Friday, May 3, 2024 
Friday, May 3, 2024
April 21, 2022
A new survey suggests almost 20 per cent of Canadian businesses do not offer safety and orientation programs that are legally required for new workers in much of the country — a finding one labour law expert calls “shocking” and evidence of “widespread lawbreaking.”
The research, conducted by Angus Reid and commissioned by Threads of Life, a group that advocates for workplace safety, reflects a reality Cynthia Kathleen “C.K.” DesGrosseilliers knows all too well.
Her brother Tim was killed by falling equipment while on the job in downtown Toronto five years ago. She’s been fighting to raise awareness about workplace safety ever since.
“Tim would say that we need employers and supervisors that make safety priority one,” the Toronto resident told CBC News.
DesGrosseilliers says she can point to three major factors that led to his death: he was assigned the job at the last minute, he wasn’t given a spotter while working and he didn’t have up-to-date training.
Her brother’s death is one of more than 3,800 that occurred in Canadian workplaces from 2017 to 2020, according to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada. DesGrosseilliers, who’s a member of Threads of Life, says the results show many employers still need to be held accountable so new workers don’t meet her brother’s fate.
“I think he would think of his nephews and nieces and he would think they deserved all the support that they can be given,” said DesGrosseilliers.
“It really is the most important thing for people to come home at the end of the day.”
The survey was conducted from March 23 to 25 with hiring managers at 545 companies who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. The poll has a comparable margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
A total of 102 of those managers said their companies offer no orientation, onboarding, safety, emergency, hazard or illness and injury protocol training. Companies that have 29 employees and under make up 52 per cent of the firms that had none of these programs in place.
Shirley Hickman, the executive director of Threads of Life, says her group wanted to understand how businesses are approaching workers’ safety and hiring after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
