OSSA exec leads merged safety associations

Elizabeth Mills, CEO of the Ontario Service Safety Alliance (OSSA), has been appointed to lead the organization being formed to amalgamate three of Ontario’s health and safety associations.

Mills was appointed “inaugural CEO” of the new Safe Workplace Promotion Services Ontario, which puts into one organization the OSSA, Industrial Accident Prevention Association and the Farm Safety Association. Mills will be working with the new organization’s board of directors to “ensure that Ontario’s employers and employees in these sectors have the health and safety programs and services they need.”

With more than 16 years of leadership experience, Mills was instrumental in bringing together a coalition of industry trade associations and volunteer organizations to form the OSSA in 1997. Prior to OSSA, Mills held a variety of senior roles in the not-for-profit and government sectors and was nominated for Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award. 

The move to merge the IAPA, OSSA and FSA was part of the overall changes happening within the Ontario Prevention System – comprised of the Ministry of Labour, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and 14 health and safety associations in the province – which will see the amalgamation of 12 health and safety associations into four new associations. Mills now heads one of these four merged organizations.

According to a statement from the OSSA’s website, the mergers are being undertaken to help improve customer service, add consistency to the way businesses are measured and serviced, and provide better support for small and micro business.   

Under the health and safety associations realignment initiative, the 12 health and safety associations will be amalgamated into four groups: Government-directed services, which would primarily focus on the education, health care and municipal sectors; the Northern Health and Safety Associations, which will provide services for employers in the forestry, mining and pulp/paper industries, as well as those in the Northern Ontario region; Risk Group A, which will include the construction, transportation and electrical industries; and Risk Group B, which is where the OSSA, IAPA and FSA fall under, comprising of the farming, manufacturing and service sectors.