North American Regulations

North Amer­i­ca includes three coun­tries: Cana­da, the USA and Mex­i­co. Com­pli­ance InSight Con­sult­ing has exper­tise in machin­ery safe­ty in two of these coun­tries, Cana­da and the USA.

CANADA

There are three major juris­dic­tions in Cana­da: Fed­er­al, Provin­cial and Territorial.

Federal

Work­ers employed by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da in gov­ern­ment depart­ments, the Cana­di­an Forces, the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police (RCMP), trans­porta­tion (rail­ways, air­lines, and ship­ping) and work­ers on First Nations lands are cov­ered by the Cana­da Labour Code which is enforced by Human Resources Devel­op­ment Cana­da.

Radi­a­tion emit­ting devices are Fed­er­al­ly reg­u­lat­ed under the Radi­a­tion Emit­ting Devices Act and relat­ed reg­u­la­tions.

CSA stan­dards are used as the basis for reg­u­la­to­ry approval at this lev­el, in addi­tion to Fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions relat­ing to radi­a­tion, elec­tro­mag­net­ic spec­trum (includ­ing elec­tro­mag­net­ic com­pat­i­bil­i­ty issues for equip­ment), and trans­porta­tion standards.

Provincial / Territorial

Cana­da has 10 provinces and three ter­ri­to­ries as you can see in the map below. The Provin­cial and Ter­ri­to­r­i­al gov­ern­ments are based in each of the Provin­cial and Ter­ri­to­r­i­al capitals.

View Larg­er Map

Each Province and Ter­ri­to­ry has their own set of work­place reg­u­la­tions that cov­er non-Fed­er­al work­places. These reg­u­la­tions are enforced by Provin­cial or Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Min­istries respon­si­ble for labour.

Cana­di­an Legal Infor­ma­tion Insti­tute (CANLII) Data­base of Cana­di­an legislation

Gen­er­al infor­ma­tion on Cana­da from Wikipedia

USA

There are three major juris­dic­tions in the USA: Fed­er­al, State and Municipal.

Federal

In the Fed­er­al juris­dic­tion, the Occu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) reg­u­lates work­place safe­ty in all Fed­er­al facil­i­ties and in the states that have adopt­ed the OSHA reg­u­la­tions for work­place safe­ty. Machin­ery safe­ty reg­u­la­tions are found in the Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions (CFR): 29 CFR 1910.

Radi­a­tion and radi­a­tion emit­ting devices are reg­u­lat­ed by the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) through the Cen­ter for Devices and Radi­o­log­i­cal Health (CDRH). This includes ion­iz­ing sources such as X‑ray machines and non-ion­iz­ing sources like lasers.

States

Each state has the right to make it’s own work­place safe­ty laws and reg­u­la­tions, or to adopt the Fed­er­al OSHA reg­u­la­tions. The USA cur­rent­ly has 50 states and one dis­trict. We won’t try to list all of the states depart­ments of labor here, but you should be able to find them quite eas­i­ly using your favourite search engine.

Municipal

Some of the large cities have devel­oped their own local codes in addi­tion to the Fed­er­al and State codes that may apply. Munic­i­pal­i­ties that have their own local codes include New York City, Chica­go and Los Ange­les. For more infor­ma­tion, check with your local munic­i­pal­i­ty or the city where the equip­ment will be installed.

MEXICO

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we don’t have any infor­ma­tion on Mex­i­co at this time.