Step by step, Canada is be­com­ing more ac­com­moda­tive and truly mul­ti­cul­tural by adopt­ing and adapt­ing laws, rules and reg­u­la­tions to the needs of the grow­ing multi-re­li­gious, multi-cul­tural pop­u­la­tion, from across the world, which has made Canada their new home. Sikh work­ers, who hereto­fore faced many chal­lenges of in­clu­siv­ity on health and oc­cu­pa­tional grounds are in for bet­ter times, says World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion ap­pre­ci­at­ing the lat­est amend­ments to the Oc­cu­pa­tional Health and Safety reg­u­la­tions at Work­SafeBC, which will likely lead to Sikh work­ers to keep their tur­bans in­tact at work­places. WSN re­ports.

The World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada has wel­comed the amend­ments to Part 8 of the Oc­cu­pa­tional Health & Safety Reg­u­la­tion (OHSR) re­lat­ing to safety head­gear. Sec­tion 8.11 of the OHSR re­quired safety head­gear to be worn in any work area where there is a dan­ger of head in­jury how­ever the reg­u­la­tion was be­ing ap­plied as a blan­ket re­quire­ment re­sult­ing in Sikh work­ers who wear the das­taar -tur­ban be­ing ex­cluded from work­places, even where ac­com­mo­da­tion was pos­si­ble.

The amend­ments open the door to das­taar-wear­ing Sikh work­ers be­ing ac­com­mo­dated on work­sites where the risk of head in­jury can be re­moved. As the OHSR clar­i­fies that em­ploy­ers must con­duct a risk as­sess­ment and at­tempt to re­move and elim­i­nate any risks be­fore re­quir­ing hard­hats on work­sites.

Ap­pre­ci­at­ing the amend­ments, WSO le­gal coun­sel, Bal­preet Singh, said, “The amend­ments by Work­SafeBC to the OHS reg­u­la­tions are a wel­come step for­ward to­wards the ac­com­mo­da­tion of the das­taar on BC work­sites.”

The amend­ments by Work­SafeBC to the OHS reg­u­la­tions are a wel­come step for­ward to­wards the ac­com­mo­da­tion of the das­taar on BC work­sites.

Bal­preet Singh, Coun­sel, WSO

“These changes will ben­e­fit not just Sikhs but all work­ers in BC as em­ploy­ers must now work to elim­i­nate the risk of in­jury with en­gi­neer­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive con­trols and not sim­ply try to min­i­mize in­jury through the use of PPE,” he added. 

“We ap­pre­ci­ate that these amend­ments will be a change for both em­ploy­ers and work­ers and the pe­riod be­tween now and the ef­fec­tive date of Sep­tem­ber 1, 2021 will be crit­i­cal. We look for­ward to work­ing with Work­SafeBC and other stake­hold­ers to en­sure that the nec­es­sary train­ing and re­sources are made avail­able to make the roll­out of these new reg­u­la­tions a suc­cess.” 

Ad­vo­cacy or­gan­i­sa­tion WSO has reg­u­larly ad­vo­cated for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of tur­baned Sikhs as part of the ini­tial pre­sen­ta­tion to the BC Gov­ern­ment in 2018.

Ti­tle Photo Cour­tesy: The Remi Net­work