About the Act

The Occupational Health and Safety Act ( OHSA ) contains definitions in addition to the content under the following headings:

• Part I Application
• Part II Administration
• Part II.1 Prevention Council, Chief Prevention Officer and Designated Entities
• Part III Duties of Employers and Other Persons
• Part III.0.1 Violence and Harassment
• Part III.1 Codes of Practice
• Part IV Toxic Substances
• Part V Right to Refuse or to Stop Work Where Health or Safety in Danger
• Part VI Reprisals by Employer Prohibited
• Part VII Notices
• Part VIII Enforcement
• Part IX Offences and Penalties
• Part X Regulations

Terms Used

These are some of the terms more commonly used in the Act.

Any place in, on or near to where a worker works. A workplace could be a building, a mine, a construction site, an open field, a road, a forest, a vehicle or even a beach. In determining whether a place is a workplace, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development ( MLITSD ) will consider questions such as: Is the worker being directed to work there?

Worker means any of the following, but does not include an inmate of a correctional institution or like institution or facility who participates inside the institution or facility in a work project or rehabilitation program:

1. A person who performs work or supplies services for monetary compensation.
2. A secondary school student who performs work or supplies services for no monetary compensation under a work experience program authorized by the school board that operates the school in which the student is enrolled.
3. A person who performs work or supplies services for no monetary compensation under a program approved by a college of applied arts and technology, university or other post-secondary institution.
4. Such other persons as may be prescribed who perform work or supply services to an employer for no monetary compensation.

A person who employs or contracts for the services of one or more workers. The term includes a contractor or subcontractor who performs work or supplies services and a contractor or subcontractor who undertakes with an owner, constructor, contractor, sub-contractor to perform work or supply services.

A person who undertakes a project for an owner and includes an owner who undertakes all or part of a project by himself or by more than one employer.

While the identification of a constructor is a fact-specific determination, the constructor is generally the person (such as the general contractor) who has overall control of a project. See also the publication entitled: Constructor Guideline: Health and Safety.

Prescribed means specified in regulations made under the Act.

A person, appointed by an employer, who has charge of a workplace or authority over a worker.

An owner includes a tenant, lessee, trustee, receiver, mortgagee in possession or occupier of the lands or premises. It also includes any person who acts as an agent for the owner.

A person who holds a logging licence under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, 1994 .

This term is not defined in the OHSA . However, by policy, MLITSD has interpreted the term to mean employed for a period that exceeds three months.

Workplace harassment is defined in the OHSA as engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome.

Workplace violence is defined in the OHSA as the exercise or attempted exercise of physical force by a person against a worker, in a workplace, that causes or could cause physical injury to the worker, or a statement or behaviour that it is reasonable for a worker to interpret as a threat to exercise physical force against the worker, in a workplace, that could cause physical injury to the worker.