Occupational Health and Safety in Canada, Regulatory Reform, and Employer Response: An Overview of Past, Present, and Future Concerns

From the perspective of what has been successful, this paper provides an overview of occupational health and safety regulatory reform in Canada. It begins with a review of the past enabling legislation and the employer response. Both workers? compensation and occupational health and safety are reviewed. It then examines for the present some current enforcement strategies and the case of GM Canada as an employer that has gone beyond such an administrative managerial approach to develop a culture of safety. From a soft law or incentive perspective the current controversy of experience rating is also critically assessed. With regards to the future the paper argues that globalization is eroding the socio-economic conditions that gave rise to this regulatory schema. Issues such as atypical work, the increase in white collar jobs, and the use of temporary foreign workers will require unique regulatory responses that are only beginning to be developed.