There is another court decision out of the well-known tragedy in Toronto involving five workers who fell from the thirteenth floor of a high-rise building on December 24, 2009. The men’s duties on the date of the accident included pouring concrete on balconies they were using a swing stage to access.
The Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety regime is undergoing a complete overhaul, with potential huge impacts for employers respecting cost of compliance and risk of liability. The changes are part of the five-year Workplace Safety Strategy, a joint initiative between the Department of Labour and Advanced Education and the Workers’ Compensation Board. The Strategy was developed in direct response to a recognition that the old system—a piecemeal assortment of rules and regulations—was tough to navigate and produced inconsistency in interpretation and enforcement.