Listed

Listed, in the Canadian building code sense, means equipment or materials included in a list published by a certification organization accredited by the Standards Council of Canada. The test is not the logo and not general industry recognition, it is SCC accreditation of the body doing the certifying, and the Electrical Safety Authority adds a second condition: the equipment must be approved to a recognized Canadian standard. Listing applies to products, so the phrase is being misused whenever it is attached to a company: we have found no Canadian source establishing a ULC listing scheme for fire alarm verification agencies, and a firm calling itself a "listed verification agency" is not describing anything that exists.

What listing means in Canada

The definition is short and it hinges on one thing. In the revoked O. Reg. 332/12, Division A, Article 1.4.1.2, listed meant equipment or materials included in a list published by a certification organization accredited by the Standards Council of Canada. Read what that turns on: not the mark, not reputation, not "everybody uses it". The accreditation of the certifier.

SCC accredits certification bodies under its Product, Process and Service Certification program, which is built on ISO/IEC 17065. Underwriters Laboratories of Canada, Inc. holds certification file 10002, accredited since 1980 and current to 2028. UL LLC, the American body, holds file 10011 and is also SCC accredited, which is why "a UL mark is never valid in Canada" is wrong as stated.

Two different accreditations, constantly confused

Writing a standard and certifying a product are separate roles in separate SCC programs.

	A standard	A certification mark
What it is	A document, for example CAN/ULC-S524	A symbol on a product
Who produces it	An accredited standards development organisation	An accredited certification body
What it tells you	What the requirement is	That a body evaluated this product against a requirement

Since 1 April 2025 the accredited standards developer behind the CAN/ULC family is ULSE Inc., file 30707, after SCC merged ULC Standards' file into it. The certification bodies were not merged and keep their own files. The background is in ULC versus UL in Canada and the ULC Standards entry.

The two conditions, and the component trap

ESA Bulletin 2-7-38 states that the Ontario Electrical Safety Code and O. Reg. 438/07 recognise certification bodies accredited by SCC, and that equipment shall be approved to a recognized Canadian standard. Both conditions have to hold. A product can be certified by an accredited body against an American standard and still fail the second.

ESA also keeps a separate heading for component certification markings that are not recognised on complete end-use products, noting that components carrying them may have performance restrictions or be incomplete in construction. A component mark inside an approved assembly is doing its job. The same mark offered as the approval for the finished device you are about to energise is not.

One more practical point from UL Solutions' own Canadian page: a product appearing in an online certification directory is not the same as a product bearing the mark, and only products bearing the mark are certified. Look at the device, not the database.

The negative that matters: nobody is a listed verification agency

Because listing attaches to equipment or materials, it does not attach to a company, a technician or a service. Nothing in either Ontario code makes a contractor "listed".

Who may work on a fire alarm system in Ontario is set somewhere else entirely: Fire Code Division C, Article 1.2.1.2 requires a person doing the work to have completed a program or course acceptable to the Fire Marshal, and the two currently accepted are the CFAA program and ECAO's Certi-Fire. That is a qualification of a person, not a listing of a firm. Some authorities go further and publish their own acceptance lists, as City of Vancouver does with acceptable organisations and qualified persons for verification, but that is an AHJ acceptance list, not a ULC listing.

We looked for a Canadian listing or certification scheme covering verification agencies and did not find one. If a company advertises itself as ULC listed for verification, ask which certification body publishes that list and which standard it certifies against. The full picture of who is actually permitted to do the work is in who can legally work on fire alarms in Ontario.

Fire Alarm Academy provides educational content only. It does not confer any certification, licence or credential, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by the Canadian Fire Alarm Association, the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario, ULC Standards, UL Standards and Engagement, CSA Group, the Electrical Safety Authority, any authority having jurisdiction, or any manufacturer. Always work from the edition of any standard adopted by your authority having jurisdiction.