Feds to hire 100 new health and safety officers under Bill C-39

The federal government plans to hire 100 new health and safety officers as part of a sweeping labour bill tabled in Parliament on September 21, 2026, a hire the government says will lift federal workplace inspection capacity by roughly 70 per cent, according to its official news release announcing the bill.

The hires are one part of Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, introduced by the Liberal government on the first day of the fall parliamentary sitting. The bill's labour provisions, grouped under what the government calls its "Canada Strong For All" pillar, also include changes to the federal law setting out federally regulated workers' core safety rights, the Canada Labour Code, meant to speed up collective bargaining, 26 new staff at the Canada Industrial Relations Board to clear a backlog of worker complaints, and more inspectors to target worker misclassification.

"Strong labour relations are essential to the success of Canadian workers, businesses and our economy. As workplaces continue to evolve, our labour laws must keep pace to ensure workers are protected and workplaces remain fair and safe," Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families, said in the government's news release announcing the bill.

What the current health and safety officer numbers show

Employment and Social Development Canada's own August 2026 evaluation of its Occupational Health and Safety program found approximately 90 active health and safety officers and senior investigators enforcing Part II of the Canada Labour Code, spread across 16 office locations in five regions. That evaluation, covering fiscal years 2016 to 2024, oversees compliance for roughly 1.4 million employees and 19,600 employers under federal jurisdiction.

Whether the 100 new hires represent a 70 per cent jump or something closer to doubling the current inspector pool is not fully clear from the public figures released so far, since the government's capacity estimate may account for additional officers with delegated authority at Transport Canada and the Canada Energy Regulator.

The same evaluation identified persistent staffing and resourcing constraints as a barrier to consistent inspections. Most of the 29 officials, employer representatives and employee representatives interviewed for the report cited insufficient personnel, geographic coverage gaps and training limitations as factors reducing proactive inspections, particularly in remote regions. Inspection hours dropped sharply during the pandemic before recovering to pre-pandemic levels by 2022 to 2023.

The evaluation also tracked outcomes. Federally regulated workplaces reported 71 fatalities in 2023, up from a low of 44 in 2021. The Disabling Injury Frequency Rate, a standardized measure of injuries per million hours worked, fell 15 per cent between 2016 and 2023, but the program missed its own target of a consistent two per cent annual reduction in most years. Road and air transportation consistently posted the highest injury rates of any federally regulated sector.

A long-running staffing debate

Federal inspector staffing has been a recurring flashpoint for more than a decade. A historic decline in the number of federal safety inspectors left the inspectorate diminished well before this latest evaluation. The new hires would represent the most significant single expansion of the inspector workforce in that period, though the government has not yet published a hiring timeline or said how quickly officers will be trained and deployed.

The announcement follows the federal government's spring consultations on modernizing the Canada Labour Code, launched in April to address fatigue, psychological safety and other emerging workplace hazards.

Employers want transparency on the rollout

Derrick Hynes, president and CEO of FETCO (Federally Regulated Employers, Transportation and Communications), said his organization has pushed Ottawa on this for some time.

"The government needs better resourcing for some of the government institutions that enforce [the] Canada Labour Code, including the Canada Industrial Relations Board [and] the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service," Hynes said. "We think that in the last number of years, a number of new responsibilities have been downloaded to various government entities associated with this department, and we think the resourcing is needed to allow them to do their work."

FETCO represents major federally regulated employers in transportation and communications, including Air Canada, Canadian National Railway and Canada Post. Hynes said his members expect the government to be transparent about how the new officers will be deployed.

"We think it's fair in these circumstances that government is upfront with employers around what their plans might be around scheduled inspections, targeted industry sweeps, if you will, and even some of these surprise inspections that are unplanned in nature," he said. "We do fundamentally believe that if the government uses these resources wisely and targets areas where they can enhance occupational health and safety, then obviously we're going to be supportive of that. But we do think there needs to be full transparency around what their plans are."

One sector Hynes flagged specifically is trucking, where the FETCO member Canadian Trucking Alliance has pushed for stronger enforcement against the so-called Driver Inc. model, in which some carriers misclassify drivers as contractors to sidestep labour standards.

"Players in this industry who are following the rules are being penalized when there are players in the industry that are not following the rules," Hynes said. "We know the government is aware of this. They've made a public commitment to address it, and we think a portion of these new inspectors that they may be bringing in can be helpful to help wrestle this problem to the ground."

On a hiring and deployment timeline, Hynes said it's too early to say, and pointed to the federal government's tripartite Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee as the right table for those discussions. "We think that's a really perfect table to have discussions around how this plan might unfold."

Bill C-39 still has to clear committee review and a full vote in the House of Commons and Senate before any of its provisions, including the officer hires, take effect.