There are federal, provincial, and municipal laws regarding health and safety. The major legislation governing workers in Alberta is the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act, Regulation and Code. Other provincial legislation covers specific aspects of safe operation and performance, such as electrical protection, building standards, etc.

Your organization/company should have a copy of the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act, Regulation and Code for easy access, and it should be kept up-to-date at all times. Every supervisor needs to become familiar with these documents, and referring to them should be second nature any time you and management are planning a new task.

The Act, Regulation and Code used to be written in technical, legal language. However, the difficulty in understanding is no longer a problem as the code and the new guide to the code uses very clear and clean language to explain content.

The specific regulation and code governing your worksite at any given time will depend on the combination of conditions, equipment, tools, etc. that are involved in a particular job.