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Summary

Effective December 15, 2025, all suppliers, manufacturers, importers and distributors must follow the Hazardous Products Regulations (HPR) amendments. These amendments introduce some key changes to Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) that employers, workers and suppliers need to know. 

The regulatory amendments took effect in December 2022, establishing a three-year transition period ending on December 14, 2025, allowing suppliers, employers and workers to adapt to the changes.

  1. New hazard classes and categories
    • Chemicals under pressure: a new physical hazard class.
    • Aerosols: now includes a non-flammable aerosols category (Category 3).
    • Flammable gases: updated with new subcategories (e.g., 1A and 1B) and definitions such as pyrophoric gases and chemically unstable gases.
  2. Expanded Safety Data Sheets (SDS) requirements
    • Enhanced content, particularly in Sections 9 (physical/chemical properties) and 14 (transport information).
    • Focuses on concrete details like physical state, colour, particle characteristics, kinematic viscosity and relative vapour density, while simplifying the process by making odour threshold and evaporation rate optional unless they provide useful, accurate context.
  3. Full disclosure of hazardous ingredients
    • All hazardous ingredients in a mixture above cutoff levels must now be disclosed in the SDS—even if they don’t contribute to its hazard classification.
  4. Label and SDS consistency
    • Labels and SDS must conform entirely to the new regulatory version from December 15, 2025, because the transition period ends on December 14. Updating means full reclassification, relabeling, and SDS updates.

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