Ontario Worker Fatality and Critical Injury Counts by Year

Fatality and critical injury counts for workers in Ontario are reported annually by the Ministry of Labour. The data covers incidents reported under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, excluding deaths from natural causes, non-workers, suicides, criminal acts, and traffic accidents. The dataset is maintained by the Government of Ontario and was last updated in February 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in fatality counts by calendar year to assess workplace safety program impact.
• Compare critical injury counts across years to identify high-risk periods.
• Model the relationship between reported fatality events and industry sectors using year and program data.
• Validate reported ministry data against other sources by examining the documented exclusions and reporting scope.

Strengths

• Data is harmonized with Workplace Safety and Insurance Board standards for calendar year reporting.
• Critical injuries are defined by a specific list of seven serious conditions.
• Fatality data is reported by year of death for consistency.

Limitations

• Data only includes incidents reported to the ministry, which may not represent all actual workplace events.
• Health Care program data is limited to a three-month period in 2011 before being merged into industrial totals.
• Non-workers may be included in the critical injury counts, complicating worker-specific analysis.

Provenance

Source

Government of Ontario Ministry of Labour.

Collection Method

Incidents reported to and tracked by the ministry under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Time Range

Annual data from at least 2011 onward.

Freshness

Annual updates; last updated February 2026.

Geography

Ontario, Canada.