Then and now: The evolution of construction safety
Updated: Sep 7
How safety in the industry has changed over the decades
Sean Scott, current chair of the Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Associations, speaks with COS senior journalist, Shane Mercer, about safety in the industry and how it has changed over the past several decades. The episode is the first part of a Canadian Occupational Safety series to mark 60 years of publication.
The regulatory backbone of today's job sites didn't exist a few generations ago. In the U.S., the creation of OSHA in 1971 marked the shift from safety as a voluntary courtesy to safety as an enforceable standard, with fall protection, trench shoring, and PPE requirements codified for the first time. Canadian provinces built parallel systems around the same era, which is part of why Sean Scott's 60-year retrospective in the interview above lines up so closely with the broader North American story: safety went from an afterthought to a legal and operational baseline within a single career's span.
What's changed more recently is the culture around compliance. Early safety programs were reactive: an incident happened, an inspector cited it, and the crew adjusted. Modern job sites increasingly run on proactive systems instead, daily toolbox talks, near-miss reporting that doesn't punish the person who speaks up, and behavior-based observation programs that catch a risky habit before it causes an injury. That shift from "don't get caught" to "don't get hurt" is arguably a bigger change than any single piece of equipment.
Technology has accelerated that shift. Wearable sensors can flag heat stress or a hard fall before a supervisor is even on scene. Drones now handle the high-risk inspections, roof edges, tall facades, active excavations, that used to require a worker to physically climb into harm's way. And site cameras paired with AI hazard detection can catch a missing hard hat or an unguarded opening across an entire site in real time, rather than relying on a single safety officer walking the property once a day.
For contractors, the practical takeaway is that safety has become a competitive differentiator, not just a compliance checkbox. Clients increasingly ask for EMR (experience modification rate) history and safety program documentation before they'll shortlist a bidder, and crews notice which companies actually invest in the tools and training versus which ones treat safety as paperwork. The 60-year arc this series covers isn't just about avoiding injuries; it's about how safety performance now shapes who wins the next project.
