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Cleaning chemicals are not ordinary consumer goods once they are used at work. Health Canada administers WHMIS through the Hazardous Products Act and the Hazardous Products Regulations, which set out how a hazardous product sold or imported for use in a Canadian workplace must be classified, what its supplier label must say, and what its safety data sheet must contain. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety explains that safety data sheets run to sixteen standard sections set out in Schedule 1 of those regulations, are normally written by the manufacturer or supplier, and must be readily available to the workers exposed to the product and to the health and safety committee or representative.

The employer side is where most disputes start. CCOHS draws a line between education, meaning the general information about how WHMIS works and what the hazards are, and training, meaning the site- and job-specific procedures for storing, handling, using and disposing of a product and for dealing with spills and emergencies. Every Canadian jurisdiction requires employers to develop, implement and maintain a worker WHMIS education and training program, and CCOHS advises reviewing it at least annually, or sooner when products, processes or hazard information change. Ontario, for example, applies WHMIS through the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its WHMIS regulation.

The building owner does not get to hand all of this to the contractor. Under Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, an employer must take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker and must provide information, instruction and supervision, while an owner, defined to include a tenant, lessee or occupier of premises used as a workplace, has duties of its own for the state of the premises. In practice that means telling the cleaning company about hazards in your space, not just expecting their staff to discover them at night.

Ask for a certificate of commercial general liability insurance naming the cleaning company, and read the dates and the limit rather than the logo. Cleaners work unsupervised around equipment, water and electrical panels, so the realistic claims are property damage and slips on a wet floor, and you want the policy to be live for the whole contract term, not just the week it was issued.

Bonding is a separate thing and is often misunderstood. A janitorial or fidelity bond responds to theft by the contractor's employees; it is not liability insurance and it is not a licence or a government endorsement. If a company describes itself as bonded, ask what the bond covers, who the named obligee is, and how a claim would actually be made. In buildings where cleaners hold keys to offices containing client records or controlled stock, this is worth reading properly.

Workers' compensation is the third document. In Ontario, the WSIB issues a clearance, a number confirming that a business, contractor or subcontractor is registered and up to date with the board, which only businesses in good standing can obtain and which is valid for a limited period before it has to be refreshed. Asking for a current clearance at renewal, rather than once at the start, is the practical habit. Equivalent boards operate in the other provinces.

Hiring your own cleaner makes sense when the building is large enough to justify steady hours, when continuity and trust matter more than flexibility, or when the work is entangled with other duties like receiving deliveries and setting up rooms. You then carry the employer obligations directly: training, supervision, coverage during illness and holidays, and the WHMIS program for the products you buy.

A contracted company absorbs recruitment, cover and supervision, brings equipment you would otherwise buy, and can scale a periodic program up for a one-off event or a move-out. The trade-off is distance. You are managing an outcome through someone else's staff, which is why the scope document and the inspection routine do the work that direct supervision would otherwise do.

On LokalMatch, a business describes the premises, the areas to be covered, the frequency and the hours when cleaners can be on site, and commercial cleaning companies working in that city get in touch directly. LokalMatch does not inspect premises or assess a cleaner's work, so treat the insurance certificate, the workers' compensation clearance and the written scope as the checks that matter, and ask for them before the first shift rather than after it.