Occupational health and safety 3: ticket offences at work.

• Author: Bowal, Peter
• Position: Employment Law

Introduction

Most Canadians are familiar with "tickets" for minor offences. If we have personal experience at all with the legal system, it is most likely through receiving the occasional ticket for parking, seat belts, rolling through a stop sign, speeding or some other traffic offence. There are several other regulatory subjects that are enforced by provincial (or municipal) offences and tickets. These include gaming and liquor, fish and wildlife, all forms of licensing, taxes, insurance, trespass, provincial parks, animals and pets, residential tenancies, tobacco, and littering.

These are not criminal offences, so we do not get a criminal record if convicted. Rather, these are regulatory offences that encourage compliance with regulatory legislation to advance order and security, integrity and fairness, health and safety, protection of vulnerable populations, and other social policy objectives.

Compliance with occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation is essential for safe and healthy workplaces. On January 1, 2014 the list of ticketable domains will grow to include OHS regulations at Alberta worksites.

Compliance with occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation is essential for safe and healthy workplaces. On January 1,2014 the list of ticketable domains will grow to include OHS regulations at Alberta work sites. Tickets and administrative penalties are two new enforcement tools available to OHS officers in Alberta to obtain better compliance with OHS legislation.

This article will describe the new workplace ticket system. A future article will explain the new administrative penalty compliance tool.

The Need for More Ongoing Pre-Incident Compliance Tools

An OHS officer who appeared at a worksite in Alberta up to now had limited options when observing a violation of the OHS Act, Code or regulations. The officer could only issue an immediate verbal Compliance Order, a written Compliance Order, a Stop Use (e.g. of a machine or tool) Order, or a Stop Work Order (e.g. of an operation or worksite).

Generally, these could be appealed, which might take a very long time. Even if the appeals eventually upheld an order, the employee or employer occasionally would still ignore it. Getting and maintaining the workplace in compliance remained a problem. The department was also finding that something more was needed to reach and reform habitual re-offenders.

There is always the enforcement tool of prosecution through the courts, but...