The committee is the visible half of what Canadian OHS law calls the internal responsibility system: hazards are supposed to be found and fixed by the people at the workplace, and the committee is the standing forum where that happens with both sides in the room.
What it means in practice
- At least half its members are workers, and they are selected by the workers — not appointed by the employer. That is the structural point, and getting it wrong invalidates the committee however well it functions.
- Recommendations get a written answer, on a deadline. The mechanism only works because it produces a paper trail on both sides. It is also, in practice, some of the best evidence of due diligence an employer can hold.
- It inspects, on a schedule, and the inspection record is a document an inspector will ask for.
- Certified members have powers ordinary members do not, including in work-refusal and dangerous-circumstance procedures under several acts.
What it is not
It is not a decision-making body. The committee recommends; the employer decides and remains responsible. A committee treated as the place where safety decisions are taken lets management off the hook it is actually on.
It is not one rule across the country. The federal Code requires a policy committee above three hundred employees and a workplace committee above twenty; Ontario requires a committee at twenty or more, and a health and safety representative between six and nineteen; other provinces set their own numbers and their own meeting frequencies. Quebec runs a different architecture again, built around the programme de prévention and the CNESST’s participation mechanisms. Sizing a committee from the wrong province is one of the more common compliance errors in a multi-site organisation.