Throughout this workshop, the following definitions are regularly used. It is important to understand their meaning and context within the uOttawa setting. These definitions are defined in Procedure 14-1 – Internal Responsibility Procedure for Health and Safety Issues.

“Accident” means an unexpected event causing injury, illness or death (see also critical injury) or involving a person’s exposure to harmful substances.

“Applicable health and safety legislation” means those statutes and regulations governing occupational health and safety that apply to the University, such as the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations, as amended from time to time, or similar legislation enacted respecting occupational health and safety.

“Competent person” means a person who,

• is qualified because of knowledge, training and experience to organize the work and its performance;
• is familiar with the applicable health and safety legislation that applies to the work; and
• has knowledge of any potential or actual danger to health and safety in the workplace.

“Contractor” means an individual, company or other entity hired by the University (or representative) to provide services, and includes a constructor as defined in the applicable health and safety legislation.

“Critical injury” means an injury of a serious nature that:

• Places life in jeopardy;
• Produces unconsciousness;
• Results in substantial loss of blood;
• Involves the fracture of a leg or arm, but not a finger or toe;
• Involves the amputation of a leg, an arm, a hand or a foot, but not a finger or toe;
• Consists of burns to a major part of the body; or
• Causes the loss of sight in an eye.

“Department chair” means the titular head and chief administrator of a department within a faculty.

“Directive” or “procedure” means a University practice, instruction or process to outline specific courses of action or explain how to apply a University policy or applicable health and safety legislation.

“Employee” has a similar meaning to “worker”.

“Employer” means the University or a person who employs a worker or contracts for the services of a worker and includes a contractor or subcontractor who performs work or supplies services. The University of Ottawa is an employer. Individuals may also be considered employers under applicable health and safety legislation.

“Executive management” means the officers and executives accountable for the overall governance and management of the institution (e.g., President and VPs). The President established the Administration Committee, which is responsible for the internal management of the University and for the general administration of University business, in keeping with applicable laws and regulations, including occupational health and safety. The Administration Committee reports to the President, who is responsible for making the necessary recommendations to the Board of Governors.

“Facility manager (or equivalent)” means the support person for the building infrastructure and associated systems (e.g., HVAC, water, electrical, architecture, compressed air, gas, space, etc.).

“Health, safety and risk assistant (HSRA)” means the support person for a health, safety and risk manager.

“Health, safety and risk manager (HSRM)” means a staff person for risk, environment and health and safety matters in higher-risk faculties or services within the University.

“Higher-risk workspace” means a laboratory, workshop, industrial or other workplace in which the hazards therein create an elevated risk of injury, exposure or illness.

“Incident” means an undesired event resulting in damage to property or the environment, for example, a fire, spill, or breakage of material.

“Internal responsibility system” or “IRS” means the University’s accountability framework for occupational health and safety matters, as set out in this procedure. 

“Multi-Site Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee” means the committees established by the University as a consultative, joint forum for workers and management to review and recommend to the employer improvements to the occupational health and safety program.

“Near miss” means an incident that did not have consequences. However, the potential for injury, harm, or damage existed.

“Occupational illness” means a condition that results from exposure in a workplace to a physical, chemical or biological agent to the extent that normal physiological mechanisms are affected, and the health of the worker is impaired. It includes an occupational disease for which a worker is entitled to benefits under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997.

“Office of the Chief Risk Officer” means the part of the organizational office responsible for institutional occupational health and safety at the University of Ottawa.

“Senior management” means the most senior management personnel within a faculty or service. It includes associate vice presidents, vice provosts and deans.

“Student” means a person who is enrolled in a course or program of study and/or research endeavour at the University who is not performing work or supplying services to the University. A student may be at an undergraduate or graduate level.

“Supervisor” means a person who has charge of a workplace or authority over a worker or another person. The determination as to whether a person is a supervisor does not depend on that person’s job title. Rather, it depends on whether the person is responsible for a location (for example, an office or laboratory) where work is performed on a paid or unpaid basis or whether the person gives direction to complete work performed by workers, students, visitors or volunteers. Depending on the workplace relationship, a supervisor may include, for example, the President, vice-presidents, directors, deans, chief administrative officers, managers, professors or principal investigators.

“University community” means the collective members and stakeholders of the organization, including workers, supervisors, managers, senior management, executive management, students, visitors, volunteers, contractors, etc.

“Worker" means any of the following:

• a person who performs work or supplies services for monetary compensation. This means any University employee and includes a person who performs work or supplies services for monetary compensation. Students hired by the University to perform paid work-study program duties or co-operative education placement duties for the University are considered workers; 
• a secondary school student who performs work or supplies services for no monetary compensation under a work experience program authorized by the school board that operates the school in which the student is enrolled;
• a person who performs work or supplies services for no monetary compensation under a program approved by a college of applied arts and technology, university or other postsecondary institution;
• such other persons as may be prescribed who perform work or supply services to an employer for no monetary compensation. 

“Visitor” or “volunteer” refers to a person who is not a worker or a student but who performs work at the University workplace for other reasons, which are typically associated with personal education, training or experience. For greater clarity, the duties of “workers” apply to visitors and volunteers. The duties of “supervisor” apply to those who supervise visitors and volunteers.

This online training is intended for all workers and supervisors who work, study, or conduct research at uOttawa. This wide-ranging workshop strives to engage all sectors of the University. It is vital that all members of the University community know and understand their specific roles and responsibilities with respect to workplace health and safety. Everyone is responsible in some way for workplace health and safety, no matter what they do or where they do it.

This online training assumes that you have a basic knowledge of the University’s occupational health and safety programs. Therefore, you are expected to have completed the following workshops beforehand:

• Worker Health and Safety Awareness
• Supervisor Health and Safety Awareness (where applicable)

Additional health and safety-related training is available to further augment your learning. Check the Office of the Chief Risk Officer website for additional training opportunities.

This online workshop consists of five modules; as a workshop participant, you are expected to navigate, engage with, understand, and apply the modules. The workshop also features mini quizzes, which do not count but which you can use to test your knowledge.  A final quiz, for which multiple attempts are permitted, concludes this self‑guided online training. You must log into your LRS account to access the final quiz and achieve a passing mark of 75% in order for the workshop to be credited in your LRS learning profile.

There is no time limit for this workshop; you may take as much time as you need to understand the content and concepts presented. Throughout the workshop, you are encouraged to click the hyperlinks to additional information relevant to the subject matter.

Although the workshop may be completed in multiple sittings, we recommend that you bookmark your page before a break so you can quickly start where you left off afterwards.

Every academic and support staff employee has been assigned an LRS system account. Once you have completed the workshop, we encourage you to log into your account through single sign-on authentication. Participants who are external to uOttawa (such as volunteers) may obtain an external account by following these steps:

• Go to web47.uottawa.ca/en/lrs.
• In the upper right corner of the screen, click “Create a profile.”
• Complete the account request form, including your:
  • First name
  • Last name
  • Email address
  • User name
  • Password
  • Preferred language of correspondence
  • Reason for the account

The IT section will validate the account, and further instructions will be sent to the email provided within 24 hours. You can use a visitor account to register for any LRS workshop, including other health and safety-related workshops.

Once you have successfully completed the online training and quiz, LRS will send an email with a certificate of completion to your University email address (or the address provided during account creation). Supervisors have direct access to their worker’s LRS profile, which allows a supervisor to check that the worker has completed their training. We encourage graduate students and research associates to send a copy of their certificate to their supervisor as proof of completion.

Since this workshop builds on current uOttawa training, we ask that you review the following general points:

• All supervisors are workers, but not all workers are supervisors. It is important to understand when you fill a given role. For example, a dean or director is a worker, but is also a supervisor and the person with the most accountability within a faculty or service.
• Workers have three (3) basic rights:
  • Right to know
  • Right to participate
  • Right to refuse unsafe work
• The employer has the greatest level of accountability, with managers and supervisors acting on behalf of the employer at more operational levels.
• The University is responsible for appointing competent persons to supervisory/managerial positions.
• The employer and supervisor have a general duty to ensure the health and safety of a worker.
• Specific duties of workplace are established, under law, for:
  • Employers
  • Supervisors
  • Workers