Working at heights in Canada: fall protection rules by province

Falls from height are consistently among the leading causes of death and serious injury on Canadian construction sites. Every province regulates work at height, but the details — the trigger heights, the acceptable systems, and above all the training requirements — differ, so a contractor working across provincial lines has to know more than one rulebook. This guide covers the shared fundamentals and the province-by-province differences that catch employers out.

The hierarchy of fall protection

Across Canada the approach to working at height follows a hierarchy, from most to least preferred. First, eliminate the need to work at height where possible — do the work at ground level. Where that is not possible, use guardrails or a similar passive system that needs no action from the worker. Next, use a travel-restraint system that prevents the worker from reaching the edge. Only when those are not practicable do you use a fall-arrest system that stops a worker after a fall, which requires an anchor, a full-body harness and a connecting device, plus a rescue plan. Control zones and safety nets have their place lower down the hierarchy.

When fall protection is required

The height that triggers a fall-protection requirement varies by province and by the type of work, but a common general threshold is three metres, with lower triggers in some circumstances — for example, over operating machinery or hazardous substances where any fall could be catastrophic. Because the numbers differ, employers must check their own province's OHS regulation rather than assume a single figure applies everywhere.

Ontario's Working at Heights training

Ontario has the most prescriptive training regime. Any worker on a construction project who may use a fall-protection system must complete a Working at Heights (WAH) training program delivered by a provider approved by the Chief Prevention Officer. The certificate is valid for three years, after which a refresher is mandatory. The rule is strict and widely enforced: a worker with a lapsed WAH certificate cannot legally use fall protection, which in practice means they cannot be on the tools. See our Ontario OHSA guide for how this fits the broader provincial regime.

Other provinces

Other provinces require fall-protection training too, but frame it differently. British Columbia, Alberta and the others require workers to be trained and competent in the fall-protection systems they use and require a written fall-protection plan or procedure where workers may fall from a specified height, but they do not run Ontario's centrally-approved certificate scheme. The practical upshot is the same everywhere: workers must be genuinely trained, the equipment must be inspected and in date, and there must be a plan to rescue a worker who falls and is left suspended.

Equipment inspection and rescue

Fall-arrest equipment — harnesses, lanyards, anchors, self-retracting lifelines — must be inspected before each use and formally at set intervals, and taken out of service after any fall. A written rescue plan is a requirement that is often overlooked: a worker suspended in a harness after a fall can suffer suspension trauma within minutes, so "call 911" is not an adequate plan on its own.

Where Complys fits

The hardest part of working-at-heights compliance is not the rules — it is keeping every worker's training current across a mobile crew and multiple provinces. Complys tracks each worker's fall-protection and Working at Heights certification, warns you well before any expires, and stores the safe work procedures and rescue plans behind them. Use our certification checker to see who is due, and remember that because OHS is provincial, a ticket that satisfies one province may not satisfy another.