Toronto, ON — Ontario is investing $12.5 million towards providing safety training and resources to businesses and workers. The investment will be spread across six health and safety associations to ensure workers return home safely from their jobs.
“Every worker in Ontario deserves to come home safely to their family at the end of their shift,” said Monte McNaughton, minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development. “In addition to recently introducing legislation to raise fines for occupational health and safety violations to the highest level in the country, our government will continue to invest in education, prevention and enforcement to ensure every worker in Ontario has the protections they deserve.”
The six health and safety associations that deliver workplace health programs include,
- Infrastructure Health and Safety Association
- Public Services Health and Safety Association
- Workplace Safety and Prevention Services
- Workplace Safety North
- Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers
- Workers Health and Safety Centre
These independent and not-for-profit associations helped deliver over 64,000 training sessions in 2022, according to the provincial government.
The recent investment is another step taken by the province to ensure workers have safe working conditions. In April 2023, the Ontario government announced it would conduct inspection blitzes in the construction sector as part of its 2023-24 Construction Safety Campaigns.
Ontario has also updated its mandatory working at heights training standards, as this is one of the leading causes of workplace deaths in the construction industry.
The provincial government states that over one million workers have completed this training since the inception of the working at heights training program. Working at heights training providers have until April 1, 2024, to update their programs and ensure they fulfill the requirements of the revised working at heights training program and training provider standards.