Hello and welcome to another Ministry of Labour Health and Safety Podcast. Today we are meeting George Gritziotis, Ontario's new Chief Prevention Officer.

One of the most important recommendations put forward by the Expert Advisory Panel into Workplace Health and Safety, lead by Tony Dean, was to move the prevention function to the Ministry of Labour. Legislation was passed and on April 1st 2012 the Ministry of Labour became the lead for Workplace Injury and Illness Prevention. This was one of the most significant changes in 30 years to Ontario's system for preventing work related injury and illness.

Welcome George, first off what exactly do we mean by Prevention?

George Gritziotis:
Prevention for me means that workers go home at the end of the day knowing that they were in a secure work place, and that they were earning a living in an environment that they want to go back to day after day after day.

For a worker to be in that kind of environment they're more productive, it's better for the organization - they are more competitive. But at the end of the day it's about a worker walking out of his front door, going to work, and coming back at the end of the day knowing they were in a secure workplace environment.

For me that's the outcome, that is what prevention is all about.


You are Ontario's first chief prevention officer, what are your responsibilities and what is your vision? Basically how do you see the prevention mandate unfolding?

George Gritziotis:
Number one is in order to do my job effectively I'll need to surround myself with prevention leaders and stakeholders - that is going to be an important part of what I do and that is going to be my calling card. That will be the first piece before we actually get to the actual nuts and bolts of the job. I think it is important that I hear and I learn from the experts and the stakeholders that have been involved in this. I think my job is really to bring the leaders to the table and take a leadership role around the whole area of preventing injuries and fatalities in the workplace.

At a more sort of concrete level my job will be establishing an integrated occupational health and safety strategy in Ontario. There is a lot of good things in Ontario in the area of occupational health and safety, but many of these organizations - and this was identified in the expert panel report - were working in isolation of each other so it is important that we get all these players and all these organizations working together; that we're on the same staging ground and that we put a road map in front of us that have us working together in an consistent way.

In another sort of important piece, very important when I am thinking about the capacity, is the establishment of standards in the area of training and certification. There are a number of organizations, as I have said the primary systems partners and other partners that have training in place. I think it is important that we establish standards. In some cases there are good things that are happening that may exceed those standards, and where they don't meet those standards organizations can tweak those standards. Where those training programs aren't available a big part of my job going forward is to develop training that can be accessed by a number of organizations that don't have access to these standards.

So, working with out partners in expanding capacity will be an important piece, and one thing that I keep in mind is ensuring we're going to get our tentacles out in all corners of the province when talking about prevention. It's not just working with the primary partners, but its getting out there to folks that quite frankly aren't aware of their responsibilities and aren't aware of the importance of complying with the Act. We need to get out to that world; these are vulnerable small businesses and vulnerable workers.


George, you mentioned reaching out to Ontario workers; what will prevention mean to them? For example, will they have to take special training depending on where they work?

George Gritziotis:
We have been doing a lot of work since I joined the Ministry in October 2011, work that has gone in to developing mandatory training for workers and mandatory training for supervisors. We have developed an Employer Guide on Rights and Responsibilities. We have consulted with industry, and in mid December we released these and have gotten some feedback. These are programs that will become regulated later in the year. We will continue to consult with our stakeholders.

We have also done some work in the area of young and vulnerable workers protecting them against reprisals for refusing to do work they feel is unsafe. And, we are also establishing two new, we refer to them as section 21 committees, that will report to the Minister, that will focus on the need of small business and vulnerable workers so in terms of the priorities coming out the Dean report. We've moved forward fairly aggressively and fairly quickly.

George what will it specifically mean to the worker in the workplace?

George Gritziotis:
For the worker in the workplace it will be about access to tools, products that will give them an understanding of what their rights and responsibilities are in the workplace.

I don't want this just to be about access to tools and reading text around what rights and responsibilities will be. I think it will have to be a sustained effort in helping the worker understand that they have a role, and employers have a role to play in ensuring that there is a safe workplace, and ultimately for the worker and for themselves. This means that a worker will be confident and feel comfortable that they are in a workplace they feel the employer is taking health and safety seriously, and they're in a secure environment. And when they're there earning a living, that they will be going home at the end of the day, feeling comfortable that they are with an employer of choice that takes their security and safety seriously.

So how will prevention and enforcement work together?

George Gritziotis:
At the end of the day prevention through to enforcement will be a continuum. It will be about developing awareness and education programs, creating an awareness within the workplaces, within our industry stakeholders.

It will be about putting prevention programs in place like accreditation programs for employers. It will be inspectors going out ensuring that workplaces are compliant, but doing it in the context that we are doing it together doing it for the benefit of all.

Ultimately enforcement is ensuring that the workplace is compiling. We want to tie this all in, in a consistent way so in the workplace this doesn't look like a disaggregated unconnected approach to dealing with occupational health and safety - it is truly connected and it is an over the counter approach where the customer sees what this means, from prevention right through to enforcement. I think when it makes sense to the customer, when it makes sense to the employer and it makes sense to the worker, then the likelihood of success will be much greater.

What can we look for in the immediate future?

George Gritziotis:
Well a lot more stakeholder engagement. Pushing that engagement beyond the workplace partners, I want to hear from communities. I want to hear what communities are doing; I want to understand what other Ministries are doing. I want to understand what other levels of government are doing. At the end of the day we should be doing this together and I would like to see my role as being almost facilitating this, the coach of the team ensuring we are all on the same playbook going forward.

Thank you George; we have speaking with George Gritziotis, Ontario's Chief Prevention Officer. And, this is it for this Health and Safety podcast from the Ministry of Labour.




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