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Home / President’s Message /

President’s Message

Weldon Newton

I am pleased to welcome you to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission’s Web site.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was created as an independent agency in 1987 by proclamation of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act and is accountable to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Health. We are a small but important public sector institution charged with providing the trade secret protection mechanism within the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS).



Weldon Newton was born in Buckingham, Quebec. On graduation from Forestry College, he worked for several years for the James MacLaren Power and Paper Company in Masson, Quebec. He then continued his education and graduated in 1976 from the University of Ottawa, Common Law Program and was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1978.
That same year, Mr. Newton began his career in the Public Service of Canada as Manager of the Aeronautics Act Task Force; a program set up to totally review and modernize the aviation safety legislation and regulatory program in Canada. In 1983, Mr. Newton was promoted to the Senior Executive Group as Director of Aviation Enforcement and Legislation. He played a key role in the development and successful passage of the first major revisions to the Aeronautics Act in 1985. Mr. Newton was subsequently promoted to the position of Director General, Aviation Regulation in 1987. In this key regulatory position, he guided a staff of over 1,000 employees and was responsible for all regulatory activities at both headquarters and within the regions. During this same period, the government was implementing its Economic Regulatory Reform Policy, which eventually resulted in unparalleled growth of the aviation industry. Mr. Newton and his team of inspectors monitored this growth to ensure safety standards were not compromised.

In 1991, Mr. Newton was assigned as a Visiting Executive to the Treasury Board Secretariat where he worked in three different program areas to further develop his knowledge of government operations. From 1993 to 1998 he undertook several executive assignments with Health Canada; one of which was to re-engineer the Health Protection Program.

In 1998, he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. This Commission is an important public sector institution charged with providing the trade secret mechanism within the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS). WHMIS is the national system coordinated by the federal government to improve worker protection and reduce the incidence of illnesses and injuries resulting from the use of hazardous materials in the workplace, while making decisions on the compliance of claims made by national and international chemical companies who are afforded the ability to protect their industrial intellectual property assets.

Upon arrival at the Commission, Mr. Newton determined the need to sustain the Commission’s renewal process and made this goal his top priority. He spearheaded a strategic planning document entitled Commission Renewal: Blueprint for Change, which has become a springboard for open, honest and challenging dialogue and a gathering place around which the stakeholders have come together, as partners, in this renewal effort and offer the Commission their unanimous support in this exercise of review, reaffirmation and enhancement of the Commission.

WHMIS requires that manufacturers and suppliers provide employers with information on the hazards of materials produced, sold, or used in Canadian workplaces. The employers, in turn, provide that information to employees through product labels, worker education programs and material safety data sheets (MSDS). A product’s MSDS must fully disclose all hazardous ingredients in the product, its toxicological properties, any safety precautions workers need to take when using the product and treatment required in the case of exposure. WHMIS is a nation-wide system which contributes to the reduction of illness and injury caused by using hazardous materials in the Canadian workplace.

The Commission’s dual role is to balance the right of chemical companies to protect trade secrets and the need of workers to have accurate health and safety information about hazardous chemicals used in the workplace. The Commission is a model of industry, labour and government consultation, consensus and cooperation.

The Commission’s mandate is to formally register claims for trade secret exemptions and issue registry numbers; issue decisions on the validity of claims for exemption using prescribed regulatory criteria; make decisions on the compliance of MSDSs, and in certain cases labels, within WHMIS requirements as set out in the Hazardous Products Act and Controlled Products Regulations and various provincial and territorial occupational safety and health acts; and to convene independent, tripartite boards to hear appeals from claimants or affected parties on the decisions and orders issued by the Commission.

As a direct result of our work, national and international chemical companies have been afforded the ability to protect their industrial intellectual property assets. At the same time, our efforts to review MSDSs and labels to ensure they disclose accurate health and safety information about hazardous chemicals, have directly contributed to a reduction in the risk of workplace related illness and injury.

The Commission has recently undertaken an internal process of revisiting and updating it’s vision, mission and operating principles. This renewal process has been and continues to be my top priority and that of Commission staff. Our major thrust is a client service orientation balanced with a focussed role in workplace safety.

Working in partnership with our tripartite Council of Governors and our stakeholder groups, we wrote the Commission’s first strategic plan entitled Commission Renewal: Blueprint for Change. The Blueprint was the beginning of open, honest and challenging dialogue, and acted as a gathering place around which all interested parties met to review, reaffirm and identify enhancements to the services offered by the Commission. The Blueprint was met with unanimous approval and support by the Commission’s Council and was endorsed by the Minister of Health in October 1999. In November 1999, we published the Blueprint and mailed copies to all interested parties.

In order to implement the strategic initiatives outlined in the Blueprint, the next step was the development of an operational workplan. The Commission received unanimous endorsement from Council on it’s renewal Workplan in January 2000. The plan will be the operational foundation that will direct the course of the Commission’s work for the next several years.

We believe that the Workplan clearly and transparently demonstrates our commitment to stakeholders in the renewal process of the Commission. As such, the Workplan has been widely published as tangible evidence of this commitment and to ensure our accountability for its completion.

The creation of this Web site was an important step in our renewal process and one of the many commitments made in our Blueprint. You can find all of the Commission’s publications under the Publications On-Line link on this site.

We truly hope that you will find our site useful and informative.

Weldon Newton

President and Chief Executive Officer


Last Updated: 2003-12-15

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