LAWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Inspections

Sep 17: The Ontario Ministry of Labour is beefing up OHS enforcement in the construction sector by hiring 17 new inspectors.

Action Point: Find out how to implement an OHS inspections policy in case MOL inspectors show up at your door.

Industry Challenges

Sep 26: Ontario announced that it plans to invest an additional $30 million to support the province’s forestry businesses and the workers and communities that depend on them. The extra money, including $20 million via the Provincial Forest Access Roads Funding Program and $10 million from the Ontario Sawmill Chip Support Program, is in response to the increase in U.S. softwood lumber duties and threat of tariffs.

Action Point: Find out about how tariffs will affect your OHS program.

Industry Challenges

Oct 17: Ontario is proposing to amend the Building Code to require occupancy permits for non-rental residential buildings, including stacked townhouses, when a builder elects to defer Development Charges including buildings that are completed but not yet occupied and may not currently require an occupancy permit. Occupancy permits may not be issued unless and until the municipality confirms that the deferred DCs have been paid in full and that all life‑safety construction requirements have been met.

Training

Sep 18: Ontario will invest $1.5 million through the Skills Development Fund (SDF) Training Stream to help 100 experienced construction workers become mentors and train others in emerging home construction technologies. Once trained, mentors will be matched with “mentees,” including recent graduates and those at risk of job displacement, seeking to complete up to 2 credentials in high-demand areas such as resilient construction and radon mitigation.

Action Point: Find out about OHS training record and retention requirements across Canada.

Workers’ Comp

Sep 26: The Ontario WSIB announced that it’s cutting average workers’ comp premium rates 2 cents to $1.23 per $100 of insurable payroll in 2026. That’s the seventh annual premium reduction in the past 10 years. Overall, WSIB rates have fallen more than 50% since 2017. Benefits have also been enhanced during this period.

Workers’ Comp

Sep 22: Revised workers’ comp regulations took effect expanding the presumption of work-relatedness for primary-site skin cancer, primary-site kidney cancer and primary-site colorectal cancer in firefighters and fire investigators. Highlights: i. required duration of employment or volunteer service before diagnosis for primary-site skin cancer reduced from 15 to 10 years; ii. required duration for primary-site kidney cancer reduced from 20 to 10 years; and iii. elimination of the requirement that a diagnosis for primary-site colorectal cancer be made before age 61.

Environmental

Nov 10: That’s the deadline to comment on proposed regulations to implement the new Species Conservation Act, which among other things, allows for developers to register their projects online instead of obtaining a permit. Environmentalists have criticized the new law for reducing protection for protected species.

Action Point: Find out more about the new Ontario endangered species protection law and its practical impact.

CASES

Lockout Tagout: Failure to Lockout Crane Leads to Worker’s Death, $375,000 Fine

Ontario dished out one of its biggest OHS fines of the year--$375,000 against a propane company stemming from an incident in which a worker using an articulating boom crane mounted on a flatbed truck to move a 1,000-gallon steel propane tank suffered fatal injuries when the crane unexpectedly moved causing the tank to swing into a brick wall. The company was cited for not implementing effective precautions to prevent the crane from inadvertently starting after MOL investigators found that the crane controls hadn’t been disengaged and the stop button on the wireless remote hadn’t been pressed while the worker was attaching the tagline [Superior General Partner Inc., MOL Press Release, September 25, 2025].

Action Point: Find out how to prevent amputations and other gruesome machine injuries by implementing a legally sound Lockout and Hazardous Energy Control Compliance Game Plan at your site.

Machine Safety: Mushroom Grower Fined $115,000 for Machine Guarding Violation

A worker seeking to manually adjust nets on a Net Washer sanitizer got entangled in the net threaded on the machine’s rotating bar and suffered critical injuries. The company was fined $115,000 after pleading guilty to failing to implement measures, procedures, guards or other devices to prevent workers from becoming entangled when adjusting nets on the machine [Highline Produce Limited, MOL Press Release, September 22, 2025].

Action Point: Will your company be next? Find out how to prevent these kinds of injuries and OHS fines by implementing a legally sound Machine Guarding Compliance Game Plan at your workplace.

Discipline: Falsifying Timesheets to Conceal Going AWOL Is Just Cause to Terminate

This is a sad story about a 54-year-old technician and “valued team member” with no disciplinary record who lost his job as a result of a serious lapse in judgment. It happened while the technician was away on a job 500 km from home when his wife called to inform him that his mentally disabled daughter was having an especially “bad episode.” Considering the situation urgent, the technician decided to leave his post and drive home without notifying his supervisor. He then made things worse by lying to his bosses and doctoring his timesheet and mileage log to make it look like he had worked a full day. He also claimed a full per diem meal allowance for the day. When the company found out, they terminated him for cause. The Ontario arbitrator ruled that the company was justified in concluding that it could no longer trust him. Although serious, the family situation wasn’t urgent; and not thinking clearly was no excuse for deliberate deception and falsifying information [Ontario Power Generation Inc. v Power Workers’ Union, 2025 CanLII 102168 (ON LA), October 7, 2025]. 

Infectious Illness: Mandatory Vaccination Doesn’t Violate Catholic Employee’s Creed

An employee claimed that his company’s mandatory COVID vaccination policy discriminated on the basis of creed. I’m a Roman Catholic, former altar boy, and believer in the 10 commandments and the freedom of choice, he argued. But what he didn’t explain was how any of these beliefs prevented him from complying with the mandatory vaccination policy. So, the Ontario Human Rights Commission tossed his claim. The ban on creed discrimination doesn’t cover “every belief, opinion, expression, practice or matter of conscience,” the Commission explained [Burmester v. Stellantis FCA Canada, 2025 HRTO 2332 (CanLII), September 18, 2025].

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