Saskatchewan and Alberta Team Up for Contractor Safety

Mike Sullivan – President, Utility Safety Partners

For three decades, Saskatchewan has boasted the amazing and long-standing Contractor Safety Breakfasts across the province every April. Once managed by the Saskatchewan Contractor Safety Awareness Association, and now by the Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance, the annual breakfasts promote DigSafe awareness to over 2000 contractors. For the past few years, the Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance and Utility Safety Partners have teamed up in the Alberta/Saskatchewan border town of Lloydminster to host the event.

Saskatchewan discovered the secret formula for planning, coordinating, and hosting the Spring Contractor Breakfasts decades ago and has happily shared it with neighbouring provinces, but there’s no question Saskatchewan has perfected it.

Years ago, and in another career with a transmission pipeline company that transported natural gas from northeast B.C. to Chicago, I was part of a team of pipeline company representatives that desperately wanted to bring the value of the contractor safety breakfasts to Alberta. Try as we may, though, we just couldn’t replicate the formula that Saskatchewan had perfected and after a few years, the breakfasts dried up. It was frustrating since the same pipeline companies one province east of us were making it work year after year, but here in Alberta, we just couldn’t generate the same interest.

USP hopes to change that. We’re starting small but we’re going to be persistent. And we’re going to expand our target audience to the agricultural community.

Ongoing excavation safety awareness is critical and if we hesitate or pause those efforts, we run the risk of missing education opportunities. Promoting “Look Up and Live” awareness for overhead power line safety is equally critical, particularly to the agricultural community. As equipment gets bigger, the risk of contacting overhead power lines increases. So, while we’re starting small this year, our goal is to gain solid traction across the province in the years to come!

Last month, the Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance (SCGA) hosted 22 contractor breakfasts across the province in Regina, Swift Current, Shaunavon, Manitou Beach, Yorkton, Saskatoon, Moosomin, North Battleford, Moose Jaw, Assiniboia, Lloydminster, Watson, Esterhazy, Preeceville, Carievale, Estevan, Shellbrook, George Gordon First Nation, Balcarres, Grenfell, Kindersley, and Weyburn.