P101: Corporate Health and Safety

2. POLICY

Fanshawe College is committed to providing a safe and healthy learning, working, living, and playing environment for community members. The College is further committed to the prevention of workplace and learning-place related injuries and ill health through fulfillment of legal and other requirements, elimination of hazards, and reduction of health and safety risk. This commitment also includes continual improvement of the College's health and safety performance and management systems through development of occupational health and safety objectives and consultation and participation of its community members. Safety is a joint responsibility among all community members, particularly management, employees and students.

The policy sponsor develops, implements, and maintains systems, standards, procedures, and health and safety objectives as are appropriate for the nature, scale, hazards and risk associated with the College's activities and necessary to achieve the purpose of this policy. Such standards meet, as a minimum, the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Ontario), R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1, its applicable regulations and codes, and of Board policy D-55: Health and Safety.

3. REFERENCES

Legislation

• Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1

Board Policy

• Board policy D-55: Health and Safety

4. ADDENDA

• Guideline A: CORPORATE HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CHSMS)
• Record 1: APPROVALS

Guideline A: CORPORATE HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CHSMS)

Issued by: Chief Infrastructure Officer, Finance and Administration

Effective: 2024-04-01

1. PURPOSE

The purpose of this document is to guide community members in the exercise of their responsibilities relating to corporate health and safety.

2. DEFINITIONS

As prescribed in applicable legislation.

Community Members: Employees, students, members of the Board of Governors, members of boards or committees established by the College, volunteers, contractors, individuals providing service or research, individuals or groups who rent or use College facilities, visitors, applicants and guests.

3. GUIDELINES

3.1. Scope

This Guideline applies to all Community Members.

Employment, educational or business dealings taking place on College property as well as off-campus activities, such as field placements, field trips, social events or meetings, that take place under the auspices of the College are covered by this guideline.

3.2. Guiding Principles

Fanshawe College is committed to providing a safe and healthy learning, working, living and playing environment for community members. The College is further committed to the prevention of workplace and learning-place related injuries and ill health through fulfillment of legal and other requirements, elimination of hazards, and reduction of health and safety risk. To that end, the College develops, implements and maintains a Corporate Health and Safety Management System (CHSMS) that:

• Puts into place a systematic approach for the identification of roles and responsibilities; compliance to legal and other requirements, hazard identification; risk assessment and mitigation; identifying health and safety objectives; determining and maintaining competence and awareness; incident reporting and investigation; developing and maintaining policies, guidelines, standards, safe work programs and procedures; managing change and procurement; emergency preparedness and response; control of documented information; reporting and communications; performance evaluation including corrective actions; and continual improvement.
• Ensures continual improvement in the College's health and safety performance is sustainable by setting achievable goals and regularly reviewing attainment-to-target results, thereby encouraging the development of an organizational culture that supports health and safety.
• Encourages the ongoing development and advancement of an internal responsibility system (IRS) for health and safety and provides a framework for health and safety responsibility and leadership, where such responsibility and leadership is shared at all levels among all workplace parties.
• Ensures systems and processes are in place to address health and safety risks and issues as part of the College's decision-making practices.
• Ultimately demonstrates the College's commitment to safety and due diligence through legislative and regulatory compliance and leadership in the prevention of workplace illness and injury through best practice implementation.

3.3. Responsibilities

Safety is a joint responsibility among all Community Members, particularly management, employees and students.

Managers, other employees and contractors have an obligation to work in compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Ontario), R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1, its applicable regulations and codes, and to observe and work in conformance with College policy and the CHSMS.

Other community members, including, students, visitors, applicants and others, are required to observe and comply with College policy, including this policy and the CHSMS.

For further clarity, budget managers are accountable for the implementation and administration of the CHSMS within their departments, and for the health and safety of workers, students, contractors and visitors in their departments.

For further clarity, academic faculty and other employees directly involved in learning-related activities are accountable for the health and safety of student's learning or otherwise carrying out activities within their assigned teaching environments, and for the observance of and compliance with College policy and the CHSMS.

3.4. Contraventions

Alleged contraventions of this policy and the CHSMS are investigated by the College. Where a Community Member is the subject of a substantiated contravention, appropriate corrective or disciplinary action is taken by the College. For greater clarity:

• Where a student is the subject of a substantiated contravention, appropriate corrective or disciplinary action is taken by the College under College policy A130: Student Code of Conduct;
• Where an employee is the subject of a substantiated contravention, appropriate corrective or disciplinary action is taken by the College under any applicable employee code of conduct, current collective agreements or other terms and conditions of employment;
• Where a member of the Board of Governors is the subject of an alleged contravention of this policy while involved in a Board activity, the allegation is normally investigated and processed under Board policy B-25.10.05: Governor's Code of Conduct; or
• Where any other person is the subject of a substantiated contravention, appropriate corrective action is taken by the College under the CHSMS, applicable College policy, or Criminal Code of Canada.

3.5. Multiple Proceedings

Where the subject matter of an alleged contravention of this policy is more appropriately dealt with under another College policy, the College may deal with the alleged contravention under that other policy.

Where the circumstances which give rise to an alleged contravention of this policy are also the subject matter of another College policy or procedure, the College may determine under which policy or procedure the matter shall be dealt with first.

Where criminal proceedings are initiated with respect to an alleged contravention of this policy, the College may conduct an independent investigation, if possible, into the allegations and makes its own determination in accordance with this or other policy as appropriate.

3.6. Reprisal or Retaliation

Reprisal or retaliation against an individual for invoking this policy; for participating or cooperating in an investigation under this policy; or for associating with someone who has invoked this policy or participated in the policy's procedures is prohibited. Substantiated incidents of reprisal or retaliation are contrary to this policy and appropriate corrective or disciplinary action is taken by the College.

3.7. Vexatious or Bad Faith Allegations

An allegation of a contravention of this policy made known to be false or submitted for purely frivolous, malicious or vindictive purposes is contrary to this policy and appropriate corrective or disciplinary action is taken by the College.

3.8. Monitoring

The policy sponsor provides the Vice President, Finance and Administration with regular updates on health and safety goals and objectives to assure conformance with the College's strategic plan and process.

The President provides the Board of Governors with an annual Health and Safety Monitoring Report summarizing the health and safety performance of the College, including relevant leading and lagging performance indicators with comparative trend information where possible. Information provided will take into account the need to ensure confidentiality where appropriate.

3.9. Procedures

The Director, Environment, Health, Safety and Emergency Services is responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of the College CHSMS, including the system standards, system guidelines, operating procedures, safe work programs, safe work practices and auditing functions.

Record 1: APPROVALS

1991-12-10/SA-91-06; 1993-02-25/SA-92-05; 1996-11-06/SA-96-02; 1996-12-04/SA-96-03; 1999-03-03/SA-98-07; 2000-02-02/SA-99-06; 2003-11-05/AC-03-03; 2004-11-04/AC-04-03; 2005-05-04/AC-04-08; 2005-11-05/AC-05-03; 2006-11-01/AC-06-03; 2007-10-07/AC-07-01; 2008-05-07/AC-07-07; 2009-03-04/AC-08-05; 2010-04-10/SLC-10-01; 2010-10-03/SLC-10-07; 2011-04-13/SLC-10-17; 2012-03-28/SLC-11-10; 2013-03-27/SLC-12-10; 2014-04-07/SLC-13-08; 2015-05-04/President; 2015-11-04; 2016-03-16; 2017-03-20; 2018-03-01, 2019-03-25; 2020-02-06; 2021-03-02; 2022-02-23; 2023-03-20; 2024-03-20; 2025-03-18