If a business does not have a safety program to protect its workers, then that business should not exist, and if it does exist, the government should have every right to shut that business down.

The Albertan and Canadian governments both have some incredibly forward thinking people as elected officials in their collective employ. As in any large organization, that doesn’t necessarily mean that extends to every person. The reason I mention this up front is because our recent business activity has put us “in the room” with some of these people, and I have been extremely impressed. I have met MPs, MLAs, and various members of government organizations from the NRC to other three, four, and five letter acronym departments, and I quite frankly have trouble remembering them all. Please don’t ask me to tell you what they stand for! We at Plains meet a wide variety of individuals, as all of us in business do, but often the stigma is that the government is made up of politicians and bureaucrats, and that can be hard to overcome.

For the purpose of this article, I hope the sentiment within reaches these forward thinking people in government. If we view the government as a large business, we can draw some parallels and maybe deal with a major concern we have involving Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S). I am speaking of the government’s move to control safety standard infractions by using a graduated system of fines.

Plains doesn’t take issue, in any way, with cracking down on businesses that do not conform to safety standards. Quite frankly, if a business does not have a safety program to protect its workers, then that business should not exist, and if it does exist, the government should have every right to shut that business down without question. Our entire industry takes safety seriously, so please do not misconstrue the true meaning of this article. Fines may seem like a viable option for the government to use to enforce safety standards, but I think that is shortsighted and this is why:

As a nation, we want our government to be fiscally responsible. We can see the evidence of what happens in the media when governments are not responsible, so when we (the voter) press the government to save, they often choose to cut. They cut department spending more often than they put money back in. In business we can’t throw money around either, and we often use a similar strategy. In those cases, it’s our employees who pay the price. We need to get as much as we can, for as little as we can, so we can make as much money as we can. It’s a shortsighted business strategy that many managers and owners employ, and I am proud to say we done’t use it. Sometimes it takes money to make money.

We can’t be spendthrifts in business or in government. I would never have made it as a manager these past 20 years if I had only spent money and never made any. I do not think when the government cuts spending it does so with truly thinking about the effects on the employee, or the manager who has to figure out a way to enact those cuts and continue to provide the exact same service. It is easy to remove funds in business, or in government, without having to spend much time thinking of the consequences. I can do so with the strike of a pen and the ramifications of that pen strike will fall to the managers below me. If I provide them with support and direction as well as sound reasoning, then I am a good manager (and from experience, I can say this rarely happens). But effective managing is a skill few really understand.

Picture this scenario: with the stroke of my pen I remove funding. You are the manager whose funding I have removed. You are responsible for the health and safety of the entire workforce and you have a staff of individuals trained at multiple levels who are required to ensure workplace safety. With a reduced budget, the number of trained individuals whose responsibility it is to maintain safety standards are all so reduced.

So the question asked of you is: how do we ensure businesses are following safety protocols?