OHS penalty exposure varies by province. There's no single national maximum, so Ontario, Alberta and Quebec serve as a useful range-finder.
In Ontario, OHSA's maximum corporate fine is $2,000,000 per offence, with separate penalties of up to $1.5 million for directors and officers. (Following Bill 79's amendments, effective October 26)
In Alberta, the OHS Act allows fines of up to $500,000 for a first offence and $1 million for subsequent offences, with additional penalties for continuing violations.
A stop-work order doesn't stop at the fine. When a gap is found (an unqualified contractor, lapsed insurance, untrained workers on a task) work can halt while it's fixed.
Every idle day carries a production-delay cost on top. That figure is specific to each plant's output and margin, so use your own:
Daily output value X Days stopped = Exposure most plants have never put a number on
Beyond fines and delays, some compliance tracking products create three simultaneous cost lines most finance teams have never modeled together:
the platform's own fee
contractor enrollment fees that get passed back into day rates
the internal admin labor spent tracking the unmanaged tail manually.
Each cost may seem manageable on its own. Together, they can significantly increase the total cost of contractor compliance.
Managing compliance across multiple plants, contractors, and provincial jurisdictions adds complexity at every level. The key question is not which compliance costs exist. It's which costs your organization is actually measuring.
Many manufacturers track software spend. Fewer track contractor fee markups or the hours spent managing compliance manually. Those hidden costs often have the greatest impact on operating budgets and productivity.