Workplace safety inspections

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A CBC News investigation has found that workplace safety inspections in Canada are out of sync with the reality of the modern workplace environment.

This is the main conclusion we reached in Out of sync, the latest instalment of CBC Investigative Unit's investigation into workplace safety. For three years we've been using freedom-of-information laws to obtain workplace safety databases. In "Out of sync," the team analyzed the databases to identify a number of national trends, and they formed the basis of the stories about non-traditional occupations such as nurses and the degree to which their workplaces are inspected.

In some provinces, claims to workers' compensation boards in workplaces that have traditionally been subject to safety inspections — such as construction, manufacturing, mining and forestry — are just as common as claims in workplaces that haven't been traditionally inspected — such as health care, education and office environments.

Even so, visits from inspectors were up to 10 times more frequent in traditional workplaces than in non-traditional ones.

The problem is more severe in the health care field. Not only are health care workers facing an ever-increasing threat of violence, but the agencies responsible for regulating safety in hospitals are not doing their job.

Kim Kinsman worked as an ultrasound technologist in B.C. before the pain in her arm spread to the rest of her body and became too much for her. She quit her job and applied a compensation claim from WorkSafeBC. She was rejected because she couldn't prove her pain developed on the job. But Kinsman fought back. Audio (Runs: 4:14)

For instance, according to the CBC's analysis of B.C.'s inspections database, nurses are nearly 20 times less likely to be inspected than workers in more traditional sectors such as forestry. Yet, according to Statistics Canada, 73,000 nurses were assaulted at hospitals or care homes across Canada during 2005. That's 32 per cent of all nurses involved in direct patient care.

In many provinces, workers in health care settings are just as likely to claim injuries to compensation bodies as construction, manufacturing and forestry workers.

As well, government inspections are also following a traditional five-day, nine-to-five schedule, while an increasing number of people are working outside the traditional nine-to-five shifts, and their likelihood of having an accident increases during those periods. The CBC News analysis shows that most government inspections are not being conducted during hours outside the regular workday, such as weekends.

The Criminal Code of Canada was amended after the 1992 Westray mining disaster that killed 26 miners in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Under Bill C-45, a corporation can be found guilty of criminal negligence for an unsafe workplace. As yet, there have been no convictions under the law.