Corporate officers and directors are generally responsible for ensuring that their companies comply with Occupational Health, Safety & Environmental laws is a truism. At the same time, they’re not automatically liable just because their companies commit an OHS or environmental offence. There are 3 basic theories for holding officers and directors personally liable for a company’s legal violations:
A) Liability as principals—that is, they’re people who actually committed the illegal act or omission.
B) Liability as a party—that is, they were an accomplice or otherwise actively participated in the offence committed by the company; and
C) Statutory liability—that is, they may be liable if an environmental law specifically holds a company’s officers and directors liable for the offence.
Applying these theories to real-life situations can be tricky. Here are two contrasting cases in which courts had to decide if corporate directors should be held personally liable for a company’s environmental violations.
OHS Annual Reports You Must Submit to the Government – Know the Laws of Your State or Province, BC has the strictest annual reporting requirements in Canada, followed by Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, and the Federal jurisdiction.
In addition to fatalities, injuries, and serious health & safety events that employers must report to the government on an ongoing basis as they occur, many jurisdictions require employers to submit annual reports related to different aspects of safety and the OHS program in the preceding the year. While requirements vary by jurisdiction, regular annual reports generally include updates on:
A) The number and nature of injuries that happened at the workplace during the year: FED, NT, NU, SK:
B) JHSC activities during the year: BC, QC.
C) Occurrences of workplace violence and harassment: FED, BC, MB; and
D) Reports on specific types of hazards or operations, such as lead smelting, coal mines, hearing protection and asbestos work.
Provincial offences — Occupational health and safety — Duties of employers — Construction projects — Control over workers and workplace
City contracting with constructor to repair water main — Pedestrian struck and killed by road grader during repairs — City charged with breaching duties of employers under provincial occupational health and safety legislation — Whether city liable as employer for breach of duties — Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1, ss. 1(1) “employer”, 25(1)(c), 66(3)(b) — Construction Projects, O.Reg. 213/91.
The City of Sudbury contracted with Interpaving Limited to act as constructor to repair a downtown water main. During the repairs, an Interpaving employee struck and killed a pedestrian when driving a road grader, in reverse, through an intersection. The Ministry charged the City under s. 25(1)(c) of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (“Act”) for failing to ensure that certain safety requirements of the accompanying regulation, Construction Projects (“Regulation”), had been met. The City conceded it was the owner of the construction project and acknowledged that it sent its quality control inspectors to the project site to oversee Interpaving’ s contract compliance, but denied that it was an employer, arguing that it lacked control over the repair work and had delegated control to Interpaving.
The provincial court trial judge acquitted the city because Interpaving, not the city, had direct control over the workers and the intersection and thus the city was not an employer under s. 1(1) of the Act. Alternatively, the trial judge found that even if the city was an employer and breached its obligations, it acted with due diligence. The provincial offences appeal court upheld the trial judge’s decision but did not address the finding that the City acted with due diligence. The Court of Appeal set aside the decision of the provincial offences appeal court judge, found the City liable under s. 25(1)(c) as an employer, and remitted the question of the City’s due diligence to the provincial offences appeal court.
Held on equal division (Karakatsanis, Côté, Rowe and Obomsawin JJ. dissenting): The appeal should be dismissed.
Per Wagner C.J. and Martin, Kassirer, and Jamal JJ.: There is agreement with the Court of Appeal that the City was an employer and breached its duty under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act, and that the issue of the City’s due diligence defence should be remitted to the provincial offences appeal court. While control over workers and the workplace may bear on a due diligence defence, nothing in the text, context or purpose of the Act requires the Ministry to establish control over the workers or workplace to prove that the City breached its obligations as an employer under s. 25(1)(c).
The Act seeks to maintain and promote a reasonable level of protection for the health and safety of workers in and about their workplace and it fulfils its public welfare purpose by allocating various occupational health and safety duties among various classes of workplace actors, including constructors, employers and owners. These duties are often concurrent and overlapping: several different actors may be responsible for the same protective functions and measures — this is known as the “belt and braces” approach to occupational health and safety. Under this approach, where multiple workplace entities fail to safeguard health and safety, they cannot point to others’ failures as an excuse for their own; each workplace participant must ensure that the workplace is safe. Section 66(1)(a) of the Act makes it an offence for a workplace actor to breach one of the Act’s obligations, including s. 25(1)(c), which is a strict liability offence: the Ministry only needs to prove the actus reus beyond a reasonable doubt to ground a conviction.
Where an owner who contracts for the services of a constructor on a construction project is prosecuted for a breach of s. 25(1)(c), a court must first consider whether the Ministry has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Act applied to the accused because the accused was an employer under s. 1(1) of the Act. An owner is an employer if it employed workers at a workplace where an alleged breach of s. 25(1)(c) occurred, or contracted for the services of a worker at that workplace (including for the services of a constructor). The Ministry is not required to prove that the owner had control over the workplace or the workers there. It is clear from the text of the definition of employer that control is not an element that the Ministry must prove to establish that an accused is subject to the duties of an employer. First, the definition contains no reference to control. A control requirement should therefore not be embedded into the definition of an employer when the legislature deliberately chose not to do so. Second, by referring to a contract for services in the definition of employer, the legislature signalled its intent to capture employer‑independent contractor relationships under the employer definition and to remove from the definition the traditional common law control condition that distinguishes employment and independent contractor relationships.
A court must then determine whether the Ministry has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused breached s. 25(1)(c) of the Act. There is a breach of s. 25(1)(c) if the safety measures prescribed by the Regulation are not carried out in the workplace to which the owner/employer is connected by a contractual relationship with employees or an independent contractor. Again, the Ministry is not required to prove that the owner had control over the workplace or the workers there. A review of s. 25(1)(c)’s text, context, and purpose reveals that control on the part of the accused is not an element of this duty. The plain text of s. 25(1)(c) does not limit this duty to workers over which the employer has control.
The duty in s. 25(1)(c) must also be understood in the context of the scheme of the Act, the wide definition of employer and the existence of a due diligence defence under s. 66(3)(b) of the Act. Section 25(1)(c) was intentionally drafted broadly so as to focus on the employer’s connection to the workplace rather than any particular worker. The breadth of the employer’s duties and the broad scope of the definition of “employer” are mutually reinforcing. While the interpretation of ss. 1(1) and 25(1)(c) raises separate questions, these sections should be read harmoniously as they are nonetheless related. Reading a control requirement into s. 25(1)(c) would narrow the employer’s duties and would introduce an internal inconsistency into the Act by pairing a broad definition of “employer” with a narrow interpretation of s. 25(1)(c), rather than finding harmony between these provisions and treating them as mutually reinforcing as the legislature intended. In addition, the existence of the due diligence defence in s. 66(3)(b) is relevant context because it means that employers who breach s. 25(1)(c) will not be subject to penalties under the Act if they can show they took all reasonable steps to avoid the breach. Section 66(3)(b) functions as a safety valve, in which the presence of control may be a factor in assessing due diligence. Reading a control requirement into s. 25(1)(c) would also be inconsistent with the purpose of the Act. The act is a public welfare statute. Its purpose is to maintain and promote a reasonable level of protection for the health and safety of workers in and about their workplace. A control requirement could defeat the Act’s public welfare purpose of creating overlapping responsibility and would essentially give workplace actors a tool for frustrating regulatory prosecutions at the outset, by arguing that they had no control over a hazard because other parties had greater comparative control over that hazard.
Finally, a court must determine whether the accused has proven on a balance of probabilities that it should avoid liability because it exercised due diligence under s. 66(3)(b) of the Act. Control should only be considered at this stage of the analysis.
It is open to an accused to prove that its lack of control suggests that it took all reasonable steps in the circumstances. Shifting the burden to the employer to establish a due diligence defence incentivizes employers to take all steps within their control to achieve workplace safety and prevent future harm so that they may avail themselves of the defence should harm occur. That an employer’s degree of control over the parties in the workplace is relevant to its due diligence defence also answers fairness concerns about imposing liability on an employer for a breach caused by another party. Relevant considerations for the court’s determination at this stage may include, but are not limited to:
the accused’s degree of control over the workplace or the workers; whether the accused delegated control to the constructor in an effort to overcome its own lack of skill, knowledge or expertise to complete the project in accordance with the Regulation; whether the accused took steps to evaluate the constructor’s ability to ensure compliance with the Regulation before deciding to contract for its services; and whether the accused effectively monitored and supervised the constructor’s work on the project to ensure that the prescriptions in the Regulation were carried out in the workplace.
In the instant case, the City was an employer of the quality control inspectors, whom it employed directly and dispatched to the construction project. The City was also an employer of Interpaving, with whom it contracted to undertake the construction project. As an employer of the inspectors and of Interpaving, the City was required by s. 25(1)(c) of the Act to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed were carried out in the workplace. On the date of the accident, measures required by the Regulation — a fence between the construction work and the public way as well as signallers — were not carried out in the workplace. Thus, the City, as employer, committed the offence under s. 25(1)(c).
Per Karakatsanis, Rowe and O’Bonsawin JJ. (dissenting): The appeal should be allowed. The City is the employer of its quality control inspectors; therefore, the scope of its duties under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act must be examined. Properly interpreted, s. 25(1)(c) holds employers liable for breaching the regulatory measures which apply to them. Where certain measures in the Regulation do not specify to whom they apply, these measures apply to an employer when they relate to the work that the employer controlled and performed through their workers. As the courts below did not properly analyze whether the offence was made out, the matter should be remitted for reconsideration by the provincial court to consider the applicability of the regulatory measures.
The definition of employer in s. 1(1) of the Act covers two broad relationships. The first branch of the definition is satisfied if the person employs one or more workers. It focuses on the employment contract and reflects the traditional conception of a direct employer‑employee relationship. However, the fact that a party is an employer does not mean that they are an employer to all workers at a workplace or project, which may affect the scope of their responsibilities. The text of the definition of “employer” is expressly focused on a party’s relationship to workers and it is inappropriate to narrow it by considering that party’s relationship to a workplace. The latter relationship only becomes relevant at the stage of determining an employer’s duties. Accordingly, the first branch of the definition is satisfied where a traditional employment relationship exists.
The second branch of the definition involves a person who contracts for the services of one or more workers. The second branch prevents parties from removing themselves from the application of the Act where they subcontract out work, rather than directly hiring workers through an employment contract. It ensures that the substance of the employer‑worker relationship is not determined by the manner in which it is described in the contract. When an owner contracts with a constructor, they are not seeking to subcontract out particular tasks to any independent contractor instead of hiring workers directly through an employment contract; rather, they are asking an entity to assume plenary oversight and authority to undertake the entire project. This relationship reflects the practical reality of the construction industry, where owners promote safety by transferring responsibility to constructors with relevant expertise.
The owner‑constructor relationship does not generally fall within the second branch of the employer definition in s. 1(1). The Act is specifically designed so that an owner can take a hands‑off approach to overseeing the project relative to the constructor. A constructor undertakes the project, which indicates that overall authority for the project, including the coordination of health and safety, falls to the constructor. Treating an owner as automatically being an employer of the workers hired or contracted for by the constructor under the second branch of the employer definition would undermine the design of the scheme. It would mean that by virtue of engaging a constructor to oversee a project, project owners would be assigned responsibilities that would require them to play an active role across the project — a role that the Act sought to avoid by enabling them to contract with a constructor in the first place.
Treating the owner‑constructor relationship as an employer‑worker relationship detracts from the legislation’s effectiveness because it ignores the practical differences between these relationships and undercuts the distinct mechanisms by which they promote worker safety. In sum, the second branch of the employer definition is broad, but it does not turn an owner into the employer of workers hired or contracted for by a constructor.
Proceeding on the assumption that once a party meets the definition of employer, they are strictly liable for the breach of any regulatory provision through the operation of s. 25(1)(c) and must rely on the due diligence defence conflates the definition of employer with the determination of the scope of an employer’s duties. On a proper construction of the scheme, it is essential to examine both the definition of the workplace parties and the duties that actually apply to them. An offence cannot be founded on the breach of a duty that does not apply to the accused. Once a workplace party is found to satisfy the relevant definition set out in s. 1(1) of the Act, it is necessary to then consider which duties actually applied to the party at the time of the alleged offence. The Act separately sets out the duties for each workplace party.
Section 25(1)(c) requires an employer to ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory measures. Where the Regulation expressly states to whom its measures apply, there will be no question as to whether they fall within the employer’s duty under s. 25(1)(c). Where however, a particular measure is silent concerning to whom it applies, the measure applies when it relates to work that the employer controlled and performed through their workers. This relationship is established when the employer has authority over the performance of a task, usually because it is the portion of the work within the larger project that, whether alone or with other parties, they have been entrusted with performing through the workers they have employed or contracted for. To be sure, multiple parties can be jointly entrusted with a task, since different employers will often collaborate, and thus multiple employers can have an overlapping responsibility to fulfill the same measures. A regulatory measure can apply to the work of multiple employers so long as it relates to each employer. The core question is: What work is an employer responsible for undertaking on the construction project? The Ministry should know whether the measure is actually related to the employer’s work before making the decision to charge that employer. Therefore, the regulatory measures apply when they present a nexus to the work which is under the employer’s control and performed through their workers.
Establishing this nexus between the measure and the employer is a binary, threshold question: either the measure applies because it is related to work which the employer has undertaken, or the measure does not apply because such a link is absent.
It would be absurd to interpret s. 25(1)(c) and the Regulation as obligating every employer at a construction project to ensure compliance with all measures contained within the Regulation. This would effectively mean that everyone who employs anyone is responsible for everything that anyone does. Protecting worker safety is of critical importance and it is far from clear that making every employer liable for the acts of all other employers in carrying out all regulatory obligations meaningfully improves worker safety. A measured and practical approach gives effect to the concept of overlapping responsibilities. Since the workers’ activities under each employer’s control frequently overlap on complex construction projects, so too will the measures which apply to them under s. 25(1)(c). A measured and practical approach also fully operationalizes the belt and braces approach which aims to create meaningful protection in practice. Yet, if there is no relationship between the measure and the employer’s work, the employer cannot serve as an effective brace. Imposing measures contained in the Regulation onto employers bearing no relationship to the work at hand adds an indefinite number of illusory braces: they provide a false sense of added safety but, in reality, only increase the legal jeopardy of unrelated workplace parties who could not have ensured compliance with those measures. Holding employers with no control liable does nothing to increase worker safety — it is this very lack of control which makes them unable to carry out the regulatory measures in the first place. Additionally, limitless responsibilities lead to confusion and a lack of coordination on a construction project. If every employer is liable for everything and has duties towards unrelated parties, an individual employer’s sphere of responsibility becomes unclear. Safety issues could arise if multiple employers with no relationship to the duty or expertise in the area seek to enforce their own version of a particular safety procedure on other workers. Alternatively, unlimited duties can lead to neglect if each employer assumes that duties owed by all employers will have been fulfilled by someone else.
Prosecutorial discretion will not limit the potential for absurdity to occur. This effectively gives prosecutors unbounded discretion to define the proper scope of each employer’s duties by deciding who to charge, rendering the ultimate delineation of duties in the Act unpredictable and uneven from the accused’s perspective.
Reliance on a promise that prosecutors would not charge employers for breaches of regulatory measures over which they had no control emphasizes this absurdity. The availability of the due diligence defence at s. 66(3) also initially presents itself as an appealing solution, but there are multiple flaws with adopting an approach that pushes most of the analysis concerning an employer’s responsibility to the due diligence stage. From a methodological perspective, the offence and the defence should not be conflated. Judges should not abdicate the responsibility of arriving at a reasonable interpretation of a duty merely because a defence exists or because doing so would improve administrative efficiency. A focus on the due diligence defence flips the structure of offences on its head: every employer is captured by the offence as soon as any regulatory measure is not met, and the accused must bear the burden of pulling themselves out of the ambit of the offence. Shifting much of the analysis on the contents of the duty and the nature of the employer’s work to the due diligence stage increases uncertainty in practice and ignores the reality of how the scheme operates on the ground. If most of the employer’s obligations are outside of their control, they have no ability to even know whether the measures are being complied with or what they could be charged with at any moment. In contrast, requiring that a measure relates to an employer’s work provides employers with a greater understanding of their responsibilities and encourages them to take initiative to protect workers.
In the instant case, because the City had hired quality control inspectors through a contract of employment, it satisfied the definition of employer under the first branch. The City owes duties as the employer of these workers under the Act.
However, by contracting with a constructor, it did not become the employer of the workers that the constructor retained. The owner‑constructor contract reflects a distinct relationship contemplated in the Act that does not generally fall within the second branch of the employer definition in s. 1(1). Consequently, the City is only the employer of its quality control inspectors. In light of the conclusion that the City is an employer to the quality control inspectors, the applicability of the regulatory measures depends on whether the City controlled work being performed near public ways or controlled the operation of vehicles, machines and equipment. The trial judge however did not consider the applicability of the regulatory measures, nor did the provincial offences appeal court or the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, the proper approach is to remit the matter to the provincial court to determine whether the relevant provisions of the Regulation related to the City and thereby fell within its duty under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act.
Per Côté J. (dissenting): The appeal should be allowed and the acquittals entered by the trial judge should be restored. Properly interpreted, the obligations prescribed by the Regulation were the responsibility of the constructor and/or the employers who performed the relevant construction work. The City had no involvement in or control over that work and was therefore not an employer at the construction project.
There is agreement with Rowe and O’Bonsawin JJ. that the definition of employer in s. 1(1) of the Act does not capture the construction‑specific relationship between a project owner and its general contractor. A project owner who hires a constructor is not the employer of the constructor itself or its workers. An employer cannot evade its occupational health and safety responsibilities by hiring an independent contractor instead of entering a typical employment relationship. But it does not follow that an employer is responsible for the employees and independent contractors of other employers.
There is also substantial agreement with Rowe and O’Bonsawin JJ.’s interpretation of the duties of employers under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act, which must be read in context and together with the applicable Regulation. It would be absurd to interpret s. 25(1)(c) literally to require each employer on a construction project to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations. On a construction project, while each employer is responsible for the health and safety of its own workers, the constructor is responsible for health and safety across the project.
The belt and braces approach to occupational health and safety is not without reasonable limits and should not be interpreted in a manner that extends the reach of the Act beyond what was intended by the legislature. To impose duties on employers that they cannot possibly fulfil does not further the aim and purpose of the Act, which is to promote worker safety. The position that workplaces will be safer if every employer is made responsible for every possible safety obligation has superficial appeal, but it also creates a clear disincentive for a municipal project owner to engage in quality control efforts. A municipal project owner is not an employer on the construction site merely because it employs quality control inspectors. Holding every project owner strictly liable for all safety hazards it encountered in its quality control efforts — and which it did nothing to create — renders the quality control exception meaningless. It would no longer matter that owners do not become constructors by hiring quality control personnel. They would simply become employers who, in addition to constructors, have a strict duty to ensure compliance across the construction project.
The due diligence defence only becomes relevant once the elements of the statutory offence have been established. An employer’s ability to make out a potentially costly and burdensome defence is irrelevant to the proper interpretation of who is an employer on a construction site and to the scope of its corresponding statutory duties. It does not prevent future harm to impose statutory liability on employers who have no connection to, or control over, the safety obligation in question. Where an employer on a construction site did have some measure of control over the safety obligation in question, the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate that it took every precaution reasonable in the circumstances.
In a careful and thorough analysis, the trial judge in the instant case repeatedly rejected the Ministry’s position that the City or its inspectors exercised control over any construction work at the project. The trial judge properly found that the Ministry had not proved that the City acted as an employer on the construction site. Interpaving was both the constructor of the project and the employer of the road grader operator who fatally struck and killed a pedestrian. The City’s involvement in the project was limited to quality control and it was not responsible for the completion of any construction work. The trial judge’s conclusions on the City’s lack of control at the project are findings of fact that deserve deference. The trial judge also correctly found that even if she was wrong in concluding that the City was not an employer on the construction site, the City took every precaution reasonable in the circumstances to ensure safety at the project. It would be an extravagant proposition to say that a municipal project owner becomes an employer of every person on a project by attending the project for the limited purpose of quality assurance. To impose statutory liability on the City in these circumstances would be a regrettable departure from the established scheme of the Act. The City was not statutorily obligated to ensure compliance with the Regulation which applied only to the workplace parties involved in the actual construction work at the project site.
This appeal arises from a fatal accident and concerns the proper interpretation of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1 (“Act”). The Corporation of the City of Greater Sudbury contracted with Interpaving Limited to act as constructor to repair a downtown water main. An Interpaving employee struck and killed a pedestrian when driving a road grader, in reverse, through an intersection. Contrary to the accompanying regulation, Construction Projects, O. Reg. 213/91 (“Regulation”), no fence was placed between the construction project workplace and the public intersection, and no signaller was assisting the Interpaving worker (see ss. 65 and 104(3)).
In separate proceedings, Interpaving was tried and convicted for breaching the duty of employers under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act to “ensure that . . . the measures and procedures prescribed [in the Regulation] are carried out in the workplace”.
The legal issue on this appeal concerns the statutory liability, if any, of the City as an employer for breaching this same duty. In response to being charged and prosecuted by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General (Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development) (“Ministry”) under s. 25(1)(c), the City conceded it was the owner of the construction project and acknowledged that it sent quality control inspectors to the project, but denied that it was an employer, arguing that it lacked control over the repair work and had delegated control to Interpaving.
The trial judge acquitted the City because Interpaving, not the City, had direct control over the workers and the intersection and thus the City was not an employer under s. 1(1) (paras. 86-88, reproduced in A.R., vol. 1, at pp. 16-17). Alternatively, even if the City breached its obligations, it acted with due diligence as “every precaution reasonable in the circumstances” was taken (para. 91). The City’s acquittal on the basis that it was not an employer was upheld by the provincial offences appeal court; the court did not address the Ministry’s appeal of trial judge’s finding that the City acted with due diligence (2019 ONSC 3285, 88 M.P.L.R. (5th) 158). The Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision, allowed the appeal and set aside the decision of the provincial offences appeal court judge. The court affirmed and applied the definition of “employer” established in its leading 1992 decision, R. v. Wyssen, 1992 CanLII 7598 (ON CA), 10 O.R. (3d) 193, found the City liable under s. 25(1)(c) as an employer, and remitted the question of the City’s due diligence to the provincial offences appeal court (2021 ONCA 252, 15 M.P.L.R. (6th) 161). The City appeals to this Court and asks us to determine what role control plays in regulatory prosecutions against employers under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act. The short answer is that while control over workers and the workplace may bear on a due diligence defence, nothing in the text, context or purpose of the Act requires the Ministry to establish control over the workers or the workplace to prove that the City breached its obligations as an employer under s. 25(1)(c).
[5] In s. 1(1), the Act defines “employer” broadly — without any reference to control — and charges all employers to uphold several statutory duties. There is simply no reason to embed a control requirement into the definition of an “employer” or graft a control requirement onto s. 25(1)(c) when the legislature deliberately chose not to do so. Indeed, diminishing an employer’s duties by reading in a control requirement under either or both provisions would thwart the purpose of this remedial public welfare legislation. This Act is specifically designed to expand historically narrow safeguards and seeks to promote and maintain workplace health and safety by expressly imposing concurrent, overlapping, broad, strict, and non-delegable duties on multiple workplace participants in what is known as the “belt and braces” strategy. The interpretation advanced by the City not only defeats this intention but would also create undesirable and unnecessary uncertainty and jeopardize efficient administration of the Act’s strict liability offences. Instead, control is properly considered in deciding whether an employer who has breached the Act can nevertheless defend on the basis that it acted with due diligence. It is open to an accused to prove that its lack of control suggests that it took all reasonable steps in the circumstances.
Accordingly, I agree with the Court of Appeal that the City was an employer and breached its duty under s. 25(1)(c). I would therefore dismiss the appeal and uphold the Court of Appeal’s order remitting the question of due diligence to the provincial offences appeal court.
My analysis proceeds in three parts. I first provide an overview of the Act. Second, I explain why the Ministry need not prove control in a prosecution against an employer under s. 25(1)(c) of the Act. Third, I comment on the role of control in relation to the due diligence defence under s. 66(3)(b).
R v Greater Sudbury (City) – A Warning To Construction Project Owners
The Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act (the “Act”) stands as a cornerstone of health and safety legislation in Ontario. The Act protects the well-being of workers across various industries by establishing clear guidelines and responsibilities for employers, contractors, and other workplace entities.
However, in the modern landscape of increasingly complex construction projects and multi-level contractual arrangements, it can be difficult to determine which party holds responsibility for ensuring worker safety under the Act.
The assumption that liability rests solely with the entity that has the most immediate, direct control over the workplace conditions has been rebuked by the Supreme Court of Canada in the recent decision R. v. Greater Sudbury (City), which sheds new light on the complex issue of overlapping duties between employers and contractors under the Act.