Message from the chief human resources officer - Monitoring occupational health and safety programs

To: Deputy Ministers and Heads of Agencies

While occupational health and safety is primarily your responsibility as stipulated in the Canada Labour Code, Part II, the Treasury Board Secretariat, through its Occupational Health and Safety Policy, is required to conduct active monitoring of the state of occupational health and safety in the core public administration.

During the last round of the Management Accountability Framework (MAF), it was made clear that there remains a need to gather data to assess the performance of departments on occupational health and safety. While occupational health and safety is not a component of the MAF at this time, it has come to our attention that not all departments have continued to provide the necessary documentation, which is a requirement in the Treasury Board Occupational Health and Safety Policy. In order for the Secretariat to ensure proper monitoring, certain documents continue to be required from departments. These documents should already exist as they are required under Part II of the Canada Labour Code.

These documents are:

• Minutes of the Departmental OHS Policy Committee (a committee required under section 134.1 of the Code, which meets quarterly);
• Any written reports submitted to Health and Safety Officers (enforcement officers under the Code) of the investigation of significant hazardous occurrences (required under subsection 15.8(2) of Part 15 of the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations made under the Code (COHS Regs.);
• The annual summary of hazardous occurrences required to be sent to the Minister of Labour (Part 15 of the COHS Regs, subsection 15.10(1));
• Any Directions received from Health and Safety Officers or Assurances of Voluntary Compliance (AVC) given to Health and Safety Officers (Directions are mandatory instructions under the Code, AVCs are a part of HRSDC-Labour’s Compliance Policy); and
• Any program evaluation report prepared as per subsection 19.8 of the Hazard Prevention Program Regulations.

Copies of these documents should be forwarded to the Secretariat on an on-going basis, commencing immediately. Copies may be sent preferably in electronic form or in hard copy to the Occupational Health and Safety Unit at the Secretariat. 

Through better monitoring, the Secretariat will be able to better advise departments on their relative performance, facilitate the sharing of best practices, and identify possible synergies and act on systemic problems. Finally, it will allow us to properly support the community of departmental Occupational Health and Safety practitioners.

For further information or assistance, please contact:

Union Engagement and National Joint Council Support
Compensation and Labour Relations 
Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Ottawa (Ontario)  K1A 0R5
OHS-TBS@tbs-sct.gc.ca

Thank you for your cooperation.

Daphne Meredith
Chief Human Resources Officer
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Ottawa, Canada K1A 0R5
Daphne.Meredith@tbs-sct.gc.ca
Telephone: 613-952-1225
Facsimile : 613-952-1177
Government of Canada