C&C #27: WorkSafeBC Wants to Run Your Business

WorkSafeBC has proposed the biggest expansion of its own authority in a generation. A new class of hazard that covers "the design and management of work" — your crew size, your schedule, your workload, your deadlines. A written risk assessment for every one of them. And a standard nobody can define until after a complaint gets filed. Employers got eight weeks to respond, in the middle of construction season. The deadline is October 9.

Episode 27 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

☕ THE BIG ONE: WorkSafeBC's proposed Part 4.1 would make B.C. the only place in Canada where an officer can audit how you schedule your crews. Psychological-injury-only claims are already up 48 PER CENT since 2021 under the rules we have now. Construction accounted for 299 of the 28,593 violence-related claims B.C. accepted in a decade — about 30 a year, one for every 8,000 workers. This lands on 28,173 companies, 92% of which have fewer than 20 people.

💸 The Bank of Canada held at 2.25% this morning — a seventh straight hold. Inflation's near 3%, but strip out gasoline and it's 2.2%. Next decision: October 28.

👷 Internal trade ministers ratified a 30-DAY service standard on labour mobility applications, with free trade in services targeted by the end of the year.

🚧 Alberta designated the Greenview Industrial Gateway a Designated Industrial Zone — 75 square kilometres in the Peace, only the province's second.

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