---
title: "Incident investigation report: 48 hours, 30 days, and the near miss you must still investigate"
description: "A blank incident investigation report with a deadline calculator — and the two BC deadlines that apply to the investigation itself, not just to the notification."
lede: "British Columbia is the only jurisdiction across the five countries this site covers that puts a deadline on the investigation itself: a preliminary report within 48 hours, a full report within 30 days. It also requires an investigation where nobody was hurt but the incident could have been serious. Here is a report to fill in, a calculator for the clocks, and what each province actually demands."
jurisdiction: "Canada"
locale: "en-CA"
publishedOn: 2026-09-08
reviewedOn: 2026-09-08
canonical: "https://safeally.net/en-ca/templates/incident-investigation-report/"
files:
  - label: "Incident investigation report"
    url: "https://safeally.net/downloads/incident-investigation-report/en-ca/incident-investigation-report.docx"
    format: "docx"
    note: "Editable document, eight sections, Letter paper: identification, the clocks that start now, the sequence of facts with a “how it is established” column, witnesses, cause analysis, corrective action, closure and sign-off."
sources:
  - label: "BC Workers Compensation Act, Part 2 — ss. 69 to 73, employer investigations"
    url: "https://www.worksafebc.com/en/law-policy/occupational-health-safety/searchable-ohs-regulation/workers-compensation-act/part-2-occupational-health-and-safety"
    publisher: "WorkSafeBC"
  - label: "Ontario OHSA, ss. 51 and 52 — notice of death, critical injury and accident"
    url: "https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90o01"
    publisher: "Ontario e-Laws"
  - label: "Alberta OHS Code, Part 2 — repeat triggers for the hazard assessment"
    url: "https://search-ohs-laws.alberta.ca/legislation/occupational-health-and-safety-code/part-2-hazard-assessment-elimination-and-control/"
    publisher: "Alberta OHS legislation search"
---

# Incident investigation report: 48 hours, 30 days, and the near miss you must still investigate

British Columbia is the only jurisdiction across the five countries this site covers that puts a deadline on the investigation itself: a preliminary report within 48 hours, a full report within 30 days. It also requires an investigation where nobody was hurt but the incident could have been serious. Here is a report to fill in, a calculator for the clocks, and what each province actually demands.

Most jurisdictions put a deadline on _telling somebody_. British Columbia puts one on _finding out_.

**BC Workers Compensation Act, s. 71(2)(b)**: the report of the preliminary investigation must be "completed within 48 hours of the occurrence of the incident".

**Section 72(2)(b)**: the report of the full investigation must be "submitted to the Board within 30 days of the occurrence of the incident".

Those two sentences make BC the strictest of the five countries this site covers on the thing that actually prevents the next accident. France, Germany and Spain impose no deadline on the analysis at all; Ontario's clocks are notification clocks. If you work in BC, the investigation is on a timer.

One warning about sources before going further. The first automated read of this statute for this article returned "4 days" and "14 days" for those two sections. Both are wrong. **Do not take a deadline from a summary** — including this one. The links are at the bottom and the sections are short.

## The near miss you must investigate

Section 69(1) lists what has to be investigated, and paragraph (c) is the one that surprises people:

> (c) did not involve injury to a worker, or involved only minor injury not requiring medical treatment, but **had a potential for causing serious injury** to a worker

A dropped load that hit nobody. A fall arrested by a harness. An energised panel found open. In British Columbia each of those triggers a preliminary investigation within 48 hours and a full one within 30 days, exactly as an injury would.

Paragraph (a) brings in anything reportable under s. 68, (b) covers injuries requiring medical treatment, and (d) whatever the regulation adds. Subsection (2) carves out one thing: a vehicle accident on a public street or highway.

That is why the severity selector in the calculator above has a "nobody hurt, but it could have been serious" option, and why choosing it still produces two BC deadlines.

## What the investigation has to find, and who does it

Sections 71 and 72 do not merely set dates; they set contents, and they differ from each other on purpose.

**The preliminary investigation** (s. 71(1)) exists to make the place safe again: identify any unsafe conditions, acts or procedures that "significantly contributed to the incident", and where any are found, determine the corrective action needed to prevent a recurrence _during_ the full investigation. Then s. 71(3): the employer must undertake that corrective action "without undue delay", and s. 71(4) requires a report of the action taken to go to the joint committee or be posted.

**The full investigation** (s. 72(1)) exists to find out why: determine the cause or causes, identify the unsafe conditions, acts or procedures that significantly contributed, and determine the corrective action to prevent recurrence.

Two words in there are worth keeping. **"Cause or causes"** — the statute expects more than one, and a report with a single cause is almost always a report that stopped early. **"Significantly contributed"** — the test is contribution, not sole responsibility, which is precisely what stops an investigation collapsing into "the worker didn't follow the procedure".

And s. 70(1) says who: persons "knowledgeable about the type of work involved" and, if reasonably available, with the participation of the employer or a representative **and a worker representative**. Not the safety office alone.

Section 70(4) adds a housekeeping duty that saves investigations: the employer must record the names, addresses and telephone numbers of witnesses and of anyone whose presence might be necessary for a proper investigation. That is why section 4 of the report has a contact-details column, and why filling it in on day one matters — a temporary worker who left on Friday is unreachable by the following month.

## Ontario: notification clocks, and preserve the scene

Ontario's duties are about telling, and they are precise. Section 51(1), where a person is killed or critically injured from any cause at a workplace:

> the constructor, if any, and the employer shall notify an inspector, and the committee, health and safety representative and trade union, if any, **immediately** of the occurrence by telephone or other direct means and the employer shall, **within forty-eight hours** after the occurrence, send to a Director and to the committee, health and safety representative and trade union, if any a written report of the circumstances of the occurrence

Two duties in one sentence: immediate by phone, written within 48 hours. And s. 51(2) freezes the scene — nobody may interfere with, disturb, destroy, alter or carry away wreckage or any article at the scene until an inspector permits it, except to save life, relieve suffering, maintain an essential utility or transport service, or prevent unnecessary damage to property.

That last provision has a practical consequence worth internalising: **the instinct to tidy up is the instinct to destroy evidence.** Photograph, then stop.

Section 52(1) covers the tier below: where a person is disabled from their usual work or requires medical attention because of an accident, explosion, fire or incident of workplace violence, and nobody dies or is critically injured, written notice within **four days** to the committee, the representative and the union — and to the Director if an inspector requires it. Section 52(2) applies the same four days to occupational illness, counted from being advised of it.

## Alberta and the federal regime: the investigation reopens the assessment

Alberta does not set an investigation deadline. What it does is make the _hazard assessment_ the thing that has to move: s. 7(4) requires the assessment to be repeated when a work process or operation changes, and a corrective action that changes how a job is done is exactly that.

Federally, the same logic runs through COHSR Part XIX: hazardous occurrence investigation reports are the first item the hazard identification methodology has to take into account (s. 19.3(1)). An investigation whose findings never reach the prevention programme has satisfied the letter of one duty and defeated the purpose of another.

Section 6 of the report therefore has a column for the date the assessment was updated. It is the only column that proves the loop closed.

## The sequence of facts, and the column that changes everything

Section 3 of the report asks for one line per fact, in order, with a column that almost never appears elsewhere: **"how it is established"**.

It separates what was seen from what was said. A year later, when the report resurfaces, that is the only column that shows what the investigation actually knew — and in front of a hearing, the difference between "observed on site, photo 3" and "stated by the supervisor the next day" is very large.

The discipline that goes with it: **facts, not interpretations.** "The operator was rushing" is not a fact. "The operator reached in before the platen stopped" is. The first closes the analysis; the second opens it, because you can then ask why the platen takes eight seconds to stop and why nothing prevents reaching in before it does.

## The cause test

Whatever method you use — five whys, causal tree, TapRooT, a whiteboard — apply one test to every cause you write down, and it is in the document in bold:

> A cause you cannot change is not a useful cause.

"Lack of attention" cannot be corrected; nobody can legislate attention. "No stop control within reach of the operating position" can, and often for two hundred dollars.

The last column of the causes table asks whether the cause was **already in the hazard assessment**. A cause already identified and left untreated is radically different information from one being discovered: the first is a follow-up failure, the second an assessment failure. They call for different corrective action, and they are argued very differently after the fact.

## What this report is not

- **Not a search for someone to blame.** A report that ends in a name ended too early. The document says so above the first section, because that drift is the commonest and the most expensive: it produces reports nobody is willing to write honestly again.
- **Not the claim.** Workers' compensation reporting to the board is a separate system with separate forms and separate clocks.
- **Not the regulator's investigation.** An officer may run their own, and s. 51(2)-style scene preservation exists to protect it.
- **Not a substitute for the hazard assessment**, though it feeds it and in Alberta reopens it.
- **Not legal advice**, and not a complete statement of these duties. Two of the five Canadian jurisdictions are computed in the calculator, for the reason it states: the other three impose their own duties with their own triggers, and a date guessed from a neighbouring province is worse than no date.
- **Not portable.** Italy counts its 48 hours from the receipt of the medical certificate, not from the incident. France counts 48 hours excluding Sundays and public holidays. Germany reports only above a threshold of death or more than three days' incapacity. Copying a foreign deadline is copying the wrong calendar.

## How to use it

1. **Fill in section 1 immediately**, including when the employer learned of it.
2. **Read section 2 and act on the immediate duties first.** In Ontario, the phone call comes before the paperwork.
3. **Do not tidy the scene.** Photograph it, and leave it if s. 51(2) applies.
4. **Write the sequence of facts within 48 hours**, with the "how it is established" column filled in.
5. **Record witnesses and their contact details on day one** — s. 70(4) requires it and reality demands it.
6. **In BC, complete the preliminary report within 48 hours** and act on what it finds without undue delay.
7. **Analyse causes** with the test above, and mark which were already in the assessment.
8. **Submit the full report within 30 days in BC**, to the Board and to the committee, or post it.
9. **Update the hazard assessment** and set the date for verifying that the corrective action worked.

Then share what you learned with the other jobs exposed to the same hazard. That is the only part of this work that protects somebody who was not there.