Sector and Specialized Hazard Regulations Under the OHSA

Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) sets general duties that every employer owes its workers. On top of those, a family of regulations applies to particular workplace classes — construction, mines, health care, schools — and to particular hazards — asbestos, confined spaces, designated chemicals, needles, X-rays, machine roll-over. This page is a map of the workplace-class and single-hazard regulations that are each too narrow to stand alone, with their O. Reg. citations and a link to the official text for each.

These regulations set minimum statutory standards — a floor, not a ceiling. They sit on top of the Act’s general duties rather than replacing them, so meeting a specific rule here does not discharge the broad obligation to take every reasonable precaution for a worker’s protection. Where a regulation lets an employer vary a prescribed procedure or design, the alternative must give workers protection at least equal to the original; “adequate,” where the rules use it, means genuinely good enough to protect a worker from illness or injury, not just good enough on paper. Several of these regulations also point to other instruments — confirm scope and current requirements at the official source before relying on any single section.

What does the construction projects regulation (O. Reg. 213/91) cover?

O. Reg. 213/91 is the detailed health-and-safety rulebook for construction projects in Ontario, sitting under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. It is long and granular, covering how site equipment such as elevating work platforms must be designed and certified, inspected and recorded, operated by trained workers, and used safely.

Anyone who runs or hires onto a construction project in Ontario is within its reach. The regulation is long and granular, so it is orientation, not the whole story.

One area it spells out in detail is elevating work platforms — the powered lifts crews ride up to do work. The duties that tend to matter most to an employer or equipment owner are:

• Design and certification. A platform has to be engineered to the right national standard and rated to carry at least 1.3 kilonewtons, and an engineer must certify in writing that it meets the standard before anyone uses it.
• Daily checks and records. It must be inspected each day before use by a trained worker following the manufacturer’s instructions, and the owner keeps a permanent record of inspections, tests, repairs, modifications, and maintenance, plus a record tag attached near the operator’s station.
• Trained operators. Before a worker runs a platform the first time, they get oral and written instruction and hands-on training, including load limits and controls.
• Safe use. Do not overload it, follow the manufacturer’s instructions, and keep workers tied off to a proper anchor point with fall protection in the situations the rule names.

In practice, the paperwork trips people up as often as the hardware: missing inspection records or an absent operator manual are common gaps. The full regulation runs well beyond elevating work platforms; the complete captured text lives in the source for this instrument. Construction work also carries dedicated training duties, including working-at-heights training — see the OHSA training requirements.

Source: Construction Projects (O. Reg. 213/91), ss. 144–149.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 213/91 is a detailed set of minimum standards that sits on top of the OHSA’s general duties; it does not replace the constructor’s and employer’s broad obligation to take every reasonable precaution for worker safety on a project.

Confidence: single-source.

Asbestos on construction projects and in buildings (O. Reg. 278/05)

O. Reg. 278/05 governs the handling of asbestos during construction, building repair and demolition, and requires building owners to track and manage known asbestos-containing material on their premises. If work touches asbestos, this is the regulation that governs it.

It reaches construction projects and their owners, constructors, and employers; the repair, alteration or maintenance of buildings; any building where material that might contain asbestos was used; and the demolition of things like equipment, vehicles, ships and railway cars. It does not apply to a homeowner living in their own house, or to a small residential building of four units or fewer where the owner lives in one. Firefighting, rescue and fire-cause investigations are also carved out.

A few duties matter most to an employer:

• Tell your people first. Before a worker does anything involving (or close to) asbestos material, the employer has to give them the location of that material, whether it is friable or non-friable, and the asbestos type for sprayed-on friable material.
• Some products are simply banned. No one may spray on, or install as thermal insulation, any material containing 0.1% or more asbestos by dry weight that is capable of becoming friable.
• Remove before you demolish. Asbestos material that might be disturbed has to come out, as far as practicable, before demolition proceeds.
• Building owners must keep a record. Where an owner knows (or ought to know) asbestos was used in a building, they must keep an on-site record of its location and condition, notify occupiers and certain contractors, train affected workers, inspect the material, and update the record at least once a year.

The full text, including the sampling rules and the 0.5% threshold for confirming asbestos-containing material, lives in the captured source.

Source: Designated Substance — Asbestos on Construction Projects and in Buildings and Repair Operations (O. Reg. 278/05), ss. 2–8.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. These are minimum requirements for managing a single designated substance in the construction and building context. They operate alongside the OHSA’s general duties and the broader designated-substances regime, not instead of them.

Confidence: single-source.

Mines and mining plants (Reg. 854)

Regulation 854 is the OHSA sector regulation for Ontario mines, mining plants and mine development, setting detailed health and safety rules for surface and underground operations. Anyone who runs a mine, a mining plant, or mining development work in Ontario is governed by it, and it sets requirements that sit on top of the Act’s general duties.

Who it applies to. The regulation covers all mines and mining plants and all mining development. There is a handoff at the construction stage: while a mining plant is being built on the surface, or while surface construction is done to develop a mine, the construction projects regulation (Reg. 213/91, above) applies instead.

A few things to know up front:

• It draws a sharp line between a “surface mine” (a pit or quarry worked by open excavation) and an “underground mine” (everything else, plus its connected works). Many rules turn on which one is in play.
• It runs on a long list of defined terms — hoists, explosives, magazines, shaft ropes and so on — so the definitions should be read before any duty.
• Where the regulation calls for a non-destructive test, the person doing and reading it must hold the right valid Natural Resources Canada certification.
• A required procedure or design may be varied only if the alternative gives workers protection at least equal to the original, and the change is put in writing to the joint health and safety committee or representative and any union.

The full requirements — hoisting, ventilation, blasting, ground control and the rest — live in the captured source text.

Source: Mines and Mining Plants (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 854), ss. 1–3.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 854 sets detailed minimum standards that sit on top of the OHSA’s general duties; meeting a specific section does not discharge the broader obligation to take every reasonable precaution for worker protection.

Confidence: single-source.

Oil and gas — offshore (Reg. 855): including the minimum worker age of 18

R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 855 governs offshore oil and gas operations and sets a minimum worker age of 18 — no one younger may work in these operations. It is one of the OHSA sector regulations and sits on top of the general duties every Ontario employer already owes its people.

It covers all work performed offshore on or from a “rig” — and that term is read broadly, taking in drilling ships, barges, platforms and similar setups used for exploration, development, production, maintenance, workovers, capping, plugging or abandonment.

The handful of points an employer should hold onto:

• Minimum age is 18. No one younger may work in these operations.
• “Adequate” has teeth. When the rules call for an adequate procedure, plan, device or material, that means it has to be good enough for both its intended and its real-world use, and good enough to protect a worker from illness or injury.
• Specifics can be varied — if the standard is met or beaten. Where the regulation prescribes a particular size, design or arrangement, an employer may vary it, but only if the alternative is equal to or better than the prescribed one on strength, health and safety.

The rest of the regulation gets specific — defined terms like “boom,” “kelly,” “drawworks” and “flammable liquid,” plus the detailed equipment and operating rules. The full text lives in the captured source for this instrument.

Source: Oil and Gas — Offshore (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 855), ss. 1–4.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 855 is a sector regulation that adds to, rather than replaces, the OHSA’s general duties. The age-18 floor and the equipment standards are minimums; the employer’s broad precaution duty still applies.

Confidence: single-source.

Diving operations (O. Reg. 629/94): paid underwater work and its exemptions

O. Reg. 629/94 sets out safety requirements for paid underwater work and the surface-based support behind it. If workers work underwater for pay, or work topside to support those who do, this regulation applies to them.

It governs any “diving operation” — defined broadly to include underwater inspection, excavation, construction, alteration, repair, maintenance, and salvage — as well as any surface function that backs one up. The term “diver” covers two categories: workers operating an atmospheric diving system (a pressurized vessel that keeps them at surface pressure), and workers who perform underwater tasks at pressures above one atmosphere. It also includes the standby diver stationed at the site in case a rescue becomes necessary. The regulation extends further to cover the whole support team: the diver’s tender, the diving supervisor, hyperbaric chamber operators, life support technicians, and any other workers present at or near the dive site.

A few things to keep in mind:

• What is excluded. Recreational diving — including training dives for recreational purposes — falls outside the regulation, as does any operation where snorkelling gear is the sole breathing equipment. There is also a carve-out for a dive taken entirely on a voluntary basis to respond to an unforeseen situation where someone faces imminent danger to life, health, or safety. That carve-out disappears, however, if the diver is being paid in connection with the operation the dive is part of.
• How notices must be given. Written notice must be delivered using the Ministry’s prescribed “Notice of Diving Operation” form, submitted to the address, fax number, or other contact channel shown on the form. Oral notice goes to the telephone number on that same form.
• Varying a requirement. An employer, owner, constructor, or diving supervisor can depart from a specific procedural or design requirement — but only if the alternative provides worker protection that is at least equivalent, and only after notifying the workplace’s health and safety committee or representative in writing and copying the Ministry. One thing that cannot be varied: any provision of the Act or the regulation that requires notice to be given in the first place.

The full detail, including every defined term and specific duty, lives in the captured source text.

Source: Diving Operations (O. Reg. 629/94), ss. 1–4.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 629/94 sets minimum standards for paid diving and its surface support; it operates on top of the OHSA’s general duties, and the notice requirements in particular cannot be varied away.

Confidence: single-source.

Confined spaces (O. Reg. 632/05): written program, hazard assessment and entry plan

Before anyone enters a confined space, the employer must have three things in place: a written program, a written hazard assessment, and an entry plan. The program addresses identification, assessment, entry plans, training and the entry permit system; the assessment is conducted and signed by a competent person; and the entry plan is written procedures addressing every hazard the assessment found.

The regulation applies to any space that workers might climb into to do work — a tank, vault, pit, silo, the kind of place that is awkward to exit and where the atmosphere can become hazardous. It runs under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and covers Ontario workplaces broadly, with two exceptions worth knowing about. Underwater diving operations are completely excluded. Firefighters and certified gas technicians who are operating under a fire department’s direction during emergency work get a partial carve-out — most of the operational sections do not apply to them, but the training requirements under section 8 still do.

The core obligation is straightforward to say and takes real effort to satisfy. Before anyone enters a confined space:

• A written program. Develop and maintain one before any entry happens. For non-project workplaces, it must be developed in consultation with the joint health and safety committee or health and safety representative. The program has to address how confined spaces are identified, how hazard assessments get done, how entry plans are built, how workers are trained, and how the entry permit system runs.
• A hazard assessment. Put it in writing. It has to look at hazards that arise from each space’s design, construction, location, use, and contents — and at hazards that can emerge while work is going on inside. The employer appoints a person with suitable knowledge, training, and experience to conduct the assessment; that person signs and dates it.
• An entry plan. A competent person develops written procedures that address every hazard the assessment turned up — covering on-site rescue, rescue equipment and communications, personal protective equipment, energy isolation, attendants, entry and exit routes, atmospheric testing, flammable substance procedures, and ventilation.

Where workers from more than one employer are in or around the same confined space, a lead employer or constructor prepares a co-ordination document before anyone enters, to make sure none of the required duties slip between the cracks. The full duties and specific procedures live in the captured source text.

Source: Confined Spaces (O. Reg. 632/05), ss. 2–7.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 632/05 sets the minimum program, assessment, and entry-plan requirements; they sit on top of the OHSA’s general duties, and a written program on file does not discharge the obligation to actually control the hazards each space presents.

Confidence: single-source.

Health care and residential facilities (O. Reg. 67/93)

O. Reg. 67/93 is the OHSA regulation that sets worker-safety standards for hospitals, labs, long-term care homes and similar care or residential facilities, and it governs over the industrial regulations where the two conflict in covered laundries. It applies to a hospital, a lab or specimen collection centre, a private or psychiatric hospital, a long-term care home, or certain residences and child-and-family service settings, and it also reaches the laundry serving those places.

A few duties matter most to an employer:

• Records. Keep the records and reports this regulation requires on file for at least a year, and longer if that is what it takes to keep the two most recent ones available.
• “Adequate” means real protection. When the rules call for an adequate plan, device or procedure, the test is whether it is actually enough for the job and enough to protect a worker from illness or injury, not just enough on paper.
• Doing it differently. An employer can vary from a prescribed measure, but only if the alternative protects workers at least as well, and the employer notifies the joint health and safety committee and the union, if there are any.

In a covered laundry, where this regulation clashes with the general industrial rules, this one wins unless the other says otherwise. The full text lives in the captured source. Health-care settings also carry the dedicated needle-safety duties set out in Needle safety (O. Reg. 474/07) below.

Source: Health Care and Residential Facilities (O. Reg. 67/93), ss. 1–4.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 67/93 sets minimum standards for care and residential facilities; it adds to, rather than replaces, the OHSA’s general duties and the other hazard regulations that may also apply to the same workplace.

Confidence: single-source.

Designated substances (O. Reg. 490/09): the eleven prescribed chemical agents

Eleven chemical agents carry the “designated substance” label under O. Reg. 490/09, and an employer must control worker exposure to each one. The first five are acrylonitrile, arsenic, asbestos, benzene, and coke oven emissions. The remaining six are ethylene oxide, isocyanates, lead, mercury, silica, and vinyl chloride.

The rule applies to an employer when one of those agents is present, produced, processed, used, handled, or stored at the workplace and a worker is realistically likely to be exposed. That second condition does real work — no genuine exposure risk, no obligations. Arsenic has a slightly wider trigger: the rule also kicks in when arsenic turns up as a waste product or by-product of a workplace process.

Each substance comes with specific carve-outs:

• Acrylonitrile. The regulation leaves alone workplaces that neither produce, process, nor use it, where any exposure comes only from handling finished goods produced through the final stage of a polymer-based manufacturing process.
• Arsenic. Mining operations (concentrating, milling, crushing, grinding, and related activities) are generally exempt — unless the site includes, or is directly adjacent to, a plant that does smelting, roasting, or refining.
• Benzene. The exemption covers delivering fuel through a pump into the tank of a motor vehicle, motor boat, or other watercraft, or into a portable container, at a service station or similar premises.
• Coke oven emissions. These apply only at metallurgical coke ovens.

Each designated substance then has its own set of detailed requirements in the full regulation, which lives in the captured source. WHMIS labelling and safety data sheets work alongside this regime — see WHMIS and Hazardous Materials — and asbestos, one of the eleven, has its own construction-and-buildings regulation set out above.

Source: Designated Substances (O. Reg. 490/09), ss. 2–7.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 490/09 sets the minimum exposure-control regime for eleven prescribed agents; it operates on top of the OHSA’s general duties and alongside the WHMIS and exposure-control rules, not instead of them.

Confidence: single-source.

Control of exposure to biological or chemical agents (Reg. 833), including respirator rules

R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 833 tells employers how to keep workers from being overexposed to hazardous biological or chemical agents in the air, and sets the rules for any respirators they hand out. Where a worker can breathe in a hazardous biological or chemical agent at work, this regulation under the OHSA sets out how that exposure is kept under control. Two ideas run through it.

First, the air. Where airborne concentrations of an agent are measured, the monitoring and sampling has to follow a recognized industrial-hygiene method (and the rules in the regulation’s Schedule 1), and it has to be done by, or supervised by, someone genuinely qualified by knowledge, training, and experience in industrial hygiene. Direct-reading instruments must be used, calibrated, and maintained according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Second, respirators are a last resort, not plan A. The employer is expected to protect workers without making them wear a respirator. A respirator only comes into play when substituting the agent is not reasonable or practical and the required engineering controls cannot do the job, are broken down, or cannot keep up in an emergency.

Where respirators are supplied, the duties stack up: pick one suited to the agent and concentration, write down the selection-care-and-use procedures, and train each worker before first use — covering the respirator’s limitations, how to inspect and maintain it, how to fit it properly, and how to clean and disinfect it. Equipment has to be approved (NIOSH today; CSA approval is added as of July 1, 2026) and meet the applicable assigned protection factor. Tight-fitting respirators need a fit test. Workers using a tight-fitting elastomeric respirator must do positive and negative pressure seal checks before every single use, and no tight-fitting respirator goes on a face with hair at the seal.

The full text, including the schedules and the detailed air-supply requirements, lives in the captured source. This regulation works alongside the designated-substances regime above and WHMIS and Hazardous Materials.

Source: Control of Exposure to Biological or Chemical Agents (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 833), ss. 6–12.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 833 sets minimum exposure-control and respirator standards. It sits on top of the OHSA’s general duties, and the respirator-as-last-resort hierarchy means meeting the equipment rules does not excuse skipping the substitution and engineering controls that come first.

Confidence: single-source.

Needle safety (O. Reg. 474/07): safety-engineered hollow-bore needles

Under O. Reg. 474/07, an employer must give workers a safety-engineered hollow-bore needle suited to the job, and workers must use it — in health-care settings and any workplace where the needle is used on a person. If workers use hollow-bore needles, this regulation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act sets the ground rules.

Who it covers. Two situations bring an employer in. First, any workplace where a worker uses a hollow-bore needle on a person for a therapeutic, preventive, palliative, diagnostic, or cosmetic reason. Second, any hollow-bore needle work in listed health settings, including public and private hospitals, Homewood Health Centre, licensed labs and specimen collection centres, psychiatric facilities, and long-term care homes.

The duties that matter most:

• Employer provides. The employer must supply a safety-engineered needle that fits the work. The one out is if the employer genuinely cannot get a suitable one after making reasonable efforts.
• Worker uses. A worker given a safety-engineered needle has to use it, unless they reasonably believe it would pose a greater risk of harm than a plain needle in that situation. The employer also has to train workers on applying that judgment.
• Emergencies. The “provide” duty can be lifted where a declared emergency or serious public-health risk applies, the employer’s stock is exhausted, and delaying the work is the riskier path.

The full text, with every definition and condition, lives in the captured source. Health-care and residential facilities also fall under O. Reg. 67/93 above.

Source: Needle Safety (O. Reg. 474/07), ss. 2–5.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. O. Reg. 474/07 sets a minimum standard for safety-engineered needles; it adds to the OHSA’s general duties and the broader health-care regulation, and the narrow “reasonable efforts” and emergency exceptions do not relax the underlying duty to protect workers.

Confidence: single-source.

X-ray safety (Reg. 861): no irradiating a worker

An X-ray source must not be operated to irradiate a worker, unless the separate Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act allows it — that is a hard line. R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 861 governs workplaces with X-ray equipment and applies to the owner, the employer, the supervisor and the workers at any workplace where an X-ray machine is present or used.

Who it applies to. It binds the owner, the employer, the supervisor and the workers at any workplace where an X-ray machine is present or used. It also reaches other X-ray sources that are not full machines, but only once they can put out more than a set low level of radiation (1.0 microgray per hour) at a reachable point outside the source.

A few things to keep front of mind:

• An X-ray source must not be operated to irradiate a worker, unless the separate Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act allows it. That is a hard line.
• The rules carve out any X-ray source that falls within the licensing reach of the federal Nuclear Safety and Control Act (whether or not a licence has actually been issued), and parts of the regulation step aside where the Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act already covers a machine’s installation, registration or operation.

The regulation also defines the key terms it uses (“X-ray worker,” dose units, shielding, and so on). The full text and the detailed duties live in the captured source.

Source: X-Ray Safety (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 861), ss. 1–4.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 861 sets minimum X-ray safety standards and a hard prohibition on irradiating a worker; it sits on top of the OHSA’s general duties and intersects with the Healing Arts Radiation Protection Act and the federal Nuclear Safety and Control Act, so scope has to be checked against those instruments.

Confidence: single-source.

Roll-over protective structures (Reg. 856): ROPS and seat belts

Under R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 856, certain self-propelled machines must be fitted with a roll-over protective structure (a “ROPS”) and a seat belt, and operators have to wear the seat belt. The regulation covers “machines” workers ride on or in: tractors, bulldozers, scrapers, front-end loaders, skidders, dumpers, graders, and compactors (an asphalt compactor is excluded).

The core duties are short and strict:

• A covered machine cannot be used unless it has a roll-over protective structure (a “ROPS”) built to protect a belted operator from being crushed if it rolls over.
• It also needs a restraining device, meaning a seat belt, with or without an over-the-shoulder strap, for every operator.
• If the machine has a seat belt, the operator has to wear it.

Some equipment falls outside the rule. It does not apply to a small machine rated by its maker at 15 kilowatts or less with a tare mass of 700 kilograms or less, to pre-1980 machines that were not factory-equipped with adaptors for a ROPS, or to machines used mainly underground in a mine. There is also a narrow carve-out: a skidder used in logging does not require a seat belt. The full text, with the exact definitions and technical requirements, lives in the captured source.

Source: Roll-Over Protective Structures (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 856), ss. 1–4.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 856 sets minimum equipment and seat-belt standards for self-propelled machines; it works on top of the OHSA’s general duties, so the exemptions for small or older machines do not switch off the broader obligation to operate equipment safely.

Confidence: single-source.

Teachers under the OHSA (Reg. 857): supervisor definition, committees and the work-refusal carve-out

R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 857 makes the Occupational Health and Safety Act apply to teachers in a way that stays consistent with the Education Act, with three built-in adjustments: who qualifies as a supervisor, how joint committees satisfy the statute, and a carve-out from the work-refusal rules when a pupil faces imminent risk. The regulation is short and its job is narrow. If an employer employs teachers, the Act covers them like other workers — but with those three adjustments.

The key points for an employer:

• Who is covered. Every person an employer has hired as a teacher under the Education Act definition falls under the Act.
• Who counts as the boss. When an employer of teachers designates someone — a principal, a vice-principal, or another teacher — to head up a school or one of its organizational units, that person is treated as holding charge of the workplace and authority over the teachers there, with the supervisory duties the Act attaches to that role.
• Joint health and safety committees. An employer of teachers who sets up and maintains a single joint health and safety committee for all its teachers is deemed to have satisfied the Act’s committee requirement for them. Nothing in that rule forces anyone to wind up a committee that already existed on October 1, 1979, and an employer can still run more than one committee for its teachers if it chooses.
• The right to refuse unsafe work. Part V of the Act — the work-refusal provisions — does not apply to a teacher in circumstances where a pupil’s life, health, or safety faces imminent jeopardy.

The full wording lives in the captured source.

Source: Teachers (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 857), ss. 1–3.

The statute is the floor, not the ceiling. Reg. 857 adapts how the OHSA applies to teachers rather than reducing it; outside the narrow work-refusal carve-out, teachers carry the same statutory protections as other workers, and the Act’s general duties still apply.

Confidence: single-source.

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This page is general information about Ontario occupational health and safety law, not legal advice. Each of these regulations is detailed and many cross-reference other instruments and the parent Act, so obtain advice for a particular operation before relying on any section above.