Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety’s 2025-26 Departmental Plan

Description

The goal of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is to provide easy access to credible information on occupational health and safety to help workers in Canada be safe at work, and support employers, labour groups and governments in their efforts to create healthy and safe workplaces. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, as a national institute, provides impartial information through various free and for fee bilingual products and services. Workers and employers in Canada can access a free, confidential service to have their health and safety questions answered personally via telephone, e-mail, person-to-person, fax or mail. In addition, a broad range of online and print resources are offered which support safety and health information needs of workers and workplaces in Canada. Products and services may be financially supported through cost recovery efforts, contributions from the Government of Canada and contributions from other stakeholders.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety collects, evaluates, creates and publishes authoritative information resources on occupational health and safety for the benefit of the working population in Canada. This information is used for education and training, research, development of policy and best practices, improvement of health and safety programs, achieving compliance, and for personal use. When the product or service provided by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is offered to stakeholders such as individuals, groups, and organizations within Canada and abroad with benefits beyond those enjoyed by the general public, the product or service becomes part of the cost-recovery program and a fee is charged.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety promotes and facilitates consultation and cooperation among federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions and participation by labour, employers and other stakeholders in order to assist in the establishment and maintenance of high standards and occupational health and safety initiatives for the Canadian context. The sharing of resources results in the coordinated and mutually beneficial development of unique programs, products and services. Collaborative projects are usually supported with a combination of financial and non-financial contributions to the programs by partners and stakeholders and result in advancement of the health and safety initiatives.

Quality of life impacts

This core responsibility contributes to the “Health”, “Prosperity”, “Good governance”, and “Environment” domains of the Quality of Life Framework for Canada and, more specifically, “Self-rated mental health”, “Job satisfaction”, “Personal safety” and “Climate change adaptation” through all of the activities mentioned in the core responsibility description.

Indicators, results and targets

This section presents details on the department’s indicators, the actual results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, the targets and target dates approved in 2025-26 for National Occupational Health and Safety Resource. Details are presented by departmental result.

Plans to achieve results

The following section describes the planned results for National Occupational Health and Safety Resource in 2025-26.

Canadians and workers in Canada can easily access the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety’s occupational health and safety information and services.

Results we plan to achieve:

• CCOHS is committed to offering an improved client experience. CCOHS will continue to focus on robust and secure IT infrastructure to support service delivery of all its web-based offerings. Client facing processes will be optimized to eliminate barriers and complexity, such as the implementation of single sign-on which allows users to access multiple services with a single account. CCOHS applies a continuous improvement approach across the organization to further enhance the level of service.
• CCOHS plans to reach greater audiences and better serve other-abled people by strengthening its accessibility efforts through increased content in a variety of formats including informative videos with closed captions, and podcasts (audio) with transcripts in both official languages, and with the introduction of American Sign Language (ASL) where possible.
• CCOHS aims to increase usage of its materials and guidance through social media campaigns to disseminate important, timely information and guidance to raise awareness of, and prevent, work-related illnesses and injuries.
• CCOHS will enhance our decision-making capabilities by collecting and analyzing metrics and analytics to inform its work. CCOHS will continue to develop its gateway to information that can be used to shape programs and policy that will lead to improvements in the workplace and workplace practices.

Provide Canadians and workers in Canada with a National repository of key occupational health and safety knowledge, standards, statistics, and information tools that improves dissemination of occupational health and safety related information.

Results we plan to achieve:

• CCOHS will partner with provincial, territorial and other governments and relevant organizations to develop guidance, and informational and educational content and services in plain language, in a variety of formats that promote positive mental health, chemical safety and prevention of occupational disease and ergonomic injuries. CCOHS will explore the intersectionality of psychological health and safety, harassment, bullying, and violence with human rights, diversity in all its forms, as well as the impacts of climate change.
• Focus will be on producing guidance that addresses the concerns of workers with vulnerabilities including newcomers, young and new workers, gig workers and include gender-based concerns, and the changing nature of work. CCOHS will strengthen our accessibility efforts to reach other-abled people through close captions, transcripts, and ASL, where possible. In the coming year, CCOHS will provide leadership to stakeholders on emerging health and safety issues by facilitating knowledge exchange and promoting positive change in workplaces.
• CCOHS will expand the collection of OSH Answers fact sheets offered on the website, which is an information hub for employers seeking information and counsel on traditional occupational safety topics, emerging safety issues, statistics, tools and databases. CCOHS will add to its collection of infographics, posters and fast fact tips cards, offered as free online downloads in print quality format.
• CCOHS’ new Business Safety Portal provides centralized access and curated resources relevant for small businesses across a variety of sectors, including guidance, tools, online resources and an electronic file cabinet. This tool allows business owners to build their health and safety program using provided tools and a guided process and to store, organize, and collate their own records along with those provided within the portal from CCOHS and other health and safety providers.

Through the facilitation of collaborative initiatives with labour, employers and/or government on emerging occupational health and safety issues and for priority sectors, knowledge outcomes are utilized for the benefit of Canadians and workers throughout Canada.

Results we plan to achieve:

• CCOHS has developed strong working relationships with federal government agencies to develop sector specific guidance documents and tools to disseminate invaluable information and meet the needs of the working population. These relationships will enable the continued collaboration with provincial, territorial and other governments and like-minded organizations, unions, and employers across Canada, so that CCOHS can create e-courses, add content to topic-specific microsites, produce tools, and host events to spread prevention messages and good practices.
• CCOHS will deliver tools, services and solutions that meet the health and safety needs of small and medium-sized businesses; Indigenous enterprises; and workers at higher risk. CCOHS will focus prevention efforts to address hazards in priority sectors including healthcare, government agencies and public administration, and community services. CCOHS will develop new and innovative products and services to meet the needs of workplaces and workers in Canada.

Key risks

The CCOHS funding model presents a risk as a significant portion of its operating budget must be generated through cost recovery. Therefore, CCOHS’ products and services must be continually updated to be marketable. Continuous improvement in technology continues to change the landscape for CCOHS.

CCOHS delivers most of its products and services to workers in Canada through electronic delivery and must stay up to date on new technology as traditional delivery methods for its content are unsustainable and out-dated, resulting in a risk of client and revenue attrition.

CCOHS must also ensure that it is adequately protected against increasing threat from unauthorized exploitation of systems, networks and technologies. Such threats can have significant impact to CCOHS’ operations and ability to safely conduct business transactions. CCOHS maintains sufficient levels of investment in technology required to support continuous improvements in its on-line resource delivery channels and to protect against cyber-security risks.

To continue to provide relevant leadership training and support to workers in Canada on emerging occupational health and safety issues, CCOHS relies heavily on maintaining a high level of professional development of its staff. Lack of properly directed investment in talent management will have a significant impact on the ability of CCOHS to perform optimally in the research and timely delivery of relevant products and services on topics which may quickly become areas of concern for workers both in Canada and globally.

Planned resources to achieve results

Related government priorities

Program inventory

National Occupational Health and Safety Resource is supported by the following programs:

• Occupational health and safety information and services

Additional information related to the program inventory for National Occupational Health and Safety Resource is available on the Results page on GC InfoBase.

Description

Internal services are the services that are provided within a department so that it can meet its corporate obligations and deliver its programs. There are 10 categories of internal services:

• management and oversight services
• communications services
• legal services
• human resources management services
• financial management services
• information management services
• information technology services
• real property management services
• materiel management services
• acquisition management services

Plans to achieve results

This section presents details on how the department plans to achieve results and meet targets for internal services.

Internal Services at CCOHS continue working to achieve the priorities in the Strategic Plan, specifically Priority 4: Achieve an employee experience that consistently models CCOHS values and health and safety excellence. To achieve this, CCOHS has set the following goals:

1. To improve the overall working experience of its employees. This improvement will be accomplished with the continued focus on CCOHS' corporate values along with the alignment of its performance management system to further support these values. A continued emphasis will be encouraged to foster open communication and consistent and equal treatment of staff across the organization.
2. To implement an internal framework for diversity and inclusion focused on recruitment strategies that increase social, racial, gender and cultural diversity in the workplace.

In addition, Internal Services will focus on the following goals:

1. To continue enhancing its cost recovery program to support the strategic outcomes of the organization. A successful cost recovery program is imperative to ensure the sustainability of CCOHS operations.
2. To further service excellence by streamlining processes and enhancing decision-making capabilities through metrics and analytics.
3. To continue the implementation of the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan and further CCOHS' national leadership on occupational health and safety issues being the go-to experts for health and safety guidance. CCOHS will continue to align its human resources to support and service these national initiatives.
4. To continue to refresh and reinvest in its Information Technology infrastructure to ensure CCOHS continues to meet the ongoing needs of its stakeholders while continually enhancing its protection against cyber-security risks.
5. To continue investing in a digital transformation of how CCOHS delivers its services in support of its Strategic Plan and in alignment with the government direction on delivering digital services to the public.

Planned resources to achieve results

Planning for contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses

This section presents an overview of the department's planned expenditures from 2022-23 to 2027-28.

Table 7: Three-year spending summary for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)
Table 7 presents how much money CCOHS spent over the past three years to carry out its core responsibilities and for internal services. Amounts for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on spending to date.

Table 8: Planned three-year spending on core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)
Table 8 presents how much money CCOHS plans to spend over the next three years to carry out its core responsibilities and for internal services.

This section provides an overview of the department's voted and statutory funding for its core responsibilities and for internal services. For further information on funding authorities, consult the Government of Canada budgets and expenditures.

Graph 1 summarizes the department's approved voted and statutory funding from 2022-23 to 2027-28.

Text description of graph 1

Fiscal year	Total	Voted	Statutory
2022-23	13,155,369	4,577,121	8,578,248
2023-24	15,012,510	6,389,195	8,623,315
2024-25	10,899,466	5,623,432	5,276,034
2025-26	12,983,817	5,623,432	7,360,385
2026-27	12,983,817	5,623,432	7,360,385
2027-28	12,983,817	5,623,432	7,360,385

Analysis of statutory and voted funding over a six-year period

The total planned spending reported in fiscal years 2022-23 to 2024-25 includes Parliamentary appropriations and revenue sources including main estimates, recoveries and the use of cash respendable revenues pursuant to section 6(1)(g) of the CCOHS Act.

Fiscal 2025-26 to 2027-28 includes planned spending authorities which represent authorities approved in the 2025-26 main estimates and do not represent the use of CCOHS’ respendable revenues, as respendable revenues are only reported upon the approved disbursement of the funds within the fiscal year.

Table 9: Future-oriented condensed statement of operations for the year ended March 31, 2026 (dollars)
Table 9 summarizes the expenses and revenues which net to the cost of operations before government funding and transfers for 2024-25 to 2025-26. The forecast and planned amounts in this statement of operations were prepared on an accrual basis. The forecast and planned amounts presented in other sections of the Departmental Plan were prepared on an expenditure basis. Amounts may therefore differ.

Table 10 Actual human resources for core responsibilities and internal services
Table 10 shows a summary of human resources, in full-time equivalents, for CCOHS’ core responsibilities and for its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Human resources for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on year to date.

Table 11: Human resources planning summary for core responsibilities and internal services
Table 11 shows information on human resources, in full-time equivalents, for each of CCOHS’ core responsibilities and for its internal services planned for the next three years.