Fishing is a hazardous occupation worldwide with a poor health and safety record. Between 2010 and 2020, an average of 236 marine accidents were reported to the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and an average of 33 % involved fishing vessels. Like fisheries governance more generally, governance of fishing health and safety is a wicked problem, which cannot be solved once and for all but tends to reappear. While there are no panaceas for improving fishing safety, improved regulation can help. Fishing health and safety is often subject to regulations by multiple agencies, particularly in federalist states. In Canada, the federal government, Transport Canada, is responsible for providing a national regulatory framework that applies to the structural and operational safety of vessels, and provincial governments are responsible for the workplace health and safety of crews while they are engaged in commercial fishing activities and for workers’ compensation. In this context, inconsistencies among standards and variability in levels of protection across fleets and provinces can exist, and jurisdictional conflicts may occur. However, few studies have examined this problem. To fill this research gap, guided by governance theory and drawing upon findings from a legal review of international, federal and provincial fishing OHS laws and regulations and a review of case law, this article identifies multiple OHS law regulatory and enforcement challenges in the Atlantic Canadian context. These challenges include (1) fragmented OHS governance due to the division of powers between federal and provincial governments; (2) variation in OHS-related standards and protections between provinces, with those from the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick less protected than those from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador; (3) evidence of jurisdictional disputes that can reduce the efficiency of enforcement and development of fishing OHS standards; and (4) indications that federal-provincial jurisdictional divisions may be impeding Canada’s progress in ratifying and implementing international OHS instruments such as the C-188, Work in Fishing Convention of the International Labour Organization. These four challenges mean that improving fishing OHS in Canada is difficult. The paper proposes a regional fishing OHS initiative based on a partnership between the federal and provincial governments to establish harmonized fishing OHS standards to mitigate these challenges.

捕鱼在世界范围内是一项危险的职业，健康和安全记录不佳。2010 年至 2020 年间，加拿大运输安全委员会 (TSB) 平均报告了 236 起海上事故，平均 33% 涉及渔船。与更普遍的渔业治理一样，渔业健康和安全治理是一个棘手的问题，无法一劳永逸地解决，而且往往会再次出现。虽然没有改善捕鱼安全的灵丹妙药，但改进监管会有所帮助。捕鱼的健康和安全通常受到多个机构的监管，特别是在联邦制国家。在加拿大，联邦政府加拿大交通部负责提供适用于船舶结构和运营安全的国家监管框架，省政府负责船员在从事商业捕鱼活动时的工作场所健康和安全以及工人的赔偿。在这种情况下，可能存在标准之间的不一致以及跨车队和省份的保护水平的可变性，并且可能会发生管辖权冲突。然而，很少有研究研究过这个问题。为了填补这一研究空白，在治理理论的指导下，并利用对国际、联邦和省级渔业职业健康与安全法律法规的法律审查和判例法审查的结果，本文确定了加拿大大西洋地区的多项职业健康与安全法律监管和执法挑战语境。这些挑战包括（1）由于联邦和省政府之间的权力分工而导致的分散的 OHS 治理；(2) 各省之间职业健康安全相关标准和保护的差异，爱德华王子岛省和新不伦瑞克省的保护低于新斯科舍省和纽芬兰及拉布拉多省的保护；(3) 管辖权纠纷的证据会降低渔业职业健康安全标准的执行和制定效率；(4) 有迹象表明，联邦-省管辖区划分可能会阻碍加拿大在批准和实施国际职业健康与安全文书方面取得进展，例如国际劳工组织的 C-188 渔业工作公约。这四个挑战意味着改善加拿大的渔业职业健康与安全是困难的。