Repackaging Imported Acetone: Who Is the Supplier?
A small Canadian company, Northern Coatings, imports 200 L drums of acetone from a US manufacturer and repackages the solvent into 4 L metal cans for sale to autobody shops in Manitoba. The US supplier provides a HazCom 2012 safety data sheet and an English-only label with the US company's address and phone number, the flame pictogram, signal word Danger, and the hazard statement 'Highly flammable liquid and vapour.' The drums also carry US DOT flammable liquid labels. Northern Coatings adds its own name and a Canadian phone number to each 4 L can but leaves the rest of the US label unchanged. A customer asks for a French label and a Canadian SDS. The operations manager argues that Northern Coatings is only a repackager, not a supplier, and that the US SDS is already GHS-compliant, so no new documents are needed. The company has no written procedure for updating SDSs and has not checked whether the US SDS contains all 16 WHMIS-required sections.
1. Is Northern Coatings a supplier under WHMIS 2015? Explain the consequence for the 4 L cans.
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Yes. WHMIS 2015 supplier duties attach to a person who imports, manufactures, or sells a hazardous product for use in a Canadian workplace. Repackaging the acetone into new 4 L containers and selling it under Northern Coatings' own name is not a neutral logistics step; it puts the company in the supply chain as a supplier. Before those cans leave the site, each must carry a compliant supplier label. The US label is not enough: a supplier label must include the product identifier, Canadian supplier identifier, all applicable hazard pictograms, signal word, hazard statements, precautionary statements, and supplemental information, in English and French. The US DOT label is a transport label, not a workplace supplier label. The practical consequence is that the 4 L cans should not be sold until they are relabelled; adding only a Canadian phone number leaves the label non-compliant.
2. What must Northern Coatings do about the SDS, and can it simply pass on the US HazCom SDS?
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Northern Coatings must provide a Canadian SDS that meets the 16-section WHMIS 2015 requirements and identifies the Canadian supplier. The US HazCom SDS may be a useful source because both systems are GHS-aligned, but alignment does not make it automatically compliant. The company must check that all 16 sections are present, that the hazard classification uses WHMIS hazard classes and categories, that Canadian exposure limits and regulatory information are addressed where required, that units and first-aid advice are complete, and that the supplier identifier and emergency contact are current. If the US SDS lacks required content, Northern Coatings must prepare or obtain a corrected SDS. It must also keep the SDS current and update it when new hazard information becomes available. Passing on the US document unchanged would leave the customer without a reliable Canadian SDS.