Category Archives: General
Public Rail Safety Week – April 30 to May 6, 2012
I just received an email from my friend Rob Mclean from Operation Lifesaver. Some of you might recall my post from last year on the same topic where Rob had provided me with some important information about rail crossing safety in Canada.
Rob emailed me to let me know about Public Rail Safety Week 2012 and that it was coming up this week (April 30 to May 6, 2012). He shared some startling statistics:
- Railway crossing accidents are up 25% in the first three months of 2012
- These accidents have resulted in an increase in injuries of 88% and an increase in fatalities of 20%
- Causes include illegal trespassing on rail property and negligence at highway/railway crossings
For more information about Public Rail Safety Week 2012 and the results of Operation Lifesaver’s Off The Rails Safety Contest please download the press releases below:
Please take the time to check out Public Rail Safety Week and cause rail safety to happen in your community….Andrew…a Canadian Safety Guy
April 28 Day of Mourning Resources for 2012
I thought it might be helpful to post some Canadian web resources on the Day of Mourning for 2012. Please check them out below:
- Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety
- Threads of Life
- Canada – Human Resources and Skills Development
- Canada – Department of Justice – Workers Mourning Day Act
- Canadian Labour Congress
- WorkSafe BC
- Alberta WCB
- Saskatchewan Labour Relations & Workplace Safety
- Ontario Worker’s Health and Safety Centre
- SafeWork Manitoba
- Ontario Ministry of Labour
- Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board
- WorkSafeNB
- Day of Mourning Nova Scotia
- Prince Edward Island
Please take moment on April 28th to remember those workers who have been killed, injured or become ill as a result of their work and cause safety to happen in your workplace…..Andrew….a Canadian Safety Guy
Steps for Life
Check out this link for more information about upcoming Steps for Life events in communities across Canada! What a great way to be involved in NAOSH Week!
Workplace Deaths in Canada – Projected to 2020
A couple of days ago I posted an updated graphic of Canada’s workplace fatalities to 2010. This information was gathered from data aggregated from each province’s workers’ compensation board and is available on the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada website.
There is normally a one to two year lag in the data as each WCB has to finalize their records on each fatality to determine the accepted cases. This suggests that there are a number of cases where, for a variety of reasons, the fatalities were not accepted and therefore were not reported as arising from workplace causes.
When I first started graphing this data using a popular spreadsheet, I was interested to see where this was trending. Fortunately, the spreadsheet I was using had the ability to trend the data. When I updated the graph a few days ago I noticed that there was another feature that would allow you to project the graph forward – hence the posted graphic today.
I’m not sure how scientific the trending function is, but the result is rather sobering – a steady rise in the number of workplace deaths in Canada to almost 1200 by 2020. Are we getting better at counting? Are we doing a better job of recognizing the toll of occupational disease? Are we experiencing a lack of control of high consequence, low probability risks? Is it a combination of these things and other factors? I think we need to explore the answers to these questions and start working on changing these numbers.
April 28th is coming soon and we owe it to our working colleagues, their families and communities to do something about this.
Change the trend line on workplace deaths….cause safety to happen in your workplace….Andrew…a Canadian Safety Guy.
Update – Canadian Workplace Deaths from 1999 to 2010
I recently posted some updated Canadian workplace fatality numbers in the comments section of my previous post – Workplace Deaths in Canada 1999 to 2008. I thought that it would be good to go back and update the graph to reflect the 939 deaths in 2009 and the 1014 deaths in 2010. As I noted in the previous post the trend line has a positive slope. In the next day or so, I’ll post another graphic that will show where we’ll be in 2020 (assuming the slope of the trend line remains the same).
We need to ensure that all Canadian workers come home to their families at the end of the work day. So please, cause safety to happen in your workplace….Andrew…a Canadian Safety Guy
