Also called SIMDUT, safety data sheet, SDS, GHS
What is WHMIS?
Canada’s system for labelling hazardous workplace chemicals and giving workers the safety information about them.
What else it is called
- Other names
- SIMDUT, safety data sheet, SDS, GHS
- In French
- SIMDUT
Related entries
Understanding workplace Hazardous Materials Information System
The national system for communicating chemical hazards at work. Suppliers must classify their products, apply compliant labels and provide safety data sheets in a standard sixteen-section format. Employers must make those sheets available, label anything decanted into another container, and train workers to understand both.
It was aligned to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, which is why the pictograms are the familiar red diamonds used internationally and why sheets from an American supplier generally look right. Alignment is not identity, though: Canadian requirements on language are their own, and in practice that means labels and sheets available in both English and French.
The enforcement split catches people out. The supplier side is federal, under the Hazardous Products Act. The employer side, meaning training and workplace labelling, is provincial, so the inspector who arrives is a provincial one applying provincial occupational health and safety rules.
In practice
The gap inspectors find most often is a decanted container. Chemical moved from its original drum into an unlabelled spray bottle is a violation, and it is in almost every plant.
Frequently asked
Do we need safety data sheets in French?
Expect to provide information in both official languages. Supplier obligations under the federal rules cover both, and in Quebec the French-language requirements are enforced strictly. Keeping both versions available is the straightforward answer.
How often does training have to be repeated?
Provincial rules generally require that training stay current rather than setting a fixed interval, and that it be repeated when a product, a process or the hazard information changes. Annual refreshers are the common practice.