Occupational Skills and Safety
The Occupational Skills and Safety domain tests whether you can work legally, safely and systematically on a Canadian landscape site. Expect questions on field-level hazard assessment, workplace hazardous materials, personal protective equipment, ergonomics and manual lifting, utility locates, limits of approach to energized conductors, trenching and confined spaces, and emergency response. It also covers the administrative side: worker orientation, incident investigation and reporting, and the right to refuse unsafe work.
Hazard assessment and the hierarchy of controls
- Complete a field-level hazard assessment before each task and again whenever conditions change: weather, new trades on site, equipment delivered, night work.
- Apply controls in order: eliminate, substitute, engineer, administrate, then PPE. PPE is the last line of defence, not the first.
- Control the zones: swing radius of excavators, drop zones under aerial work, and limits of approach around overhead lines.
WHMIS and chemical handling
- Supplier labels and Safety Data Sheets follow the GHS format with 16 sections; Section 4 is first aid and Section 8 is exposure controls and PPE.
- Product transferred out of its original container needs a workplace label.
- Pesticides, fuels and fertilizers go in labelled, ventilated, secured storage, never in an unmarked drink bottle.
Utilities, excavation and lifting
- Call the provincial one-call notification service before digging and hand-expose buried services inside the tolerance zone around the locate marks.
- Keep spoils and equipment back from trench edges; shoring or sloping is required before any worker enters.
- Lift with the legs, keep the load close, and team-lift anything above roughly 20-25 kg.
Worked example
A crew must set fence posts 1.2 m deep along a line that crosses a marked gas service and runs 2.5 m from an overhead 7.2 kV conductor. Correct sequence: file the one-call notification and wait for the locate ticket to be valid; hand-dig inside the tolerance zone around the gas mark; confirm the electrical limits of approach from the provincial table rather than estimating; brief the crew on the changed hazards and record the tailgate talk.
Traps that cost marks
Assuming PPE substitutes for guarding or ventilation; treating the SDS as optional paperwork; calling for locates after the machine is already on site; estimating a safe distance to a conductor instead of looking it up.