Canada’s Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, commonly known as WHMIS, is designed to provide workers, and others with critical health and safety information about hazardous products used, stored, handled or disposed of in the workplace.
Transitioning to GHS WHMIS
WHMIS is mandated by federal, provincial and territorial law.
Changes to federal WHMIS-related law, and supporting provincial regulation here in Ontario (and other Canadian jurisdictions), are altering the way this information is delivered. These changes
are designed to standardize, on a global scale, the hazardous product information communication system.
This transition deadline from original WHMIS to the new Globally-Harmonized (GHS) WHMIS was December 1, 2018.
In Ontario, WHMIS applies to all workplaces covered by the
Occupational Health and Safety Act along with federally-regulated workplaces governed by the
Canada Labour Code.
Employer WHMIS-related obligations
The main purpose of federal WHMIS legislation is to
require suppliers of hazardous products to provide health and safety information as a condition of sale.
Provincial and territorial law establish employer obligations to obtain this information and ensure workers have access and understand it. Here in Ontario, these
employer obligations include:
- ensuring a hazardous product is properly labelled,
- ensuring workers have access to up-to-date safety data sheets,
- training workers on the hazards and safe use of the hazardous product,
- reviewing this training annually or more often if hazard information or work conditions change,
- developing and reviewing training in consultation with the JHSC or worker health and safety representative; and
- taking all reasonable precautions to protect the health and safety of workers.
WHSC can help!
The employer
obligation to provide WHMIS training in the new system is mandatory regardless of whether workers were trained in the old WHMIS system.
To help workplaces seeking to comply with new WHMIS training obligations
, the Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) has developed a WHMIS training program i
ntended for workers, supervisors, and managers. This course is
also highly interactive, applying adult learning principles to ensure learning is engaging, relevant and achieved. Upon successful completion of our WHMIS training program,
WHSC issues a WHMIS certificate of training and maintains student records for any future requirement.
Download and share
Hard copies of all these documents are available upon request.
To learn more about WHMIS training call 1-888-869-7950 and ask to speak to a WHSC Training Services representative or email us at
contactus@whsc.on.ca. Also, to fully comply with GHS WHMIS requirements, employers will need to develop and implement a workplace-specific education and training program, including safe work procedures. WHSC can help with this too.