Health Canada (more-or-less the Canadian government’s equivalent of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States) has officially published their adoption of the United Nations Globally Harmonized System for the Classification and Labeling of Hazardous Chemicals (GHS) into their Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) (i.e. the approximate equivalent of the US Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) in the 29 CFR 1910.1200) in the official Canada Gazette (the Canadian equivalent of the US Federal Register):
http://www.gazette.gc.ca/gazette/home-accueil-eng.php
This document was published on February 11, 2015. A transition period is authorized in the regulation under which current Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) and hazard communication labels based on the extant Controlled Products Regulations may continue to be used until June 1, 2017. Safety Data Sheets (SDS’s) and GHS-based labels will be addressed in the new Hazardous Products Regulations (HPR). Immediate compliance is authorized from the date of publication in the Gazette. Shippers to Canada will wish to carefully review the new standards so that they can plan an orderly transition to the revised system. Canada is the most recent nation to incorporate the revisions to hazard communication based on adherence to the UN GHS; US employers are reminded that our nation is in the midst of its own transition phase to this system, and at present the next deadline is the June 1st, 2015 requirement for chemical manufacturers to have new labeling and SDS’s in place for their products. Extensive no-cost information resources and a wide range of product choices concerning the GHS transition in the HCS can be found on our GHS landing page:
Labelmaster is a full service provider of goods and services for the Hazardous Materials and Dangerous Goods professional, shippers, transport operators, and EH&S providers. See our full line of solutions at www.labelmaster.com.
Note: Labelmaster VP/Government Affairs Bob Richard, Ph.D. contributed information resources to this notice.
