Alberta OHS: what employers and prime contractors must know

Alberta's occupational health and safety framework rests on the OHS Act, the OHS Regulation and the OHS Code, enforced by the province's OHS officers, with workers' compensation handled separately by WCB-Alberta. The regime was substantially revised when a new OHS Act came into force, streamlining some duties while keeping the core protections intact. If you employ people in Alberta — especially in construction, oil and gas, or trades — these are the rules that apply.

The three basic rights

Alberta workers have three basic rights: the right to know about hazards and how to work safely, the right to participate in health and safety through a committee or representative, and the right to refuse dangerous work without reprisal. The Act sets out how a work refusal proceeds and prohibits any disciplinary action against a worker who refuses in good faith.

Health and safety committees and representatives

Worker participation is required and scaled to size. A joint work site health and safety committee is required where 20 or more workers are regularly employed and the work is expected to last 90 days or more. Where five to 19 workers are employed for 90 days or more, a health and safety representative is required instead. Committee and representative members are entitled to training, and the committee must meet regularly and keep records of its meetings and inspections.

Obligation holders: the shared-duty model

Alberta's Act spreads duties across a chain of "obligation holders" — employers, workers, supervisors, contractors, prime contractors, owners, suppliers and self-employed persons — each with duties appropriate to their role. This shared-duty model means that on a busy site, more than one party can be responsible for the same hazard, and understanding where your duty sits is essential to staying compliant.

The prime contractor on construction sites

On a construction or other work site where two or more employers are involved at the same time, a prime contractor must be designated, responsible for coordinating health and safety across everyone on site. The prime contractor must ensure the site's activities are coordinated so that hazards created by one employer do not harm another's workers. Subcontractors need to know who the prime contractor is and how the site's safety is coordinated before they start.

The health and safety program and hazard assessment

Larger employers must establish a written health and safety program that includes hazard assessment and control. Hazard assessment is a specific, documented requirement in Alberta: employers must assess a work site and identify existing and potential hazards before work begins and at reasonable intervals, and must involve affected workers in the process. Controls must follow the hierarchy — elimination, engineering, administrative, then PPE.

Tickets, tickets, tickets

Alberta trades run on certifications — fall protection, confined space, H2S Alive, first aid, WHMIS, ground disturbance, and more — many with fixed expiry dates. A lapsed ticket can stop a worker at the gate. Keeping every certification current across a mobile crew is one of the biggest day-to-day compliance burdens for Alberta contractors, and one of the easiest to get wrong on a spreadsheet.

Where Complys fits

Complys builds your Alberta health and safety program and your hazard assessments, then tracks every ticket, committee training date and certification with reminders before they expire — so nobody arrives on site with a lapsed card. It scores your readiness against Alberta OHS and the COR standard many Alberta owners require, and packages it as a compliance profile you can share to win work. Because OHS is provincial, a crew crossing into BC or Saskatchewan faces different rules — Complys keeps each province's requirements separate.