Children Working Alone in Alberta: How Child Labour and Working Alone Regulations Interact

Abstract

The Canadian province of Alberta does not effectively enforce its child labourlaws. This non-enforcement interacts with the working-alone regulations inAlberta’sOccupational Health and Safety Actto deny workers under age 15meaningful solo work protection. As a result, children and adolescents areexposed to the hazards adults face while working alone as well as hazardsunique to children and adolescents working alone. This suggests that failing toenforce child labour laws has both obvious and subtle effects. The subtle effectsare difficult to identify and remediate, in part because of the initial regulatoryfailure is politically difficult to acknowledge.