Prevention program (Quebec OHS)

A buyer of a Quebec business with employees meets the term when asking what safety obligations come with the establishment. The Act respecting occupational health and safety, s. 58, requires an employer to prepare and implement a prevention program specific to each establishment employing at least the number of workers that section sets, and in smaller establishments in the cases and on the conditions prescribed by regulation. The Commission may also require one regardless of the number of workers, if it considers it advisable for protecting workers’ health, safety or physical or mental well-being. Under s. 59, the object of the program is to eliminate, at the source, risks to workers’ health, safety and physical and mental well-being.

Program or action plan

Where no prevention program is required for an establishment, the employer must prepare and implement an action plan specific to that establishment instead (s. 61.1). Under s. 58.1, despite s. 58, an employer with workers in more than one establishment where activities of the same nature are carried on may prepare a single program for all or part of them, which must also cover the establishments below the s. 58 size; that single program must apply for a period of not less than three years. Section 60 requires the employer to send the Commission, every three years from the date the program is implemented, its priorities for action and the progress made on them. CNESST describes the program and the action plan as management tools for planning and organizing prevention. See also employees when you sell a business in Quebec and CNESST employer registration.

What to ask

• The current program or action plan for each establishment, and its latest update
• Whether the Commission has ordered the seller to send or amend a program
• Whether the seller’s program covers several establishments, and which ones the sale includes