of lost work.
A psychological injuries unit was specially created within WCB to handle these types of claims.
Germain said part of that work includes connecting workers with a psychological professional, and coordinating with outside organizations to do a “warm hand-off” for those whose claims aren’t accepted.
“That is, to make sure the person isn’t just dropped from the system, especially if they’ve got a psychological injury that can be very damaging,” he said.
University of Regina professor of occupational health and safety Sean Tucker said this is a good step for Saskatchewan.
“There is strong agreement that we need to take more action to address the number of fatalities and serious injuries in Saskatchewan,” he said.
“And, we need to take the energy that we dedicate to preventing physical injuries and focus on the psychological injuries as well.”
Tucker was one of the 300 stakeholders consulted during the development of the strategy, alongside industry partners, labour organizations and community members. He sees this provincial strategy as a way to pinpoint problem areas.
“What it does is it brings visibility and awareness to the problem, and it also focuses our attention,” he said.
He said pushing enforcement, and even pursuing increasing the max on fines, is a valuable tool to ensure compliance.
“Getting inspected, a notice of contravention, prosecutions even can send a strong deterrence message to employers and sectors that they need to do better.”
Saskatchewan has some of the highest maximum penalties for workplace injury litigations in Canada, capped at $1.5 million for corporations and $500,000 for individuals.
“Where I think we have work to do, in my opinion, is getting the prosecutions for higher fines,” Tucker said. “I don’t think that sends a strong enough deterrence message to some employers who don’t take the responsibility seriously.”
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