Lawyer says it's a 'heavy legislative lift to get the time and resources together to try and harmonize'
As Canada moves closer to a historic national safety harmonization, legal experts are urging employers and safety leaders to prepare for sweeping changes that could finally end decades of regulatory confusion—but not without significant challenges along the way.
Matthew Badrov, a partner at Littler LLP specializing in management-side labour and employment law with a focus on occupational health and safety, says the push to harmonize workplace safety regulations across provinces is a big challenge that could have a profound impact on employers, especially those operating in multiple jurisdictions.
“The largest hurdle traditionally has been that our labour and employment laws—and the Occupational Health and Safety Act included—are provincially regulated,” Badrov explains. “We’ve had province-specific laws for decades. It’s a bit of a heavy legislative lift to get the time and resources together to try and harmonize.”
This patchwork of rules has created “confusion around inconsistent requirements across provinces,” Badrov says. For employers operating in multiple provinces, it can be difficult to know whether they are compliant with each jurisdiction’s regulations—especially when the details in the regulations differ from one province to another.
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