Réglementation
Qui la réglemente, et ce qui est attendu
Les détails réglementaires et les données de recherche de cette page sont présentés en anglais.
Canada has one genuine utilities fatigue rule, and it is nuclear. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's REGDOC-2.2.4, Fitness for Duty: Managing Worker Fatigue, sets hours-of-work limits at high-security nuclear sites and binds a licensee where its license references it. Everywhere else in the sector there is nothing: NERC's reliability standards govern grid performance and operator training, not shift length or rest, and no provincial energy regulator sets a fatigue or duty-hour rule for system operators or line crews. Control-room and storm-restoration fatigue is otherwise managed under the general provincial safety duty.
Qui la réglemente
Most utilities are provincially regulated, so safety sits with the provincial regulator - Ontario's Ministry of Labor, WorkSafeBC, Alberta OHS. Two exceptions matter: nuclear stations are licensed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which does set worker fatigue limits, and interprovincial lines fall to the Canada Energy Regulator. Grid operators also meet NERC reliability standards, adopted province by province.
Vos obligations
If you operate a licensed nuclear facility, REGDOC-2.2.4 sets real numbers for workers in safety-sensitive positions: no more than 16 hours in 24, 28 in 48, 60 in a fixed seven days or 120 in a rolling 14, an average of 54 hours a week, at least 8 consecutive hours free between shifts, and normal shifts of no more than 12 hours. Every other utility owes the general duty to take every reasonable precaution, which covers fatigue as a recognized hazard, plus its own province's rest minimums - Ontario's are 11 consecutive hours free each day, 8 between shifts and 24 consecutive hours a week, and other provinces differ.
Conséquences
A nuclear licensee that breaches its fitness-for-duty obligations answers to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which can impose conditions, orders and penalties and ultimately act on the license. Everyone else is enforced through the general safety duty: a control-room error during a grid event or a line-crew injury after an extended outage callout is investigated as a failure to control a known hazard. In Ontario that means prosecution under the Occupational Health and Safety Act; other provinces run their own regimes, and federally regulated works answer to the Labor Program. Outside nuclear there is no hours cap to point to, so a documented rest plan stands in its place.
Sanctions
Outside nuclear the exposure is the ordinary provincial safety maximum, and those differ. Ontario's, in force in 2026: up to $2,000,000 for a corporation (raised from $1.5 million in October 2023), $1,500,000 for a director or officer and $500,000 for any other individual (both set in 2022), plus a $500,000 minimum fine since December 2024 where a repeat offence kills or seriously injures a worker. Federally regulated works: up to $1,000,000 and two years' imprisonment.
Antécédents
No Canadian court, coroner, investigator or regulator has published a finding linking fatigue to an incident in utilities. The duty to manage fatigue still sits within the general duty in federal and provincial occupational health and safety law.
Sources: CNSC REGDOC-2.2.4, Fitness for Duty: Managing Worker Fatigue; NERC Reliability Standard PER-005-2; Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act and Employment Standards Act, 2000; Canada Labour Code Part II; CCOHS fatigue guidance.