'We're not seeing the truth': Inside the hidden dangers of the Canadian workplace

TheGlobeAndMail.com
Oct. 30, 2017
Tavia Grant

Unlike Australia, Britain and the United States, Canada does not have a national database of on-the-job fatality rates, Tavia Grant writes. Without such information, which can yield valuable preventive measures, is enough being done to protect the workers who needlessly risk their lives, or the families that grieve their avoidable loss?
Just this month, a contract worker in the oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alta., died when he was buried while digging a trench; a subway-track maintenance worker with the Toronto Transit Commission died after he was pinned between two vehicles; and three workers died in an ammonia leak at a B.C. hockey arena.

Such on-the-job deaths are often treated as scattered, isolated incidents. But researchers say better data could help reveal patterns in these tragedies, or indicate whether some industries have systemic problems.

Canada has no national source of information on the rate of on-the-job deaths. The researchers say this is a glaring omission and stands in contrast to countries such as Australia, the United States and Britain, which regularly produce reports on the risks facing workers and make them publicly available.

Data on rates of worker fatalities and injuries yield crucial insights, and can help in prevention. They allow comparisons between industries, and over time. They let safety experts propose measures to reduce the toll. They allow better assessment of safety standards and can improve safety training.

A project The Globe and Mail conducted with assistance from Statistics Canada shows the five jobs with the highest fatality rate are chainsaw and skidder operators (including felling trees), fishing deckhand, pilot and flying instructor, forestry labourer and fisherman.

The Globe used national data from the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC) on accepted fatality claims to get an estimate for deaths by occupation, and compared that with employee counts in Statistics Canada's labour force survey to arrive at a fatality rate.

Regular and up-to-date national data on the rate of workplace deaths would help labour inspectors target efforts to where the need is the greatest. And allow prevention programs to be aimed at the most dangerous sectors.

The AWCBC has some data on national fatality numbers, but details on deaths by occupation or long-term trends in Canada are available only by request, for a fee. The association produces absolute numbers – how many workers die each year – but does not calculate the rates, which would show proportionately where risk is the highest.

"Monitoring occupational traumatic fatalities by the use of rates would be a preferable national information standard," said Cameron Mustard, president and senior scientist at the Institute for Work and Health, adding that when expressed as a rate, "the hazardous nature of the work is much more visible."

In Canada, says Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, "If you don't have access to the data, how do you target prevention and enforcement at the same time. That's been a constant struggle we're having."

The government body Safe Work Australia (SWA) produces comprehensive statistics each year, including fatality rates over time, and by age, sex, industry, occupation and state.

Using rates takes into account the number of employees in each group "and therefore standardizes the figures so that they can be compared to one another," SWA said in an e-mail to The Globe.

Its database uses numbers from workers' compensation programs and coroner's reports. Fatality counts are tracked and posted in real time. The data are publicly available for free.

The insights give clarity on how deaths occur, and can drive evidence-based policy decisions on protections for workers. For example, rates have helped identify industries, such as agriculture, on which to focus prevention efforts.

The United States publishes an annual census of fatal occupational injuries that shows how risk has changed in various jobs over time, along with details on death rates by ethnicity and job status, such as contracted workers.

Britain publishes annual rates of worker fatalities that show 20-year trends and includes whether they were self-employed or salaried.

The provincial patchwork

That's not the case in Canada. Some provinces produce detailed data that sometimes include fatality and injury rates.

One reason for the patchy numbers is that most workplace issues fall under provincial jurisdiction – each province has a different way of collecting and counting worker injuries and deaths.

"Comprehensive statistics about injury and fatalities would be useful in getting a better sense of where injury prevention efforts should be directed, and it would also give us a sense of the effectiveness of those efforts," said Bob Barnetson, professor of labour relations at Athabasca University in Alberta.

"It's really difficult to get a sense of what's happening, and then if you intervene, how effective that intervention was," Prof. Barnetson said.

He is co-author of a study published last year on workplace injuries and deaths in Alberta. It recommended better statistics – and that provinces publish an annual list of "worst-performing" employers that shows which ones have repeated health and safety violations, high injury rates and complaints.

Even the available data may not tell the full story. Research has shown that some injuries and fatalities are not recorded in workers' compensation numbers, for reasons ranging from fear of reporting injuries to employers, to deaths that are not covered by the program.

'Somebody should have known'

One worker dies on the job, on average, nearly every day in Canada, according to the AWCBC. Add the cancers and longer-term illnesses from occupational exposure, and the number climbs to nearly 1,000.

"I don't think people generally have an appreciation of just how dangerous work is," said Steven Bittle, associate professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, who is working on a project to estimate the actual number of people who are killed at work each year, beyond the workers' compensation numbers.

On-the-job deaths often have legal implications, he added. "You can't call these things accidents. People knew or should have known, or were required to know, and nothing was done about it and the consequence is that somebody died."

A 2015 study in B.C. found that workers' compensation data did not capture all of the worker fatalities in the province. The study, co-authored by Mieke Koehoorn of the University of British Columbia, looked at coroner's reports and hospital records and found injuries and fatalities that were not recorded by the provincial board – particularly in natural resources (such as fishing and farming).

It said that multiple data sources are needed to show the full burden of occupational deaths in Canada, and recommended national codes for classifying deaths and their causes, and that jurisdictions share information "for the public good."

Other Canadian studies have found that up to 40 per cent of eligible injury claims are not reported to workers' comp boards, said Sean Tucker, associate professor of human-resources management at the University of Regina.

As a result, workplaces seem safer than they actually are, said Prof. Tucker, whose paper this year found Saskatchewan is the province with the highest death rate.

What does it take to change?

For Shirley Hickman, each fatality number represents an avoidable death, with grieving spouses, children and friends left behind.

In 1996, her 20-year-old son Tim went to work and didn't come home. She got a call saying he had been injured at work at the city hockey arena. She rushed to the hospital in London, Ont., where she saw firefighters desperately pouring saline over burns he had suffered in an explosion.

Ten days later, Tim died.

She channelled the grief and outrage into co-founding an organization called Threads of Life, which supports families after a workplace fatality, life-altering injury or occupational disease. It was a first for Canada, and the world, she says.

Although the number of injuries a year in Canada has fallen, fatality numbers remain high despite years of education and more awareness, said Ms. Hickman, whose organization supports 2,700 families.

"So what does it take," she said, adding that she would like to see more detailed data to get a sense of "what is the cause and what is the root cause."

Better data could save lives, Mr. Yussuff says.

"No one should go to work to lose their lives," he says. "People go to work to earn a living."