HAMILTON, ON -- The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) has launched a new online portal to help small businesses across Canada meet their health and safety responsibilities.

Small and medium-sized businesses can be challenged by competing priorities, time constraints, financial pressures and limited resources. They often don’t have staff dedicated to health and safety. According to the report "Key Small Business Statistics, 2023,” about 99.7 percent of all businesses in Canada are small to medium-sized (1 to 499 paid employees), employing about 7.8 million workers, almost twice the number of large businesses.

“With the unique challenges that small and medium-sized businesses face, meeting health and safety obligations can be daunting. We created the Business Safety Portal to provide these employers with information and tools to help them understand and meet their health and safety responsibilities and protect their employees,” said Anne Tennier, president and chief executive officer, Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS).

The Business Safety Portal offers an accessible, scalable, low-cost solution for owners and employers to help them understand their legal obligations for protecting their workers from injuries and illnesses and keep up to date with their health and safety policies, training, and other regulatory requirements.

The Portal also includes relevant online courses, practical manuals, fact sheets, and a digital file cabinet to store, update and share important documentation, such as health and safety plans, training certificates and inspection records.

Annual subscriptions start from $100. More information about the Business Safety Portal is available on the CCOHS website.