LAWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

OHS Enforcement 

Feb 2: The Alberta Labour Relations Board revised and clarified its rules, procedures, and timelines for hearing and deciding OHS appeals of administrative monetary penalties, fines, work refusals, stop-work, and other enforcement orders.   

Occupational Injury 

Jan 15: The Alberta WCB accepted 43,400 workers' comp claims for hand and wrist from 2019 to 2023, averaging 17 lost workdays and $7,717 per claim. Sprains, strains, and tears were the most common injury, accounting for 27% of claims. Food/convenience stores and restaurant/hotels generated the most claims with 6% each, followed by health services with 5%. 

Action Point: Find out how to prevent hand injuries and workers' comp claims by implementing a legally sound Hand and Wrist Protection Compliance Game Plan at your site. 

Incident Reporting 

Jan 15: Alberta issued updated FAQs guidance to help employers comply with their OHS duties to report potentially serious incidents to the government. PSIs, the guidance explains, are incidents that had a likelihood of causing serious injury or illness with reporting required when there's reasonable cause to believe that corrective actions may be necessary to prevent recurrence. 

Action Point: Find out how to implement a legally sound OHS Incident Reporting Compliance Game Plan at your site. 

Transportation Safety 

Apr 1: New Alberta regulations take effect requiring tow truck drivers to clearly communicate all towing and storage costs and secure consent before towing begins. Violations of the new anti-predatory towing rules may result in penalties ranging from $100,000 to $300,000, or up to two years in jail.  

Transportation Safety 

Jun 1: That's the deadline for Alberta companies to comply with new rules requiring commercial carriers to provide driver experience records for Class 1 tractor-trailer truck drivers operating vehicles of 11,794 or more kgs when they move to another job.  

Privacy 

Jan 14: The British Coulmbia Privacy Commission issued new guidance to help public bodies ensure that their uses of artificial intelligence, facial recognition and other high-tech surveillance systems comply with privacy laws. While designed for the public sector, the guidance can also help private companies implement legally sound practices for deploying body-worn cameras, dash cams, drones, fixed cameras, and other technologies.  

Action Point: Find out about the 11 ways you can use Artificial Intelligence to improve workplace safety and OHS compliance.  

Workplace Violence 

Mar 16: That's the deadline to apply for new Alberta Gender-Related Injury and Illness Prevention Program (GRIIPP) grants for research projects on gender-based factors that cause women to experience higher rates of workplace injury and illness, such as ill-fitting PPE and vulnerability to workplace violence and harassment. Roughly $1.8 million in GRIIP funding will be available from 2026 to 2028.   

Action Point: Domestic and sexual violence becomes an OHS compliance issue when it happens at the victim's workplace. That makes it imperative to incorporate domestic violence protections into your workplace violence prevention plan. Find out how to implement an effective Workplace Domestic Violence Prevention Plan to protect your own workers.  

Workers' Compensation 

Feb 28: February 28 is the last day for Alberta employers to submit their actual payroll and wages data from 2024 and projected figures for 2026 to the WCB to avoid potential penalties and late fees.   

Action Point: Find out how much each province and territory is charging for workers' compensation premiums in 2026. 

Environmental 

Jan 20: Newly effective Water Act exemptions allow farmers and ranchers to fill their dugouts up to 7,500 cubic metres, triple the previous limit, provided that the water is used for agricultural purposes. Other regulatory changes make it easier to use water for bridge, sign washing, and dust control, supply water to a temporary work camp, and access water from borrow pits on unoccupied public land in the Green Area.\ 

Environmental 

Feb 2: The federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency denied a joint request by Alberta and Saskatchewan that would have permitted emergency use of 2% liquid strychnine to manage Richardson's ground squirrels during the 2026 crop growing season. Richardson's ground squirrels are pests that feed on forage grasses, forage legumes, cereal crops, pulse crops, canola, and native grasses, causing potentially significant financial losses for agricultural producers. 

CASES

Fall Protection: Contractor With History of OHS Violations Can't Blame Victim for Fall Injury 

A framing contractor received a $1,000 administrative monetary penalty for failing to ensure adequate fall protection to workers at risk of falling 3 or more metres after a worker tripped over his rope and fell from a roof to the ground 7.1 metres below. We did everything we could to keep the worker safe, the contractor insisted, noting that the victim had just completed fall protection certification training, had three years' experience, and admitted to being at fault by leaving himself too much rope. But the OHS officer refused to revoke the penalty, especially since the contractor had received four different fall protection OHS orders in the past five years. The Alberta Labour Relations agreed that the penalty was warranted and dismissed the appeal. Although there was room for debate over blame for the most recent incident, it was reasonable for the officer to dish out a penalty for a fall protection violation given the contractor's recent history of noncompliance [C-Bros Contracting 2005 Ltd. v Occupational Health and Safety, 2026 ABOHSAB 1 (CanLII), January 21, 2026]. 

Action Point: Although the penalty in this case was only $1,000, courts and tribunals have relied on the same principles to justify OHS fines in the six figures. The takeaway is that blaming workers for OHS violations and injuries almost never works, especially when a company has a track record of violations. Use the OHSI Due Diligence Scorecard and accompanying Case Summaries to draw other important lessons that you can use to assess whether your own OHS program meets the standards of due diligence.  

OHS Enforcement: AMP Is Invalid at Private Home Where Owner Is the Sole Worker 

An OHS inspector visited a rural property made up of a small house and farmyard after being tipped off that the owner was employing workers for scrap metal recycling operations at the site. Upon arriving, the only person he saw at the site was the owner who was uncooperative and refused to answer questions about whether he was an employer or had workers at the site. After walking around and taking pictures of the scrap materials, appliances, and other items, he observed at the site, he issued the owner an Administrative Monetary Penalty for violating OHS laws requiring persons "at a work site" to provide proof of identify and names of workers at the site to an OHS inspector that requests it. The owner appealed, denying that he was an employer or that the property was a "work site" under the law. The Alberta Labour Relations Board agreed, citing the part of the law excepting "work in, to or around a private dwelling or any land used in connection with the dwelling that is performed by an occupant or owner who lives in the private dwelling" from the definition of "work site." And since there was no evidence of any workers being present at the site, the AMP was invalid [Peter v Occupational Health and Safety, 2025 ABOHSAB 26 (CanLII), December 16, 2025]. 

Action Point: Although it wasn't in this case, a home may be considered a "workplace" where OHS laws when a homeowner hires contractors or the worker telecommutes from home. Find out about employer OHS duties to protect telecommuters.   

Workplace Harassment: Use of "N" Word Is Just Cause to Terminate Without Progressive Discipline 

The union claimed it was excessive to fire a worker with 17 years of service and no disciplinary record for using the "n" word to refer to two black coworkers and later referring to another as a "monkey" without any progressive discipline. The union also claimed that workers commonly used vulgarity and racial slurs on the job. But the Alberta arbitrator didn't buy it saying there was no evidence that anybody else in the workplace using the "n" word or "monkeys," let alone that such usage was considered acceptable [Building Products of Canada Corp. v Unifor Union of Canada, Local 777, 2026 CanLII 2711 (AB GAA), January 5, 2026].    

Action Point: Find out how to implement an effective Workplace Violence and Harassment Compliance Game Plan at your site.