PAGE OCR 2 – April 2011 – The Ontario Construction Report New construction safety legislation introduced following Dean Report


Industry leaders reviewing changes based on concensus document


ANJA KARADEGLIJA – Special to The OCR Construction Report


The provincial government has introduced legislation following recommendations made by the Expert Advisory Panel on Occupational Health and Safety last December, in its report on workplace safety in Ontario. The panel, headed by Tony Dean, was established fol- lowing a tragic accident in which four workers died after falling off scaffolding on Christmas Eve in 2009. The legislation implements some of the main recom- mendations made in the report, including that responsibil- ity for prevention be transferred to the Ministry of Labour, and the creation of a “Prevention Council” and the position of a chief prevention executive under the Ministry of Labour.


“Bill 160 is really the enabling legislation for the Dean report. (The report) was a consensus document that stake- holders had put a lot of time into and what this legislation does is going to enable those recommendations to move ahead, so there were no real surprises there,” said David


Zurawel, the vice-president of policy and government re- lations at the Council of Ontario Construction Associa- tions.


Patrick Dillon, business manager and secretary treas- urer at the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, says that he’s reserving his judgment on the bill. “The legislation looks like it covers all the bases but… I really can’t give it a full thumbs up until I ac- tually see the full minutia of what it really means, and what their intent is with the legislation,” he said. The government has also created an interim prevention council in order to help implement the recommendations made in the report and recruit the new chief prevention of- ficer.


“A substantial number of them are from the advisory group that Dean had when he did the report in the first place so that would signal a good thing,” noted Dillon. The interim council is about ensuring continuity, Zu- rawel said, and agreed that appointing people familiar with the report was a good move on the government’s part. “We thought it was a good idea to provide some con-


sistency when things are still trying to get up and running,” he said. “I think they had the right idea by keeping the best people who know the process and know the recommenda- tions, and keeping them all involved until they can get the permanent body up and running and in place.” Clive Thurston, president of the Ontario General Con-


tractors Association, said that he understands why the gov- ernment appointed the interim council, but suggests that more guidance from the construction industry might be useful. “We think they can use a little bit more help, actually, and through the Construction Industry Task Force, we made a recommendation to the minister to suggest that ad- ditional advisory committees be put in place…particularly in construction, to help advise that group as it moves for- ward,” he said. “We believe we got a fair hearing and a good response from the minister.” Additionally, the industry is gearing up for some ini- tiatives of its own, and Thurston said he hopes to be able to make an announcement regarding these initiatives within the next month.


All three agree that the government has moved very quickly in response to the report. “You’ve got to remember that the Dean report wasn’t made public until December, so to take the Dean report and then start writing regulations and legislation and that kind of stuff, it’s a pretty big - it’s a monumental move, actually,” said Dillon. Thurston, however, had some concerns about how rap- idly the government has acted to implement the report. “That is an area of concern – there are still a lot of ques- tions that need to be answered in regard to how it’s going to be funded and everything else, and where the account- ability for that funding is going to lie,” he said. “Generally we believe that we’re moving in a good direction but, as al- ways, the devil is in the details.” One thing that shouldn’t fall by the wayside as the process continues is stakeholder consultation, the need for which hasn’t diminished, Zurawel said. He noted that the report specifically stated that the details of the recommen- dations need to be developed in full partnership with stake- holders.


“The government has moved to put working groups in place, to work on getting some of these recommendations implemented and in their hopes to move quickly we hope they will remember that they did commit to full stake- holder involvement and consultation and allowing for input,” he said. “The stakeholders, the people on the ground and employers and workers are the ones that live and work in this industry and they’re the ones that have, quite frankly, the most to gain and the most to lose if this is not done properly.”


Dillon said that finding the right person to work as the chief prevention officer will be an important part of the process that is underway. He was part of the WSIB com- mittee that did the search and hiring for the last prevention officer.


“I have an idea of what that takes and when we did that search, we did a world-wide search, and I think that’s one of the things that needs to be done here. We’ve got to get the right person to drive prevention and I hope…that’s what they’re looking for,” he said.


Dillon added that one potential area of controversy might be the pay the future prevention officer will receive. “It may be a difficult pill to swallow at this point, because the opposition parties are all preaching restraint, restraint,” he said.


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