Recovering After a Workplace Injury in Quebec: A Complete Guide
What should I do first after a workplace injury in Quebec?
Report the event to your employer as soon as you can, see a health professional to get a diagnosis, give your employer the medical certificate from that professional, then file your own claim with the CNESST. Those four steps in that order.
Your employer then files their own form, and it is worth knowing that the form gives them space to record objections to your claim being accepted. What you wrote in your own claim is your side of that.
How long do I have to file a CNESST claim?
Generally six months. For an occupational disease the clock runs from when you became aware the illness was work-related rather than from a single event.
There are longer windows in specific situations, including where a psychological harassment claim runs through the Tribunal administratif du travail first, so if you are outside six months it is worth asking rather than assuming.
Do I have a right to my job back in Quebec?
Yes, and it is set out in section 240 of the Act respecting industrial accidents and occupational diseases. The length depends on the size of your workplace.
| Size of employer | Right to return lasts |
|---|---|
| Twenty workers or fewer | 1 year |
| More than twenty workers | 2 years |
When your doctor consolidates your injury, a CNESST officer determines how the return to work works. That covers whether you can do your old job again, whether its tasks respect your functional limitations, and whether you need retraining or a workstation adapted.
How long do I have to contest a CNESST decision?
This changed on April 6, 2023, and a lot of material still online has the old numbers. Here is where it stands.
| Route | Time limit |
|---|---|
| Temporary assignment, right of refusal, preventive withdrawal or an inspector's decision, at the Tribunal | 10 days |
| Administrative review at the CNESST | 30 days from notification |
| Contestation at the Tribunal administratif du travail | 60 days from notification |
| Going to the Tribunal because the CNESST has not answered your review | after 90 days |
For many decisions you now have a genuine choice rather than a fixed sequence. You can request an administrative review within thirty days, or you can go directly to the Tribunal within sixty days. That choice applies notably to decisions on a Bureau d'évaluation médicale opinion and to certain occupational disease committee and cost allocation decisions.
The thirty day review limit is strict. A request filed late can permanently end your right to contest. Your employer also has thirty days to seek a review, which means a decision in your favour can still be reopened.
Full dates and forms are on our Quebec CNESST claim deadlines page.
What is the Bureau d'évaluation médicale?
It is a mechanism found nowhere else in Canada, and it matters because it can reshape everything that follows. When a medical opinion on your file is contested, the question goes to a physician at the Bureau d'évaluation médicale, and the CNESST is then bound by that opinion on the medical questions it covers.
Those questions include your diagnosis, whether your injury is consolidated, the treatment required, whether you have a permanent impairment and what functional limitations you carry. Almost everything about your entitlement flows from those answers.
If you disagree with the conclusions, they can be contested at the Tribunal, and an expert medical report is usually needed to do it properly.
What should I be writing down?
Three things, and the first one is more urgent in Quebec than anywhere else.
- Your functional limitations in your provider's own words, and how your actual job conflicts with them. This is what the return to work determination turns on, and what a Bureau d'évaluation médicale opinion will be measured against.
- Every date a decision reached you. With ten, thirty and sixty day clocks running from notification, the date on the envelope is as important as the decision inside it.
- Anything that felt like a penalty for claiming. A schedule change, a transfer, a sudden performance concern. Those are the raw material of a section 32 complaint.
Our free Resource Hub has fillable trackers for symptoms, appointments, correspondence and return to work.
Who can help me?
The CNESST publishes the worker's claim form and its own policy on reviews and contestations. The Tribunal administratif du travail sets out the deadlines and the procedure for contesting a decision, and it publishes its decisions.
Quebec has no government worker adviser office of the kind Ontario and Manitoba run. Union members should go to their union. Non-unionized workers most often turn to community groups that defend injured workers, or to a lawyer who practises in this area, and many work on a contingency basis.
The Quebec Companion Guide
Our Quebec Workplace Injury Companion Guide carries the deadlines, forms, board names and appeal routes for this province, with fillable space for the record you build alongside them. Pair it with The Way Back National Recovery Guide.
Cette page est aussi offerte en français.
Last verified July 2026 against the CNESST and the Tribunal administratif du travail. We re-check these pages quarterly. If you find something wrong here, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.
This page is general information for people in Quebec. It is not legal or medical advice. Confirm anything specific to your situation with a lawyer, your union or the CNESST.