Tell the Premier and Minister: Let us focus on our job to protect workers’ safety
As front-line inspectors at the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, our focus should be the health and safety of workers in this province, not determining whether skilled trades persons are authorized to do certain work on job sites.
The Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act (BOSTA) opens Inspectors to personal litigation. BOSTA training is lacking. Determining job classifications takes time from our core job of protecting workers and inspectors will end up in the middle of disputes between various contractors and Trade Unions and Associations.
Here’s something we can do about it:
Send an email to the Premier and Minister Monte McNaughton asking for his help
Click on the link above and your email program should pop up with an email already addressed and filled out – just add your name at the bottom.
If you’d like to CC your own MPP as well, you can find their email address on the Ontario Legislature website. Just copy it and paste it into the CC field.
If the link doesn’t open the email, just copy-and-paste the text to the right into an email. Don’t forget to add your name at the bottom!
Text of No BOSTA! email
Honourable Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
[email protected]
Honourable Monte McNaughton
Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development
[email protected]
Dear Premier Ford and Minister McNaughton,
I am concerned about the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act (BOSTA) and its impact on Health and Safety.
I am one of roughly 400 MLTSD Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors. During the pandemic we put our own health and safety at risk to keep Ontario safe. We are proud of our work – we save lives.
You have decided that we should enforce whether workers are authorized to work in certain compulsory trades.
This will make workplace safety inspections more difficult and force us to make jurisdictional decisions between trades which could cause significant problems. The Inspectors who had been doing this work were paid more and were dedicated to just this function. If you insist on us performing this onerous task, we should be paid accordingly.
The Ministry has created a complex administratively intense process to enforce this legislation. When BOSTA was enacted, Inspectors were not indemnified for our actions. Our decisions may cause significant costs, and we could be held legally liable. I am concerned that I can’t enforce this law properly with my current level of training. I am putting the government and myself in danger of civil litigation.
Please hire Inspectors solely dedicated to do this work.
Occupational Health and Safety Inspector