Threads of Life’s annual State of Safety report released this spring reveals that while attitudes toward workplace safety remain positive across Canada, progress in reducing incidents and fatalities has stalled.

The findings point to a clear gap: organizations believe in safety, but too often fail to embed it into everyday practice. While the survey has some positive signals, it does not reflect the progress we hope for in health and safety.

Threads of Life launched its annual State of Safety survey in 2024, working with the Angus Reid Forum. For this year’s report, Angus Reid surveyed a representative sample of 1013 Canadian business owners, hiring managers and decision makers.

“Awareness is not the issue, execution is,” says Threads of Life Executive Director Eugene Gutierrez. “We see strong belief in safety across Canada, but that belief must be reinforced through training, leadership, and culture if we want to see real change.”

Highlights from the State of Safety 2026 report:

Safety beliefs ARE improving in Canada. When we asked decision makers if they believe "the risk of an accident is so rare, nobody thinks about it", only 42% agreed. And that's down from 48% last year. This improved most substantially in the smallest businesses (2-9 employees).
It takes ongoing work to build a culture of care. Safety culture is not static, and it's not a destination. In our State of Safety report this year there was no change overall in the number of respondents who said their workplace "puts health and safety ahead of everything else" (66%). But the survey did reveal some deterioration in this indicator of safety culture in Canada's larger workplaces. Among businesses with 100 or more employees, there was a drop from 70% in 2025 to 63% this year, and in unionized workplaces, agreement with this statement fell from 77% to 62% this year.
Understaffing bumped up to top spot this year among the challenges affecting health and safety for survey respondents. This factor saw the biggest year over year increase, and has overtaken lack of time for training as the key barrier to improving safety standards.
Are we learning from our mistakes? After a work-related injury, fatality or disease diagnosis, families want to know the same thing will not happen to another worker or family. But Threads of Life's State of Safety report indicates workplaces may not be taking those steps. For respondents who reported their workplace had a fatality in the previous year, just 61% said they had implemented additional safety measures, and only 52% implemented additional safety measures following an injury. Just 68% said their workplace conducted a thorough investigation following a death or injury.
Training is one of the basic building blocks of a safety program. And it's missing in more than a quarter of Canadian workplaces. When asked about safety protocols in their workplaces, only 73% of Canadian decision-makers reported they had safety training for employees. That number has held steady across the three years of the annual #StateOfSafety survey. Even fewer have monthly health and safety meetings (44%) or start-of-shift check-ins (32%).
Mental health at work remains a prominent challenge. For 43% of participants in the 2026 survey, their workplace saw an increase in mental health challenges over the past year. That's up slightly from last year. The good news? 86% of workplaces are taking steps to address the challenges.

Threads of Life conducts our State of Safety survey each year to take the pulse of the nation on workplace health and safety -- to gauge beliefs and practices and to measure our progress towards a world where injuries, illnesses and deaths are no longer the cost of doing business. We welcome employers, policymakers, and industry leaders to use the report as a tool for reflection, insight and decision-making.

“Our vision is a future where Threads of Life is no longer needed,” said Gutierrez. “That will only happen when safety is not just something organizations say, it is something they consistently do.”

Read the State of Safety report for 2026: https://www.threadsoflife.ca/blog/the-state-of-safety-in-canada-2026