Does your store have 20 or more workers? A prevention program is mandatory.
Since October 1, 2025, Quebec's Regulation respecting prevention and participation mechanisms (RMPPE) applies to every establishment in the province — retail stores included. Full compliance is required by October 1, 2026.
And in retail, the 20-worker threshold gets crossed without anyone noticing: part-timers count, students count, holiday reinforcements count. A sales floor, cash registers, a receiving dock and the November hiring wave are often enough to push a store into the higher tier.
What the law requires based on your headcount
19 workers or fewer per establishment:
- An action plan (risk identification and measures)
- A health and safety liaison officer (ALSS)
20 workers or more per establishment:
- A written prevention program, updated annually
- A health and safety committee (employer and worker representatives)
- A health and safety representative (HSR) designated by the workers
The tier is calculated per establishment, not per banner. Three locations with 12 workers each: three action plans. One with 25: a full prevention program — for that one.
A store's risks, across the RMPPE's 6 categories
Your program must cover six risk categories. Between the floor, the registers and the back room, every one of them fills up:
- Physical — back-room and dock lighting, drafts from doors, receiving-area temperatures, crowd noise
- Chemical — cleaning products (WHMIS), shelved products that leak or break (aerosols, cleaners), residue disposal
- Biological — hygiene of shared areas and customer-facing facilities, first-aid organization
- Ergonomic — prolonged register work, repeated handling from receiving to shelf, high-shelf restocking, screen-based service stations
- Psychosocial — customer incivility, the emotional load of complaints, seasonal peaks, harassment, exposure to domestic or family violence
- Safety — cash handling and robbery risk, falling objects from racking, stepladders and restocking with customers present, pallet jacks in the back room
No joint sector-based association serves retail. Unlike the automotive or municipal sectors, there is no free guide built for your reality: every retailer has to build their own program.
What a non-compliant establishment risks
The CNESST can request your prevention program during any intervention — a planned visit, a worker complaint or an accident. Under the AOHS, a corporation faces a fine of $2,115 to $4,226 for a first offense, and up to $84,519 where a worker's health, safety or physical integrity is compromised. These amounts are indexed every year and climb sharply for repeat offenses.
The fine isn't the real cost, though. The real cost is a robbery with no known procedure, a stepladder fall documented nowhere, and a due-diligence defense that can't be made.
Source: CNESST, Cadre d'émission des constats d'infraction, Annex 2 “Guide des sentences”, legal person — 2026 indexed amounts.
Where to start
Answer 10 questions about your establishment. The diagnostic gives you:
- your exact tier (action plan or prevention program)
- your top 3 priority gaps
- your fine exposure at the 2026 indexed amounts