New Brunswick is set to make changes to its Occupational Health and Safety Act, part of which will mandate the wearing of personal flotation devices (PFDs) for the commercial fishing industry.
The proposed legislation would come into effect in June 2024, allowing for affected enterprises to adjust to the change in regulations. Currently, the only law affecting New Brunswick is a federal regulation, dictating that PFDs be made available for every person on board a vessel. The devices are not required to be constantly worn.
The proposed legislation was put forward by the New Brunswick Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour in collaboration with WorkSafe New Brunswick, which consulted with industry members and will be responsible for enforcing the act if it comes into law.
According to a statement by the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, “The current definition of ‘place of employment under the Act, means any building, structure, premises, water or land where work is carried on by one or more employees and includes a project site, a mine, a ferry, a train and any vehicle used or likely to be used by an employee, but it does not clearly indicate fishing vessels.”
This leaves WorkSafeNB without the authority to do safety inspections on fishing vessels.
According to WorkSafeNB, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories are the only jurisdictions with a fishing industry where fishing vessels do not fall under occupational health and safety regulations.
“The fishing industry is the only industry in the province of New Brunswick that has some exclusions from requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said WorkSafeNB President and CEO Tim Petersen.
“The primary point being that fishing vessels themselves are not currently included in the definition of place of employment under our Occupational Health and Safety Act.”
WorkSafeNB has been working on getting this legislation passed to reduce the risks to the lives of fish harvesters, who are already working in one of the highest-risk industries in the world.
“Every worker deserves to go home at the end of every day, so this is all about the safety of everyone on those fishing vessels,” said Peterson. “It’s extremely important in every industry, but fishing is a high-risk industry, and a lot of times when there are accidents in that industry, they’re unforgiving.”
The province was reminded of the sea’s unforgiving nature in 2016 when three men were lobster fishing aboard a small open speedboat when their trap lines became entangled. The heavy strain on the line caused the vessel to take on water and capsize. Of the three onboard, only one survived.
After this incident, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) recommended PFDs be made mandatory.
“It’s high-risk. We’ve had approximately 15 fatalities in New Brunswick alone in the last couple of decades and on average in Canada, we have 10 fatalities every single year,” said Petersen.
Once the law comes into effect, fishing vessels will be treated much like any workplace that WorkSafeNB oversees. While serious action could be taken against vessels that don’t abide by the law, Petersen says that WorkSafeNB prefers to achieve its safety goals with regulatory consequences if possible.
“Plan ‘A’, for me, is always be collaborative and try to work with people because generally everyone is trying to achieve the same thing,” said Petersen. “In instances where that doesn’t work, we’d have to bring out more of a regulator hat.”
In circumstances where communication isn’t enough, WorkSafeNB has a number of actions that can be taken to assure the safety of workers.
“There are a number of things we can do. It really depends on the severity of the situation,” said Petersen. “In most instances, what our officers would do when a workplace — in this case, a fishing vessel — is non-compliant, the officer would write an order to comply with the Act. That would give the workplace a period of time to comply. Or depending on the severity, they could issue a stop-work order. So basically, no more work could be done on that fishing vessel until you comply with whatever the area of non-compliance was. If there was a serious accident and it was determined that a root cause of that accident was non-compliance with the law, then it’s possible that the workplace could be prosecuted… And in that prosecution, a workplace could be fined up to $250,000.”
Petersen believes these regulatory changes are for the benefit of everyone’s safety and will reduce the number of tragic deaths we see in the fishing industry.
“I’m not saying 100 per cent of the time, but generally if there were measures in place, including mandating PFDs, in many instances we could avoid these tragic incidents. We’re all about working with industry to improve safety.”
