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Building regulations in Canada are under the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories, which use the National Model Construction Codes as a basis to establish building regulations in their own jurisdictions.
In the past, this responsibility was generally delegated to the municipalities, many of which passed numerous bylaws specific to their needs. People involved in construction thus found themselves dealing with many variants, which on a national scale posed technical barriers. To reduce those barriers, model construction regulations were developed in 1937, followed by the first official version of the National Building Code of Canada (NBC) in 1941. Today, the NBC is used throughout the country as a reference for provincial and territorial building regulations. Greater uniformity of the regulations has paved the way for a common approach to the evaluation of new and innovative products.
In the late 1980s, the provincial regulatory authorities, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the construction industry took part in an extensive joint consultation process that led to the recommendation to establish a national evaluation service, on which building officials across the country could base their decisions on the acceptability of innovative building products.
In response to that recommendation, NRC, in 1988, established the Canadian Commission on Construction Materials Evaluation (CCCME), whose main objectives are to support innovation and technology transfer. With members from the regulatory bodies, the industry and the general public, the Commission represents all Canadian interests. It receives administrative, financial and technical support from the Canadian Construction Materials Centre (CCMC), which is part of NRC's Construction Portfolio.
