Index
00 Jurisdiction Index
Document FSSMS-JUR-00All stagesRevision 3Version 0.3.3
Topic pages open on your jurisdiction, and requirements tables show its line. You can change this on any page.
The rest of this book is written once, for every fire department in Canada. Where a chapter depends on a law that differs from place to place, it says so in general terms and links to a topic page in this part. Each topic page sets out what every jurisdiction requires on that subject, side by side, so a department sees its own rule and how it compares. Nothing in the chapters names one province’s statute; everything jurisdiction-specific lives here, in one place, where it can be kept current.
There are two ways in:
- By topic. Start from a chapter’s “Jurisdiction requirements” table, or from the topic list below. Each topic page opens with what the topic covers, why it matters to a fire department and what every department must cover wherever it is, then gives an “at a glance” table and a section for each jurisdiction.
- By jurisdiction. Open your pack (below). It collects your jurisdiction’s section from every topic page in one place, with a preface on what is distinctive for fire departments there, what departments commonly get wrong, and a compliance checklist. Packs are generated from the topic pages, so the two views always say the same thing.
Every section on every topic page has the same four parts:
- Law. The statute and regulation, with the section, as consolidated on the date researched.
- What must be covered. The specific requirements, with their numbers, thresholds, timelines and named duties.
- Fire-service nuance. Exemptions or carve-outs for emergency operations, how volunteers are treated, and recent or pending changes with their dates.
- Status. Whether the section was verified against the official text, partly verified, or not yet checked, and what was and was not read. The table “Verification status by topic and jurisdiction” below shows every section’s status at a glance. Where a single section number or value could not be confirmed, the text says so at that point.
Law changes more often than the rest of the book. Part 10 is reviewed every year in October with the 02 Standards and Law Master Map, and whenever a monitored source changes. A change to one jurisdiction’s law is made once, in that jurisdiction’s section of the topic page; the chapters that rely on the topic do not change, and the pack regenerates. Each topic page lists the chapters that rely on it, so the effect of a change is visible at once.
| Topic | Group | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| J01 OHS Legislation, Regulator and Enforcement | due-diligence | This page names the occupational health and safety (OHS) statute and the main regulations that govern a fire department in each jurisdiction, the regulator that enforces them and how to reach it at any hour, and what the law says must be posted at the workplace. |
| J02 Duties of Employers, Supervisors, Workers and Contractors | internal-responsibility | Every OHS statute in Canada opens with general duties: the employer’s duty to protect workers so far as is reasonable or reasonably practicable, with information, instruction, training and supervision; the worker’s duty to take reasonable care and follow the rules; and duties on contractors, owners, suppliers and, often, corporate directors. |
| J03 OHS Policy and Program | management-system | Most Canadian OHS laws require a written OHS policy, a written OHS program, or both, once a workforce reaches a set size. |
| J04 Hazard Assessment and Workplace Inspections | workplace-inspection | This page sets out the employer’s duty to identify, assess and control hazards, whether the law requires the assessment to be written, dated and repeated, and who must take part. |
| J05 Joint Committee and Health and Safety Representative | worker-participation | Every Canadian jurisdiction builds worker participation into its OHS law through a joint health and safety committee above a set headcount and a worker health and safety representative below it. |
| J06 Written Procedures and Committee Consultation | committee-consultation | This page sets out when each jurisdiction requires written safe work procedures (standard operating procedures and guidelines in fire-service language), the rules some jurisdictions add about keeping them adequate, available at the work area, reviewed with workers and up to date, and the fire-specific written procedures some jurisdictions list by name. |
| J07 Right to Refuse and Reprisal Protection | stop-work | Every Canadian jurisdiction gives a worker the right to refuse work they believe is dangerous. |
| J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation | workers-compensation | This page covers what a fire department, as an employer, must report to the occupational health and safety regulator when one of its own members is killed or seriously injured, which events are reportable even when nobody is hurt (a structural collapse, an explosion, a major release, a respirator failure), how fast and by what means, and who else must be told. |
| J09 Records Retention | health-surveillance | This page covers the general duty to keep occupational health and safety records and statistics, any default retention period the OHS law sets, and the specific periods for the records a fire department holds: investigation reports, first aid records, committee minutes, training records, equipment inspection records, exposure monitoring, health surveillance (including hearing tests) and medical records. |
| J10 Privacy and Health Information | health-information | This page covers two families of law. |
| J11 Volunteer Firefighters | presumptions | This page covers how the law treats volunteer and paid-on-call firefighters: whether they are “workers” or “employees” under the occupational health and safety statute, whether they count toward the thresholds for a written program and a joint committee and may sit on it, and whether the right to refuse and protection from reprisal, including removal from the roster, reach them. |
| J12 Fire Service OHS Rules and Fireground Operations | accountability | This page covers the occupational health and safety rules written specifically for fire departments: a fire-service part of a regulation, a code of practice issued under the OHS statute, or an official guidance series. |
| J13 Firefighter PPE and Protective Equipment | head-eye-foot-protection | This page covers two layers of protective equipment law. |
| J14 Respiratory Protection, Fit Testing and Breathing Air | scba | This page covers the written respiratory protection program, the medical clearance or capability assessment a member needs before wearing a respirator, how often and by what method a tight-fitting facepiece must be fit tested, the breathing air standard and how often air must be tested, and the rules for SCBA cylinders. |
| J15 Equipment Inspection, Ladders and Aerial Devices | records | This page covers the general duty to inspect, maintain and repair tools and equipment (before use, at set intervals, by a competent person, to the manufacturer’s instructions) and how long the records must be kept. |
| J16 Fall Protection and Rope Access | aerial-devices | This page covers the height at which fall protection becomes mandatory, when a written fall-protection procedure or site-specific plan is needed and what it must contain, how often workers must be trained, the equipment standards and anchorage strengths the regulations name, the rope access and rope rescue rules that reach fire department work, the harness or belt rule for firefighters on aerial ladders and platforms, and any relief the law gives emergency services. |
| J17 Confined Space | atmospheric-monitoring | This page covers where each jurisdiction’s confined space rules sit, how a confined space is defined, the written program, entry plan, permit or certificate, the atmospheric limits for entry (oxygen range, percentage of the lower explosive limit and toxic limits), the attendant and rescue requirements, the training and drill intervals, and any exemption for firefighters doing emergency rescue. |
| J18 Excavation and Trench | shoring | This page covers the depth at which an excavation or trench must be sloped, benched, shored or protected by a trench box or cage, when a professional engineer must design or certify the protective system, how far spoil and equipment must be kept from the edge, how close a ladder or exit must be, atmospheric testing, surface attendants and notices, and whether any rule exempts a rescue entry. |
| J19 Lockout, Machine Guarding and Electrical Safety | downed-wires | This page covers lockout and other energy isolation (written procedures, personal locks and tags, verification and lock removal), safeguarding of machinery in stations and shops, the minimum distances workers and equipment must keep from energized overhead conductors, any relief from those distances for emergency work, and the electrical and gas codes and licensing rules that govern facility work, including the photovoltaic rapid shutdown requirements in the Canadian Electrical Code. |
| J20 Stations, Premises and Building Codes | diesel-exhaust | This page covers the general premises rules that apply to a fire station as a workplace (floors and housekeeping, stairs, guardrails and openings, lighting, ventilation, emergency exits and evacuation, washrooms, change rooms, showers and eating areas), the rules on vehicle exhaust in apparatus bays, the registration and inspection of pressure equipment such as air receivers, compressors and breathing air storage, and the building and fire codes each jurisdiction adopts, with their editions. |
| J21 WHMIS, Hazardous Materials and Asbestos | asbestos | Three related duties. |
| J22 Exposure Limits, Heat and Cold Stress | rehabilitation | Where each jurisdiction gets its occupational exposure limits for chemical and physical agents, and what it requires for heat and cold. |
| J23 Noise and Hearing Conservation | audiometry | The occupational noise exposure limit, the exchange rate used to trade sound level against time, the level that triggers measurement or a hearing conservation program, and whether the employer must arrange audiometric (hearing) tests, how soon after hiring and how often. |
| J24 First Aid | csa-z1220 | Workplace first aid for the department’s own members: the certificate level and number of first aiders required by the number of workers on a shift, the hazard of the work and the travel time to hospital; the first aid kit standard; kits in vehicles; first aid rooms; first aid records; and how long a certificate stays valid. |
| J25 Infection Control and Medical First Response | medical-first-response | The rules that protect members from blood and body fluids and other infectious hazards: exposure control plans, safety-engineered sharps, vaccination, and what happens after an exposure, including the laws in some provinces that let a court order testing of the source person. |
| J26 Workplace Violence | medical-first-response | Every Canadian jurisdiction treats violence against workers as an occupational hazard, but the rules differ in three ways that matter to a fire department. |
| J27 Workplace Harassment | respectful-workplace | Every Canadian jurisdiction now requires employers to deal with workplace harassment through occupational health and safety law, separately from human rights law. |
| J28 Psychological Health and Safety | csa-z1003 | This page covers whether each jurisdiction’s occupational health and safety law treats psychological health as part of health and safety (in the definition of health, in the purpose clause, or not at all), any duty that goes beyond harassment and violence to psychosocial hazards in general, the status of the national standard CSA Z1003-13 (voluntary everywhere), and the crisis lines and publicly funded supports available to members. |
| J29 Occupational Diving | water-rescue | This page covers whether each jurisdiction’s occupational diving rules apply to a fire department’s public safety dive team, any relief for emergency rescue dives, and what a department with a dive team must have: a diving supervisor, a minimum team with a standby diver and tender, diver medicals at a set interval, competency to the CSA Z275 standards, written dive plans and emergency procedures, notices to the regulator, equipment and air standards, and logbooks and records. |
| J30 Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing | volunteers | The provincial or territorial traffic statute that governs fire apparatus: what makes a vehicle an emergency vehicle, the rules an emergency vehicle may break and the conditions attached (lights, siren, due regard), the warning lights and sirens a fire vehicle may carry, other drivers’ duties to yield and keep back, seat belts, the status of a volunteer’s personal vehicle (including green “courtesy” lights), and the licence class and air brake endorsement needed to drive apparatus. |
| J31 Roadway Incident Scenes | move-over | The rules that protect members working on or beside a road: the OHS temporary traffic control requirements for work near moving traffic and whether they apply at an emergency scene; the provincial traffic control manual or responder guideline that sets scene layouts; the high-visibility apparel standard and class; firefighters’ powers to direct traffic; and other drivers’ duty to slow down and move over when they pass a stopped emergency vehicle. |
| J32 Workers' Compensation and Firefighter Presumptions | volunteers | Each province and territory has a workers’ compensation statute and board, and each has written presumptions for firefighters into it: lists of cancers presumed to be caused by firefighting after a minimum number of years of service, a heart presumption tied to a short window after an emergency response, and a presumption for post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental injury. |
| J33 Return to Work, Accommodation and Hours of Work | fatigue | Three bodies of law decide whether an injured, ill or fatigued member works, and how. |
| J34 Fire Services Legislation and Firefighter Certification | mutual-aid | This page covers the fire services law that gives a department its legal standing: the statute that lets (or requires) a municipality to provide fire protection and establish or register a department, the fire chief’s powers at an incident, liability protection for members, mutual and automatic aid, and the role of the fire marshal or fire commissioner, including fire investigation and reporting. |
| J35 Wildland and Interface Fire | structure-protection | This page covers the provincial or territorial wildfire statute and the agency that leads wildfire suppression, where its responsibility ends and the municipality’s begins, the fire or burning season, burn permits and restrictions, the wildland qualification the agency expects of municipal firefighters, the airspace rule that governs aircraft and drones near forest fires, and how occupational health and safety and compensation law treat wildland work. |
| J36 External Verification and Funding | funding | This page covers the independent checks open to a municipal fire department’s safety management system: the Certificate of Recognition (COR) through a certifying partner, the compensation board’s own certification or incentive programs, management system certification to ISO 45001 or CSA Z45001, and peer accreditation. |
| Jurisdiction | Pack |
|---|---|
| British Columbia | Jurisdiction Pack - British Columbia |
| Alberta | Jurisdiction Pack - Alberta |
| Saskatchewan | Jurisdiction Pack - Saskatchewan |
| Manitoba | Jurisdiction Pack - Manitoba |
| Ontario | Jurisdiction Pack - Ontario |
| Quebec | Jurisdiction Pack - Quebec |
| New Brunswick | Jurisdiction Pack - New Brunswick |
| Nova Scotia | Jurisdiction Pack - Nova Scotia |
| Prince Edward Island | Jurisdiction Pack - Prince Edward Island |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | Jurisdiction Pack - Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Yukon | Jurisdiction Pack - Yukon |
| Northwest Territories | Jurisdiction Pack - Northwest Territories |
| Nunavut | Jurisdiction Pack - Nunavut |
| Federal | Jurisdiction Pack - Federal |
- Federal workplace. A workplace under the Canada Labour Code Part II, such as a federally regulated airport or a Department of National Defence fire service, rather than under provincial or territorial law.
- Jurisdiction pack. A page that collects one jurisdiction’s section from every topic page, with a preface.
- Topic page. A page that sets out one legal requirement topic for every jurisdiction.
- Verified. The section was read against the official consolidated text on the date shown. Partly verified means some provisions were read and the rest are not confirmed; Not checked means the section was written from secondary sources and has not yet been read against the official text.
No sources are cited on this page; each topic page and pack carries its own references.