In 2022, the easing of health measures by Canada’s authorities
gave us the opportunity to refocus our efforts on initiatives that
we had previously undertaken and on a more stringent implemen-
tation of our procedures. Our OHS and work site teams had been
responsible for our COVID protocol since 2020 in addition to their
regular duties. Unfortunately, during this period, we lost a few of
our hard-won achievements since 2014, such as compliance with
wearing safety glasses.
We also saw a slight drop in our health and safety performance.
This can partly be explained by the labour shortage that we are cur-
rently facing. Several tens of thousands of new workers joined our
industry over the last year, and new employees are often less aware
and less experienced, which can increase the risk of incidents.
Despite these results, our lower insurance premium rate proves
that our performance is above the industry average, coast to coast.
The contribution rate to various provincial OHS organizations is
calculated based on the risk of accidents and their cost for every
$100 of insurable payroll. Given that our rate is impacted by our past
performance and by the performance of other industry employers,
our 2022 rate demonstrates our strong management of OHS chal-
lenges compared with all other industry employers.
To better develop OHS leadership and culture among our trade part-
ners’ supervisors, we created a new mandatory online self-training
module. In 2022, these supervisors participated in 169 training
courses. The Inf luence Program for all our superintendents was
also a key factor in developing our OHS leadership and culture. As
of December 31, 2022, we had trained 80% of our superintendents,
and we are maintaining this momentum in 2023. By developing the
emotional intelligence of our superintendents, we’re promoting
dialogue and sensitivity on our work sites, and this means more
effective control of OHS.
With the aim of improving our performance, we’re relying on our
sense of innovation, our leadership and our presence on our work-
sites so that we can develop awareness-raising tools and train our
employees to prevent incidents.
Our company is growing and we’re working on
ever-more complex projects, but we’re still uncompromising
when it comes to the health and safety of our people,
our partners and the general public. In fact, we’re
exponentially increasing innovative ways to train and
support our people and avoid accidents while exceeding
clients’ expectations.
Mitch Flannigan, Field Health and Safety Coordinator,
Canadan Building Operations, Halifax
Our perspective
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Health and safety
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Culture of innovation | Climate change
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Circular economy
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Community relations
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Indigenous relations
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Diversity, equity and inclusion
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Governance