Funding helped decrease injuries in 2020
The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) and Energy Safety Canada have signed a new funding agreement that will help them work together to create safer workplaces in the province.
The new safety agreement will work to further support the safety association’s purpose and mandate.
“The WCB has a long-standing partnership with our safety associations, such as Energy Safety Canada, to help address injury prevention in their sector through education, training and other prevention initiatives,” said Kevin Mooney, vice-president of prevention and employer services, Saskatchewan WCB. “These close partnerships are vital to our provincial efforts and it is through these close working relationships that we can support the safety and prevention interests of all employers represented in the industry.”
Energy Safety Canada is among the first of seven provincial safety associations to sign the new funding agreement with the WCB.
“Energy Safety Canada is pleased to sign the new safety funding agreement with WCB Saskatchewan,” said Murray Elliott, president and CEO, Energy Safety Canada. “Working with partners like the WCB means Canada's oil and gas industry can take a unified approach to injury and incident prevention.”
The Saskatchewan WCB currently funds seven industry-based safety associations, each governed by a board of directors representing employers and workers from the rate codes that fund the association. All safety associations follow a strategic planning process and report on their results against their plans to industry and the WCB. Safety associations are funded through an extra levy on the premium rates of employers within specific rate codes.
WCB will also continue to share important information to support the performance of all safety associations, it said.
Injury rates
The funding agreements have helped decrease injury incidents in the province, said WCB.
Total injury rates for industries with safety associations decreased to 4.74 per cent in 2020 from 5.46 per cent in 2016.
Meanwhile, the average total injury rates for the oil industry (operation of oil wells and servicing, service rigs and water well drilling, and seismic drilling industries) also dropped to 3.71 per 100 workers in 2020 from 5.21 per 100 workers in 2016 – a 28.68 per cent decrease.
In 2020, the workplace total injury rate in the province was 4.46 per 100 workers, a 10 per cent decrease from 2019.
