Excerpt from the Government of Ontario’s ‘Newsroom’
Star Ornamental Company Ltd., a Stoney Creek metal fabricator, was fined $75,000 on July 27, 2009, for a violation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) after a worker was critically injured.
Since section 26.3 is very extensive, I will break up the description into two or three separate blogs to cover all the information and for my interpretations of the law.
Section 26.3 (1) states,
“Despite paragraph 1 of section 26, a guardrail system that meets the requirements of this section shall be used if a worker has access to the perimeter or an open side of any of the following work surfaces and is exposed to a fall of 2.4 metres or more:
It is not just that the law says that certain organizations must have JHSCs (joint health and safety committees) , the legal driving force behind the committee is ‘Due Diligence’. A company or individual that fails to establish a legally-required JHSC has no chance of making out a due diligence defence. The result is exposure to liability under OHS laws and even criminal liability under Bill C-45.
26.2 (1) states,
“An employer shall ensure that a worker who may use a fall protection system is adequately trained in its use and given adequate oral and written instructions by a competent person.”
(2) states,
“The employer shall ensure that the person who provides the training and instruction referred to in subsection (1) prepares a written training and instruction record for each worker and signs the record.”