Here's a question worth asking any employer who says their committee is in good shape: who are your certified members, and when did they last take refresher training?
The pause that follows usually tells you everything.
Most workplaces in Ontario know they need a joint health and safety committee. The meetings happen. The minutes get posted. What slips, quietly, is certification. Someone completed their training years ago, then changed roles or left the company, and nobody noticed that the committee no longer met the requirement.
Let's talk about what the law actually requires, and where employers get caught.
When you need a committee, and when you need a representative
The Occupational Health and Safety Act sets the thresholds.
- 20 or more workers regularly employed: you need a joint health and safety committee (section 9(2)).
- More than 5 but fewer than 20 workers: you need a health and safety representative instead (section 8(1)).
- Designated substances: a workplace where a designated substance regulation applies can need a committee even below 20 workers.
Construction has its own rules. A committee is not required on a project expected to last less than three months (section 9(1)). And the certification requirement below doesn't apply to a project with fewer than 50 workers regularly employed, or one expected to last less than three months (section 9(13)).
Basically, what this means is simple: count your regular workforce honestly, and check the numbers again when you grow. A company that crossed 20 workers two years ago and never formed a committee isn't in a grey area. It's out of compliance.
What "certified member" means
Section 9(12) requires that at least one committee member representing the employer and at least one member representing workers be certified members.
Those are not the same thing as "committee members who attended a course once." A certified member is someone who has completed the certification training that meets the Chief Prevention Officer's program standard, delivered by an approved provider.
Under that standard, certification comes in two parts:
- Part One: a minimum of three days (19.5 hours), covering the law, committee roles, hazard recognition and control.
- Part Two: a minimum of two days (13 hours), focused on the hazards specific to your workplace. Complete it within a year of Part One.
- Refresher: at least one day (6.5 hours) every three years to keep the certification valid.
That last point is the one people forget. Certification doesn't last forever. A member who certified in 2021 and never took a refresher is no longer a certified member for the purposes of the Act.
The gap nobody plans for
We want to be direct about something, because it matters. The most common certification failure isn't an employer who refused to train anyone. It's an employer who trained exactly one person on each side, and then that person left.
The Act anticipates this. If a certified member resigns or is unable to act, the employer must take steps to meet the requirement again "within a reasonable time" (section 9(17)). If no worker-side member is certified, the workers or their union select someone to become certified (section 9(14)).
"Within a reasonable time" is not "whenever the next course has an opening in the spring." And while the gap is open, work stoppage rights and other certified-member duties have no one to exercise them.
The fix is boring and it works: certify more than the minimum. Two on each side gives you a buffer when someone moves on.
What the committee has to actually do
Certification is the credential. The committee's job is the work. Two duties in section 9 are worth checking against your own records:
- Meetings: at least once every three months (section 9(33)).
- Inspections: a designated worker member inspects the workplace at least once a month. If that isn't practical, the whole workplace must be inspected at least once a year, with part of it inspected every month (sections 9(26) and 9(27)).
Here's where this really comes into play. An inspector walking into your workplace will ask for committee minutes and inspection reports. If the last inspection report is from June and it's now October, the committee exists on paper only.
Run this check this week
Open your committee roster and answer three questions:
- Who are your certified members on each side, by name?
- When did each of them complete Part One, Part Two and their most recent refresher?
- If one of them left tomorrow, who is next in line?
If you can't answer the third question, you've found your next training booking. Make it now, before a resignation letter makes it for you.