Hello there! My name is Brandi Cowen, and I’m your new editor of OHS Canada. It’s great to meet you!
By the time you read this, I’ll have been in the role for just over three months. I’ll have had the pleasure of emailing back and forth with many of you, speaking with some of you via phone and video calls, and even meeting a few of you in person.
I’ll also have been horrified to learn how many workers are killed or injured on the job each year. According to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, there were 993 workplace fatalities in this country in 2022 (the latest year for which complete data is available). That same year, there were nearly 349,000 lost time claims due to injury or disease.
By the time you read this, I’ll have shed a few tears thinking about the lives lost and those forever changed by a split second in someone’s workday.
But enough about me.
OHS Canada is all about you – the dedicated occupational health and safety professionals working tirelessly to bring workplace injury and fatality statistics as close to zero as possible.
You’ve recently faced unprecedented situation after unprecedented situation, and you’ve risen to the challenge every time. After a global pandemic, worldwide PPE shortages, record-breaking wildfires and heat domes, polar vortexes and snowpocalypses, to say nothing of atmospheric rivers, it’s understandable if you feel like you’ve seen it all – and maybe you have.
But it’s far more likely that the coming years will bring new challenges. Some may seem ripped straight from a Hollywood blockbuster (here’s looking at you, COVID-19), while others may be so mundane that no one outside your field takes notice. Whatever the future brings, we’ll face it together.
These pages are a place to share what works, and what doesn’t, with your peers so everyone can benefit from a safer workplace. In between issues, we’ll take these crucial conversations online, sharing best practices on the OHS Canada website and exchanging ideas via social media. This is how we’ll learn to make our workplaces safer. How we’ll save more workers from suffering the pain of a workplace injury. How we’ll spare more families and friends the grief of losing a loved one.
Never hesitate to reach out with your stories. I want to hear about your wins, your losses, and the lessons you’ve learned from both. My cell is always on, and my inbox is always open. (You can find my contact info here.)
And if you don’t think of yourself as a writer or a storyteller, that’s okay. Because I am a writer, and your stories are the ones I’m here to tell. Put me to work and let’s help more people head home safely at the end of the day.
P.S. If you want to learn from the very best of the best, join us for the OHS Canada Honours awards gala in Toronto on Sept. 26. We’re bringing leaders from across the country together to celebrate the best occupational health and safety practices in the country. You can find all the details at www.ohshonours.com.
