What changed on 8 June 2026
Quebec's Regulation respecting occupational health and safety now requires any worker performing arboriculture work in Quebec to hold an arboriculture qualification certificate of the appropriate class, or a valid apprenticeship record. The obligation sits in section 312.103 of the regulation.
The deadline moved. The arboriculture section was added to the regulation in June 2023, the original deadline was 8 June 2025, and it was postponed to 8 June 2026 by a notice published in the Gazette officielle du Québec on 26 December 2024. That date has now passed, and the obligation applies today.
This is a change in kind rather than in degree. Before June 2026 a tree worker's certification was voluntary and professional. Since then it is regulatory, and a homeowner has a concrete, checkable reason to turn away a crew that does not have it.
Which work is covered
The arboriculture certificate, designated ARBO, covers vegetation control on electricity and telecommunications distribution networks, pruning outside forests, trimming, predetermined felling outside forests, stump removal, chipping outside forests, tree surgery and bracing.
There is a separate certificate for ground work, designated ARBO-S. In other words, the person feeding the chipper and the person climbing do not necessarily hold the same class, which is normal. What matters is that each person holds the class matching what they actually do.
Nursery and horticultural work is excluded. Cutting a two metre cedar hedge with a trimmer is not the same thing as reducing a 20 cm limb at eight metres, and the regulation reflects that.
How it is obtained
The certificate is issued by the ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale. The published conditions require a minimum of 1,800 apprenticeship hours under the supervision of a certified person, completion of mandatory courses including manual felling health and safety and technical arboriculture training, and then a pass in a written qualification examination.
The examination lasts three hours, has 45 to 50 questions, and requires a pass mark of 60 per cent. Registration opened on 1 April 2026.
Eighteen hundred hours is roughly a year of full-time work. That means a legitimate crew has put time and money into this qualification, and the crew knocking on your door the day after a storm with a chainsaw and a rented truck probably has not.
The ISA credential, which is a different thing
Do not confuse the two. The arboriculture qualification certificate is a Quebec regulatory obligation about workplace safety. The ISA Certified Arborist credential is an international professional competence, administered in Quebec by the Société internationale d'arboriculture Québec, and it is about knowledge of trees.
To obtain it, a candidate needs three consecutive years of arboriculture experience, that is 36 months, or recognised post-secondary training which can reduce that requirement after review by a committee. The written examination has 200 multiple-choice questions and the pass mark is 76 per cent.
It is valid for three years and maintaining it requires 30 continuing education credits in that period, where one credit equals one hour of training. Renewal is not automatic. There is also the TRAQ qualification, devoted to tree risk assessment and particularly relevant to deciding the fate of a large tree after a storm. The SIAQ keeps a professional directory where a name can be checked.
What the homeowner should ask for
Four documents, and all four exist. The arboriculture qualification certificate of every person who will do the work, with the class. The ISA credential of the person deciding the pruning plan, with its expiry date. The company's CNESST compliance certificate. And proof of liability insurance, with the amount.
The CNESST adds operating requirements you can observe in your own yard: personal protective equipment appropriate to the task, knowledge of the risks involved in the work, constant communication between the ground crew and the climber, and an aerial rescue procedure that has been tested. A crew where nobody is watching the climber is not meeting that requirement.
Finally, a written and itemised quote. It should say which tree, which intervention, what percentage of living branches, who applies to the City for the certificate, what happens to the wood and the stump, and the price. A cash deposit with no written quote, offered door to door after a storm, is the most consistent pattern in this trade in this region.