A four year old lost the end of her finger when a horse bit it off - not high adventure, granted, but important just the same. Appearing widely as a 'public interest' story rather than news, the kindergarten student's misadventure on a school trip to a tourist farm (story here) is pretty mundane, if not unfortunate. The story, as it appeared in several media outlets, ended with this chilling line: "The Ministry of Labour is investigating."
Followers of this blog may remember the July post explaining the court's new, surprising and problematic interpretation of Occupational Health and Safety Act (posting here). The Courts re-interpreted the Act, and client injuries are now considered a reportable incident, and are to be treated as a worker injury.
This is the first time, since that ruling, that I have seen public notice of the MOL being involved in a client injury case. This raises some questions:
Dealing with the MOL, now, is costly. They work slowly, demand top management's time, require and generate a great deal of paperwork, and in the end have the ability to fine. I would hazard a guess that the MOL could walk into any adventure operation and find a long list of violations. The requirements are simply not on the radar of the typical small business. What's more, I suspect the WSIB is following the MOL around. If the MOL doesn't get you, WSIB will be in to raise your rates shortly after. The cost of injuring clients just went way up.
Followers of this blog may remember the July post explaining the court's new, surprising and problematic interpretation of Occupational Health and Safety Act (posting here). The Courts re-interpreted the Act, and client injuries are now considered a reportable incident, and are to be treated as a worker injury.
This is the first time, since that ruling, that I have seen public notice of the MOL being involved in a client injury case. This raises some questions:
- How was the MOL notified? Did and do the OPP have an obligation to report to them now?
- Can the tourist farm claim any defence of ignorance? As outlined in the earlier post, there has been no effort to educate operators as to the new obligations under the re-interpreted act.
Dealing with the MOL, now, is costly. They work slowly, demand top management's time, require and generate a great deal of paperwork, and in the end have the ability to fine. I would hazard a guess that the MOL could walk into any adventure operation and find a long list of violations. The requirements are simply not on the radar of the typical small business. What's more, I suspect the WSIB is following the MOL around. If the MOL doesn't get you, WSIB will be in to raise your rates shortly after. The cost of injuring clients just went way up.