Month In Review – Nunavut

LAWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Incident Reporting

Jul 18: Nunavut employers required to report incidents, injuries or dangerous occurrences to WSCC within 3 days, must submit their Employer’s Report of Incident, Injury, and Fatality on WSCC Connect. If a worker was injured or fatally injured, the system will automatically direct you to the updated Injury and Fatality Section.

Action Point: Use the OHS Insider policy template to create a legally sound incident investigation and reporting policy for your workplace.

New Laws

Jul 28: Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a new Territorial Trade Zone, a kind of Northern Common Market through which goods, services and labour will flow freely. Among other things, the territories will create a shared credential registry allowing qualified professionals to ply their trade in all 3 territories.

Infectious Illness

Aug 6: The outbreak of whooping cough (pertussis) declared in Iqaluit declared on June 20 has ended, the GN reported. The pertussis outbreak in Arctic Bay declared on July 25 remains ongoing. Pertussis is a respiratory disease of the throat and lungs that spreads very easily from person to person, but is preventable via immunization.

Action Point: Find out how to use the OHS Insider Infection Exposure Control Plan template to guard against pertussis, measles, COVID, and other potential infectious illness outbreaks at your workplace.

New Laws

Sep 8: That’s the deadline for non-profits and for-profits that offer services to help employers in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut improve workplace safety and comply with OHS laws to apply for the WSCC’s OHS Funding Program. Applicants can request funding of $5,000 to $250,000 per project.

Training

Jul 25: Applications are now open for a new federal government, GN and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated on-the-job training certificate program to provide training for Nunavut Inuit interested in Devolution-related employment. The Namminiqsurniq Professional Project Administrator Program for Devolution will provide 12 Nunavut Inuit with full-time, indeterminate employment, which includes paid training and housing benefits. Program participants will spend 7 months as full-time learners followed by 9 months as employees undergoing on-the-job training in the Nunavut Regional Office building for positions responsible for the management and stewardship of lands, waters, and resources in Nunavut.