Shan, Desai (2022) Enforcement of fishing occupational health and safety (OHS) standards: Challenges in Atlantic Canada. Marine Policy, 145. p. 9.
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Fishing is a hazardous occupation worldwide with a poor health and safety record. Between 2010 and 2020, an average of 236 marine accidents were reported to the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and an average of 33 % involved fishing vessels. Like fisheries governance more generally, governance of fishing health and safety is a wicked problem, which cannot be solved once and for all but tends to reappear. While there are no panaceas for improving fishing safety, improved regulation can help. Fishing health and safety is often subject to regulations by multiple agencies, particularly in federalist states. In Canada, the federal government, Transport Canada, is responsible for providing a national regulatory framework that applies to the structural and operational safety of vessels, and provincial governments are responsible for the workplace health and safety of crews while they are engaged in commercial fishing activities and for workers’ compensation. In this context, inconsistencies among standards and variability in levels of protection across fleets and provinces can exist, and jurisdictional conflicts may occur. However, few studies have examined this problem. To fill this research gap, guided by governance theory and drawing upon findings from a legal review of international, federal and provincial fishing OHS laws and regulations and a review of case law, this article identifies multiple OHS law regulatory and enforcement challenges in the Atlantic Canadian context. These challenges include (1) fragmented OHS governance due to the division of powers between federal and provincial governments; (2) variation in OHS-related standards and protections between provinces, with those from the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick less protected than those from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador; (3) evidence of jurisdictional disputes that can reduce the efficiency of enforcement and development of fishing OHS standards; and (4) indications that federal-provincial jurisdictional divisions may be impeding Canada’s progress in ratifying and implementing international OHS instruments such as the C-188, Work in Fishing Convention of the International Labour Organization. These four challenges mean that improving fishing OHS in Canada is difficult. The paper proposes a regional fishing OHS initiative based on a partnership between the federal and provincial governments to establish harmonized fishing OHS standards to mitigate these challenges.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), Atlantic Canada, Fishing Vessels, Governance, Fisheries Regulations, Conflicts, Mitigation, Fishing Industry |
| Subjects: | Decent Work |
| Depositing User: | Kokila ICSF Krish |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Mar 2025 11:48 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Mar 2025 11:48 |
| URI: | http://icsfarchives.net/id/eprint/21310 |
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