Industrial camps

Learn how human health risks are managed appropriately in places where people are employed and accommodated onsite.

Industrial camps are places where people are employed and accommodated onsite – such as camps supporting forestry, saw mills, mining, canneries, and oil and gas activities. The goal is to ensure potential risks to human health are managed appropriately in these camps.

The Ministry of Health provides policy support for land use management, which includes regulating industrial camps.

The operation of an industrial camp is prescribed as a regulated activity under B.C.’s Public Health Act. An industrial camp operator must comply with the requirements of the Industrial Camps Regulation.

The regulation outlines the requirements for a number of public-health-related factors, including:

• camp siting and size
• arrangement of camp facilities (including sleeping accommodations)
• provision of safe drinking water
• location and construction of sewage facilities
• waste management

In the case of forestry operations, contractors establishing camps are required to provide the location and contact information of all camps to the local health authority (based on where the camp site is located), WorkSafe BC, and the Ministry of Forests. This must be done 72 hours before the establishment of any camp site.

Camp operators in other resource development sectors should contact the local health authority at the earliest possible stage before camp development to ensure provisions under the Industrial Camps Regulation are incorporated into the camp’s design and operation.

For information on industrial camp waste disposal, see Industrial Camps: Waste Authorizations and Best Practices (PDF, 474KB).

B.C. Guidelines for Industrial Camps Regulation

The B.C. Guidelines for Industrial Camps Regulation (837KB) provides an interpretation of the Industrial Camps Regulation to assist industrial camp operators and regulators.

For convenience, the content in this document is organized by sections, which correspond to the sections of the Industrial Camps Regulation. Where appropriate, this document also provides supplemental guidance in the form of best practices

2025 Engagement on New Federal Worker Housing Standards

In 2022, Employment and Social Development Canada published 12 requirements to address public health and safety concerns in employer-provided accommodations for temporary foreign workers in the federal program streams related to agriculture, primary processing and seafood processing. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food engaged with organizations that represent temporary foreign workers and employers in key sectors from May to June 2025. The purpose of the engagement was to gather data on the current worker housing conditions, including the extent to which the new federal minimum requirements were or were not already being met. For a summary of the engagement, see Preparing for New Worker Standards Engagement Summary (PDF, 267KB).