WorkSafe Saskatchewan launches new framework to curb serious workplace injuries

WorkSafe Saskatchewan has launched a new strategic framework intended to drive down serious workplace injuries and fatalities, even as overall injury rates in the province reach record lows.

The refreshed “holistic” framework is described as supporting “the next generation of prevention and total worker health, safety and well-being.” WorkSafe Saskatchewan is a partnership between the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety and the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB).

Saskatchewan’s 2025 Total injury rate reached a provincial low for the fourth consecutive year. Since WorkSafe Saskatchewan was created in 2002, time loss injuries and the Total injury rate have each decreased by 67 per cent. In 2025, 89 per cent of Saskatchewan workplaces reported zero injuries or fatalities.

Serious injuries, fatalities remain steady

Despite the improved overall trend, WorkSafe Saskatchewan reports that serious workplace injuries still affect approximately 2,500 workers in the province each year. Serious injury claims account for between 11 and 15 per cent of all claims, but about 80 per cent of costs to the Saskatchewan compensation system.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, the number of claims that reached serious injury status in 2024 was 2,599, a 6.91 per cent increase over 2,431 serious injuries in 2023. There were 27 workplace fatalities in each of 2024 and 2025.

“Saskatchewan is strong and growing, and we must protect what matters most: our families, friends and communities,” said Labour Relations and Workplace Safety Minister Ken Cheveldayoff. “By actively involving workers and building on our strong legacy and culture of safety, together we’re helping create safer workplaces. A strong Saskatchewan is a safe Saskatchewan.”

According to the Saskatchewan WCB 2025 annual report and its operating results news release, the province’s Total injury rate dropped to 3.68 per 100 workers in 2025, down from 3.91 in 2024, a 5.9 per cent decrease and the lowest rate in Saskatchewan’s history. The Time Loss injury rate also declined to 1.66 per 100 workers from 1.72 the year before, another record low. 

Building on 20 years of safety progress

When WorkSafe Saskatchewan was launched in 2002, the province’s Time Loss injury rate was the second highest in Canada at 4.95 per 100 workers. As of 2024, Saskatchewan’s Time Loss injury rate had improved to the fourth highest in the country.

For more than two decades, WorkSafe Saskatchewan has partnered with workers, employers, labour, safety associations and government to improve workplace safety. Cheveldayoff said that partnership remains central to the new framework. “Through the partnership between the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety and the Workers’ Compensation Board, WorkSafe Saskatchewan is leading the next generation of prevention,” he said.

“By engaging workers and employers as partners in health, safety and well-being, we are continuing to reduce injuries and strengthen workplaces across the province,” Cheveldayoff added.

WCB chair Gord Dobrowolsky said existing gains form the basis for the new focus. “This progress reflects the shared commitment of employers, workers, safety associations and labour across Saskatchewan and forms the foundation for our focus on safety, health and well-being,” he said.

Focus on high‑risk sectors and total worker health

The framework is aligned with WorkSafe Saskatchewan’s 2023–2028 Fatalities and Serious Injuries Strategy, which targets the main drivers of serious injuries and fatalities in health care, transportation and construction. In 2025, health care’s Total injury rate declined 12.6 per cent, construction’s rate declined three per cent and transportation remained at 5.5 per cent.

Dobrowolsky said the new framework reflects changes in how safety and prevention are viewed. “Workplace safety and prevention is changing and our approach must change with it. This approach recognizes that safety, health and well‑being connect deeply. When workers are safe and supported, our province is stronger,” he said.

The refreshed framework adopts what WorkSafe Saskatchewan calls a broader, human‑centred approach that, in addition to physical safety, recognises the role of psychological health, resilience and belonging.

Key actions include:

• Strengthening return‑to‑work programs that support recovery and long‑term outcomes
• Promoting psychological health and safety alongside physical safety
• Leveraging technology to help prevent occupational disease exposure and musculoskeletal injuries in health care
• Using industry‑specific data to inform prevention efforts
• Encouraging strong safety leadership and shared accountability at every level
• Actively engaging workers and employers as partners in prevention

“The future of WorkSafe Saskatchewan integrates safety, health and well-being. Our focus goes beyond only preventing injuries to also supporting workers to thrive, both on and off the job,” Germain said.

He told CTV News that WorkSafe Saskatchewan has “developed something called learning collaboratives, where we bring employers together to focus on a very specific issue, whether it's challenges related to returning people to work, or specific issues like ergonomics in manufacturing, or psychological health and safety.”

“Employers are having similar issues. We're bringing experts into those groups, and we are working specifically with those employers to tackle those specific issues in those specific workplaces,” Germain said.

According to WorkSafe Saskatchewan, “time loss injuries have decreased by 67 per cent since it was founded in 2002. In 2025, 89 per cent of Saskatchewan workplaces reported zero injuries or fatalities.”

Canadian workers’ compensation boards accepted 1,042 work-related death claims in 2024, according to the 2026 Report on Work Fatality and Injury Rates in Canada, authored by Sean Tucker and Anya Keefe. Each year they analyze data collected by the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC). 

Here is the workplace injury data for Saskatchewan over the past five years (2020–2024), compiled from the Saskatchewan WCB and WorkSafe Saskatchewan:

_{*2021 total is approximate (No Time Loss + Time Loss claims), reconstructed from reported sub-components.}