Ontario to Crack Down on Workplace Safety Violators

I was doing quite a bit of research last week on occupational health and safety issues and I came across this promising-looking provincial government announcement.

The Ontario government has made it its goal to reduce workplace injuries in Ontario by 20 per cent or 60,000 injuries by 2008 by going after the province's most dangerous workplaces. The government is hiring more safety inspectors and will give repeat offenders one "last chance" to improve their safety records.

The top 10 per cent of workplaces are estimated to be responsible for some 40 per cent of all injuries and costs incurred. The "worst offenders", the 6,000 businesses in the top 2 per cent targeted by the recent initiative - account for 21 per cent of all injury costs in Ontario.

The estimated annual cost to the Ontario economy of workplace injuries is $12 billion, factoring in lost productivity, retraining and rehiring, equipment damage and occupational health and safety insurance expenses.