By Tom Parkin
November 11th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Fewer employers who skirt workplace safety laws are paying consequences under the Ford PCs, according to data from the Ontario Court of Justice.
But workers continue to pay the price. At least 305 Ontario workers died from workplace injuries or exposures in 2023, the most recent year of settled data from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. That’s an eight per cent increase from 2015, when 283 were killed.
Yet the number of employers who pay any court cost for violating health and safety law has dropped by more than half under the Ford PCs.
In 2015, prosecutors working for the Ministry of Labour brought 2,974 OHSA charges to court. By 2023 it had fallen by half to 1,524.
Workers paying the price for Ford PCs, says OFL
“Doug Ford lowers costs for unsafe employers, and workers are the ones left paying the price – sometimes with their lives,” said Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Under the PCs, not only have OHSA charges dropped by half, but charges against employers for violating the Employment Standards Act have fallen 90 per cent, the Ontario Federation of Labour and Data Shows recently revealed.
The Employment Standards Act (ESA) is intended to protect workers and prosecute employers who commit wage theft, stealing tips or not paying wage premiums, such as vacation pay, holiday pay or overtime rates.
Odd how this article ties in neatly with the next article on days/weeks/months off the job by the PCs in 2025. They must have decided to neglect worker safety and enforcement of violations against employers on one of their off-days (they had so many to do so). That they can lounge around more than work strikes me as callous toward citizens who actually do work full-time and sometimes get injured or killed on the job.