---
title: "Notice of project — the filing that has to reach the ministry first"
description: "What a notice of project is, which projects trigger one, what has to be posted on site, and why it is the first document an inspector asks for."
term: "Notice of project"
definition: "A form filed with the regulator before certain construction or high-hazard work begins, identifying the project, the constructor or prime contractor, the employers and the expected duration. A copy is posted at the workplace."
alsoKnownAs:
  - "NOP"
  - "Notice of project form"
jurisdiction: "Canada"
locale: "en-CA"
publishedOn: 2026-09-06
reviewedOn: 2026-09-06
canonical: "https://safeally.net/en-ca/glossary/notice-of-project/"
sources:
  - label: "Construction Projects, O. Reg. 213/91 — notice of project"
    url: "https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/910213"
    publisher: "Government of Ontario"
  - label: "Occupational Health and Safety Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. O.1"
    url: "https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90o01"
    publisher: "Government of Ontario"
  - label: "OHS Regulation, Part 20 — construction, excavation and demolition"
    url: "https://www.worksafebc.com/en/law-policy/occupational-health-safety/searchable-ohs-regulation/ohs-regulation/part-20-construction-excavation-and-demolition"
    publisher: "WorkSafeBC"
---

# Notice of project — the filing that has to reach the ministry first

A form filed with the regulator before certain construction or high-hazard work begins, identifying the project, the constructor or prime contractor, the employers and the expected duration. A copy is posted at the workplace.

The notice of project is how the regulator learns that work exists. It is filed
before the project starts, by the constructor or prime contractor, and it is the
document that puts a site on an inspector's map. Thresholds are set by
regulation — a project value, a type of work such as excavation below a certain
depth, tunnelling, demolition, work over water, or the presence of designated
substances — and they are **provincial, not national**.

## What it means in practice

- **File before, not after.** Starting work on a notifiable project without a
  filed notice is a distinct offence, independent of whether anything else was
  wrong.
- **A copy is posted at the workplace**, legible and where workers can read it.
  The posting is what a joint committee member checks first.
- **It names who is answerable.** The constructor or prime contractor identified
  on the form is the party the regulator will address about coordination, so an
  inaccurate name is worth correcting before anything goes wrong.
- **It changes when the project does.** A significant change in scope, duration or
  the identity of the constructor generally requires an amended notice.
- **Related notices exist and are separate**: notice of an excavation, of asbestos
  work of a given type, of the use of a suspended access equipment system. One
  filing does not stand for the others.

## What it is not

**It is not a permit.** Nothing is approved and nothing is issued in return.
Filing it does not mean the regulator has reviewed, let alone accepted, the way
the work will be done.

**It is not a substitute for the site's own paperwork** — the hazard assessments,
the site-specific plans, the training records. It tells the ministry that a
project exists; it says nothing about how it is run.

**And it is not the European _déclaration préalable_.** France's construction
regime pairs a declaration with a coordinator and a general coordination plan
that the notice of project has no equivalent of, and Italy's _notifica preliminare_
under D.Lgs. 81/2008 works the same way. The filing looks similar; the machinery
it triggers does not.