Ergonomics in Canada

This article describes the origins of some of the institutions and agencies contributing to the development and practice of ergonomics in Canada.
Ergonomics in Canada, as in other countries, found its genesis in military procurement. Following the Second World War, military scientists at the Defence Research Board Toronto recognised the basic tenet of ergonomics–that operators (in this case servicemen and women) work more safely and more effectively when the design of the work situation takes account of their anatomical, physiological and psychological characteristics – and adopted it as a significant component of their work. In due course, the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine (DCIEM), as this agency was oddly renamed, became the birthplace, in 1968, of the Human Factors Association of Canada (HFAC), the Canadian organisation affiliated to the International Ergonomics Association.
In 1984 the Association adopted the name Human Factors Association of Canada/Association canadienne d’ergonomie. In this year also it entered the international scene by sponsoring the International Conference on Occupational Ergonomics in Toronto. In 1999 it changed its name once more, this time to the Association of Canadian Ergonomists/Association canadienne d’ergonomie (ACE).
The twenty-nine founding members of the original organisation were mostly military or ex-military persons or functionaries of other government departments. A few were academics; only two were women. In its early days ACE (or HFAC, as it then was) did not make many waves. Members met at least once a year to present papers to each other, but it did not engage seriously in questions of academic and professional status and development. The prevailing mode changed in 1981 when members were persuaded to forsake the Muskoka Lakes in order to hold the annual conference in Toronto. Ergonomists from places outside southern Ontario were now able to find the venue and the organisation began its expansion.
Apart from providing a birthplace for ACE, DCIEM also provided its original name. In establishing DCIEM, the Department of National Defence had "recognized the importance of human factors", and DCIEM claimed "the human factors of command systems" as one of its areas of competence. In 1968, prevailing opinion in North America was that the term human factors correctly described the domain of interest and did so more appropriately than the term ergonomics. The new association was therefore named accordingly. It thrived for many years with that name but whether the decision impeded, in certain respects, the development of ergonomics in Canada remains questionable.
In 1980 the Government of Quebec established in Montreal the Institut de recherche en santé et en sécurité de travail (IRSST) to undertake research aimed at promoting occupational health and safety. From its inception, ergonomics research constituted a significant part of the activity of IRSST, but unlike that of DCIEM, this research was wholly directed to industrial objectives as distinct from what were the military objectives of the latter. IRSST was also distinctive in having representatives of employer organisations and trade unions sitting on its administrative board. In other respects, the two agencies were alike in being government sponsored and, for the most part, government funded, and in giving considerable support to the professional and scientific activities of ACE.
In 1984 the National Research Council of Canada established the Associate Committee for the Industrial Application of Ergonomics. Drawing members from government agencies, the universities, industry and commerce, and trade unions, the Committee was mandated to promote the application of ergonomics to industry on the assumption that this either was not, or was inadequately, being done already. Committee members set out across Canada to bring the message to workers, managers and employers, with diverse results. In one city two hundred persons attended a one-day workshop sponsored by the Committee while in another barely a dozen turned up. In these workshops the speakers endeavoured to stress the broad scope of ergonomics, pointing out that ergonomics was pertinent not only to occupational health and safety but also to efficiency and effectiveness.
The Associate Committee sponsored surveys and seminars implicating government occupational health and safety agencies, ergonomics teachers, trade unions and ACE and successfully raised awareness of the issues. It tried equally to implicate industrialists and engineers but with mixed results (although Bell Northern Research at this time employed the biggest single group of ergonomists in Canada, working on the design of its consumer products). The Committee succeeded in co-sponsoring (with ACE) the appointment of an industry technical advisor by the NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program but failed to persuade the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to establish a grants committee for ergonomics. As a legacy, the Committee left a series of useful publications.
Of the institutions that played a role in developing ergonomics in Canada, the universities were the ones whose contribution was most ambivalent. Ergonomics has been taught as a university subject for many years, but in a variety of departments ranging from kinesiology, psychology and biological sciences to industrial relations, industrial engineering, systems engineering and other engineering disciplines. This has had the benefit of bringing to the teaching of ergonomics the full range of knowledge and techniques that the subject calls for, but it led to some disarray. Ergonomics was compelled, in many cases, to occupy the minor role in a department named for and devoted to some other discipline, and what students received (and still receive) was shaped accordingly. No Canadian university has a dedicated Department of Ergonomics.
This lack of cohesion is reflected today in the attitudes of managers, trade unionists, and members of the public in general towards ergonomics. For example, the introduction of information technology into the workplace led to changes in workplace structure and procedures that called for the application of ergonomics theory and technique. But ergonomics became associated with the single issue of avoiding repetitive-strain injuries. The topic of man (or, better, operator)-machine interface (MMI) became a hardy perennial to be cultivated and watered at all conferences designed for computer engineers and computer scientists, but it assumed a life of its own divorced from a more comprehensive ergonomic approach.
The eventual outcome of this state of affairs remains to be seen. With universities interested more in areas of application (like women's studies, aboriginal studies, environmental studies, management studies) rather than basic disciplines, little relief is likely to come from that area. On the other hand, in 1998, after years of preparation, ACE established the Canadian College for the Certification of Professional Ergonomists/Conseil Canadien de certification des praticiens en ergonomie with a current (2009) membership of more than 130 certified professional ergonomists. Strong professional associations like ACE and CCCPE may make the difference.