The Occupational Health and Safety
Act ("OHSA") and its regulations establish
essential standards for workplace health and safety in Ontario.
Non-compliance can lead to significant penalties imposed by the
Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
(the “Ministry").
An example illustrating such penalties involves THS Industries
Ltd., a steel nail manufacturer in Kitchener, Ontario. In early
2023, the company and its CEO were fined a total of $100,000 due to
violations related to machine guarding.
Following an anonymous complaint alleging workers bypassed
machine guarding devices on nail-making machines, Ministry
inspectors investigated the manufacturing site. They found unfixed
access gates on multiple machines and discovered that fixed guards
had been removed from numerous nail-making machines and at multiple
locations on each machine. Additionally, inspectors observed a
worker actively working inside an open access gate of a
