Quebec CNESST and Law 27: the new health and safety obligations

Quebec's occupational health and safety regime is administered by the Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail — the CNESST — which combines labour standards, pay equity and occupational health and safety in a single body. For decades Quebec's prevention mechanisms applied mainly to a set of historically "priority" high-risk sectors, leaving much of the economy outside the formal system. Law 27, the Act to modernize the occupational health and safety regime, changed that fundamentally. This guide explains what the modernized regime means for Quebec employers.

What Law 27 did

Law 27 (originally Bill 27) is the most significant overhaul of Quebec OHS in a generation. Its central move is to extend the prevention mechanisms that previously applied only to priority sectors — a prevention program, a health and safety committee, and a health and safety representative — to employers across all sectors of the economy, phased in over several years. The reform also modernized the framework for occupational injuries and illnesses and expanded the CNESST's role. Employers who never had to run these mechanisms before now do.

The prevention program and the prevention plan

Under the modernized regime, employers must implement either a prevention program or, for smaller workplaces, a prevention action plan, depending on size and risk level. The document identifies the hazards present in the workplace and sets out the measures to eliminate or control them, together with the people responsible and the timelines. It is a living document that must be updated, and it is the foundation the CNESST expects every Quebec workplace to build on.

Committees and safety representatives, everywhere

The reform generalizes worker participation. Depending on the number of workers, an employer must establish a health and safety committee and workers may designate a health and safety representative with defined functions and protected time to carry them out. These structures — once confined to sectors like construction and heavy manufacturing — now reach workplaces that had never operated them, so many Quebec employers are standing up committees and training representatives for the first time.

Psychosocial risks and telework

A distinctive feature of the modernized Quebec regime is its explicit recognition of psychosocial risks — the workplace factors that affect mental health, including harassment and workplace violence — as hazards that employers must identify and address within their prevention mechanisms. The reform also clarified that health and safety obligations extend to teleworkers, an acknowledgement of how work has changed.

WHMIS in French: SIMDUT

Quebec operates WHMIS as SIMDUT — the Système d'information sur les matières dangereuses utilisées au travail — and employers must provide labels, safety data sheets and worker training in French. Quebec's language requirements mean that safety documentation, training and signage generally must be available in French, a point that trips up employers expanding into Quebec from other provinces.

Where Complys fits

The Law 27 expansion means thousands of Quebec employers now need a prevention program, a committee and current training where they previously needed none. Complys builds the prevention program and the hazard assessments behind it, tracks every certification and training renewal with reminders before they expire, and scores your readiness against the CNESST's requirements. Because OHS is provincial, Quebec's rules — and its French-language obligations — differ from every other province, so treat them on their own terms rather than assuming an Ontario or Alberta program will transfer.