Deborah McPhee, Associate Professor of Human Resources Management and Occupational Health and Safety at the Goodman School of Business wrote a piece for The Conversation Canada recently about the National Day of Mourning that’s coming up on Saturday, April 28.

McPhee writes:

Have you ever had a loved one killed or maimed on the job? What about a co-worker or someone you knew? It happened to me in the mid-1970s, when one of my bosses at a smelter where I worked in northern Ontario was killed on the job. Six months from retirement and a careless mistake cost him his life.

This April 28th — National Day of Mourning — it’s worth remembering that every day in Canada and other countries, thousands of employees go to work expecting to return home safely to their families. But the reality is that too many workers will never return to their loved ones, and multiple others’ lives will be changed forever, maimed by inexplicable unsafe workplace incidents that, for the most part, could have been prevented.

She goes on to write:

Have we done enough? Clearly we have not.

The Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC) most recent statistics, for the year 2016, recorded 905 workplace deaths. Among those dead were six young workers aged 15 to 19 and another 20 workers aged 20 to 24.

Add to these fatalities the 241,508 claims accepted for lost time due to a work-related injury or disease, including 29,588 from workers aged 15 to 24 — and the fact that these statistics only include what’s reported to and accepted by compensation boards — and it’s safe to say that the total number of workers impacted is even higher.

What these numbers don’t show is just how many people are directly affected by workplace tragedies.

Continue reading the full article here.