“Safety first.” We say it all the time. It is on signs, in training manuals, in boardroom presentations. It sounds responsible. Unquestionable.
It is also bad thinking. Nothing has ever happened with “Safety” as the objective primary goal.
Hear me out. I am not arguing against safety. I am arguing against a lazy version of it where we are more concerned with what sounds right or looks right than actually being safe.
Here is another popular one: “You can never be too careful.”
It sounds like wisdom. It is not. It is the absence of thinking. In reality, you can always be more careful. You can double and triple check, you can put in contingencies and do more research. You can then quadruple check, just to make sure. It leads to nothing actually getting done and costs soaring.
“You Can Never Be Too Careful” — Except You Can
I am not saying safety doesn’t matter, but I am saying that we need to stop pretending it is the primary goal of an endeavor. When we leave the house each day we have objectives and tasks that we would like to see completed. We go to work, we walk the dog, we go to the gym and the grocery store. Accomplishing those tasks is the primary endeavor. Safety is not the objective, it is simply part of the desired outcome. Safety is not the thing we are doing, it is part of the outcome we are hoping for, therefore it can never be first.
What we are really talking about when we consider safety is Risk Assessment; how much risk is there is the task we are setting out to achieve? How much risk are we willing to accept in order to accomplish our tasks and objectives? If we determine that lifting weights at the gym is too risky and we might end up with an injury, then we don’t do it. If we think driving on the highway in the winter after it snows is too risky, then we don’t do it.
This doesn’t mean you are putting safety first. It means you are saying that the goal is no longer worth the risk. Safety only comes into play if you actually do the thing.
Safety can only be at best a secondary goal or a consideration toward your primary goal. If these get turned around then you can’t leave the house. We each have our own sense of what is acceptable risk based on our own values set, skills and abilities, training, and experience.
“You can never be too careful” is the kind of statement that puts the speaker on the right side without requiring them to be accountable for what happens next. It is easy to say. It costs nothing. And it does not help anyone accomplish their task.
Real Safety Requires Wisdom
Real safety is not the absence of risk. It is risk management. It is understanding the hazards, weighing the trade-offs, and building solutions that hold up in the real world — not just on paper.
That requires wisdom. And wisdom does not come from a textbook or a guideline. It requires first-hand experience. Discernment is not possible without that knowledge. And you can only gain that knowledge by actually doing the job.
Everything we do in life comes with risk. We can’t prevent it, so we manage it.
Driving a car has tremendous risk, but we do it regularly, we build cars to be safer in an accident, we put up signage to warn of potential hazards.
Falling while using a flight of stairs is the number one fall related injury in the workplace, yet we do it without consideration, we don’t train it or talk about it.
So often in life we don’t even consider the risks of what we are doing, because instead we are focused on our goals. Awareness is an essential factor here. A first-time gym goer is largely unaware of the risks they are taking and how to avoid them. Their form is often terrible, they don’t know how much weight to use. They are dramatically more likely to injure themselves. It takes research, practice and experience to learn how to manage risk in that environment. That is true in any environment. When we do something new we are lacking awareness. This makes us less safe.
A race car driver is far more aware of the risks involved in racing cars than anyone watching the race. Few people know what is like to drive a car at the absolute limit, all they know is the potential for a crash if it goes wrong. The audience doesn’t know what the car feels like before it starts to slide, nor how the grip changed as the tires began to wear out. They don’t see the nuances, but they see the end result.
This is a key distinction and brings me to my main point. Safety needs to be analysed from multiple perspectives. The racing driver knows a lot about their situation but they are not necessarily the best person to determine safety in all situations. They have a limited perspective, they know what it is like on the track, they know what the car feels like, but they don’t have all the information. The engineers on the pit wall might know that something has broken on the car before the driver does and might radio the driver to tell them to come into the pits, or retire the car. The race officials might know that a crash has occurred ahead and will signal the driver to slow down while they clean up the debris. Even the race organizers might know that a rainstorm is impending and a torrential downpour is only a kilometer away from the track. The driver doesn’t know the whole story. But no one does, they each play their part. That is why they work as a team, not a team trying to win the race but a team of people trying to keep the event successful and safe (notice again that a successful racing event is the primary, safety is a desired secondary outcome).
Collaboration Is Required For Complex Issues
I am certified as a fitness trainer as a hobby, and I like to race cars around a track, but I am experienced in one particular area above all, and that is in running a roofing and exteriors company.
I know what it is like to do the work on the jobsite, to supervise and organize the crews, to communicate with homeowners and to navigate the challenges of safety in this environment, but even with all this experience I only represent this perspective and do not have a complete picture.
Working at heights comes with obvious risks to manage. Just like the racing driver, the person on the roof, on the ladder, on the lift or scaffolding knows best the situation that they are in, but they don’t have a complete perspective. They need support from management, and they need regulatory oversight. They need wisdom and discernment.
Good Regulation Creates a Level Playing Field
Regulation exists for good reason. Industries tend to self-regulate poorly because the pressure to cut costs keeps standards down. Good regulation creates a level playing field. It protects workers who don’t always have the power to protect themselves. It builds consumer confidence in trades that would otherwise race to the bottom. Done right, it does something the market alone cannot — it raises the floor for everyone. We are not against regulation. We are for regulation that works. And unfortunately, we do not have a situation where effective regulation is present in our industry, not just in Manitoba, but across Canada and the US.
Regulation is necessary, but when the people writing the rules do not include the people that do the work in the process, you are missing vital information, and you may not get safer job sites. Enforcement of the rules is necessary, but when the enforcement officers have never done the actual work then they lack wisdom and discernment. The result is what we are currently experiencing; compliance theatre. People pretending to be safe to appease a rule set that doesn’t get it.
You get contractors accumulating infractions not because they are being reckless, but because the system is broken. You get safety officers that lack discernment and experienced workers leaving the trade because they cannot operate this way.
This is not safety. It is bureaucracy wearing safety’s clothing.
“Most safety systems are not designed to support humans, they’re designed to protect liability.” — Sidney Dekker, Professor of Safety Science, Griffith University, Australia
The industry is not asking for oversight to be removed. We are asking for a seat at the table. Because good rules do not get written in a boardroom — they get worked out between everyone who has a part to play. And no one is affected more than the workers and the contractors, whom MECA represents. At this point the industry has a united opinion that the governments approach is not an effective approach. Again, this is not just in Manitoba.
Wisdom Takes All Stakeholders
The solution is not simple. Usually humans tend to assume that everything comes down to a black or white decision. That is not the case here. Clearly neither “side” of the binary should have full control of the rule book. No one wants to watch a race where the cars aren’t allowed to go over 20 mph in the name of “safety first” or “you can never be too careful”, yet on the flipside, we can’t have a race without limits where people are regularly dying for their sport. Somewhere in between is where we have to be. Non-dual thinking must prevail in order to find wisdom.
Real safety culture requires all stakeholders working honestly together — regulators, enforcement, contractors, and the workers themselves. It requires the humility to say “this is not working” and the willingness to collaborate.
That conversation is harder than putting up a sign. It requires discernment, trust, and people who bring genuine experience to the table — not just authority.
MECA has been pushing for this kind of conversation for over 15 years. We believe the industry’s voice is not just valid — it is essential. Good rules come from hard conversations between people who have done the work and people who have the power to change things.
Currently our voice is not being heard in these matters. If you are in this industry, as a contractor or a supplier to the sloped roofing, siding, stucco, metal, or eaves, please join MECA to help us create change and improve the working conditions for this industry.
– David Ehlers, MECA Executive Director