Safety Certification Patchwork Costs Cross-Provincial Contractors Up to $100K Annually, MCAC Survey Finds
According to the Daily Commercial News, a national survey conducted by the Mechanical Contractors Association of Canada (MCAC) has found that contractors working across provincial boundaries are paying a steep price for Canada’s fragmented safety certification landscape, in some cases exceeding $100,000 CAD annually in direct costs alone, before accounting for lost productivity and declined work opportunities.
The survey, released April 20, puts hard numbers on a frustration that cross-provincial subcontractors have long voiced: doing the same work, managing the same hazards, but being forced to re-certify, re-train, and re-administer paperwork every time a crew crosses a provincial line. US-based subcontractors with Canadian operations face the same friction, and the dynamic has a recognizable parallel closer to home: American contractors already navigate a patchwork of state contractor licensing boards, OSHA State Plan variations, and redundant pre-qualification platforms like ISNetworld and Avetta. The Canadian version is more formalized, but the underlying cost structure is the same.
Background
The MCAC conducted the national survey in February 2026 to quantify the operational impact of non-harmonized safety requirements on mechanical contractors operating in multiple provinces. The findings point to a systemic problem rooted not in safety gaps, but in administrative duplication.
According to the survey results, a majority of contractors report moderate to high administrative burden from inconsistent provincial requirements. Many firms spend between 10 and 24 hours per month managing duplicated safety paperwork and retraining. For larger, multi-jurisdictional companies, that figure climbs dramatically: 50 to 100-plus hours per month. Direct costs frequently fall in the $25,000 to $100,000-plus CAD range annually, and that’s before factoring in the productivity losses and work that gets declined because the compliance math doesn’t pencil out.
Despite these costs, the survey found no evidence that the duplication produces better safety outcomes. The same hazards exist on both sides of a provincial border. The difference is paperwork, not risk.
MCAC CEO Tania Johnston framed the issue pointedly. “Identical hazards are being treated as if they are different simply because a worker crosses a provincial border,” she said in a statement. “That inconsistency undermines labour mobility and internal trade at a time when Canada needs both.”
Seventy-four percent of survey respondents said they strongly support a national mutual recognition or common assessment framework as a solution.
Analysis
The MCAC data lands at a moment when Canada’s internal trade barriers are under increasing scrutiny, and the construction and mechanical sectors are feeling the friction more than most. For subcontractors, the certification problem isn’t abstract policy: it shows up in bid decisions, crew deployment, and project timelines.
The core dysfunction the survey identifies is that Canada’s provincial safety certification systems were built in silos, and those silos now function as de facto trade barriers. A worker certified under one province’s COR (Certificate of Recognition) program may not have that certification recognized in the next province, even if the training content is substantively identical. The result is redundant cost and time without a safety rationale.
This matters most to subcontractors operating at scale across regions. A mechanical contractor bidding work in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario simultaneously faces three overlapping compliance regimes. Estimating that compliance overhead into a bid either makes the contractor uncompetitive or compresses already-thin margins. In some cases, firms simply decline to bid outside their home province, which artificially shrinks the available labor pool and limits competition on projects.
The MCAC’s proposed remedies are practical and worth tracking. The association is calling on the federal government to establish a national safety certification verification database, develop a harmonization framework built around competency outcomes rather than identical training pathways, and issue guidance to owners and procurement bodies encouraging acceptance of equivalent certifications. Critically, the MCAC framed this as building on existing provincial systems, not replacing them, which improves the political feasibility of the ask.
Johnston’s framing is also notable. “Contractors are not asking for less safety,” she said. “They are asking for smarter systems that recognize equivalent safety outcomes, reduce duplication and allow companies and workers to focus their time and resources on managing real risks in the field.” That’s a posture designed to insulate the proposal from the predictable counterargument that harmonization means lowering the bar.
Whether federal leadership materializes is an open question. But the survey gives the industry a concrete evidence base to push the conversation forward.
What It Means for Subcontractors
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Track your compliance hours now. If you’re operating across provincial lines and not measuring the time spent on duplicated safety paperwork and retraining, you’re likely underestimating a cost that the MCAC survey pegs at $25,000 to $100,000-plus CAD per year for many firms. Quantifying it internally strengthens your ability to price it accurately and advocate for change.
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The 74% number matters for advocacy. With nearly three-quarters of survey respondents supporting a national mutual recognition framework, subcontractor associations have a strong mandate to push for harmonization at the federal level. If you’re a member of a provincial or national trade association, this is the moment to signal that certification harmonization is a priority.
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Watch the COR/SECOR mutual recognition angle. The MCAC is specifically calling for equivalency recognition among COR, SECOR, and ISO-aligned safety programs. If your firm carries one of these certifications, a successful harmonization framework
