Ontario One Call Hosts its First Conference and Tradeshow

Mike Sullivan - President - Utility Safety Partners

Along with two of my very esteemed damage prevention colleagues, Nick Bonstell and Jean-Guy Coté, I had the distinct honour of being invited to Ontario One Call’s (On1Call) inaugural Conference and Tradeshow a few weeks ago. The three of us, and ON1Call President and CEO, Jim Keech, were invited to participate on a DigSafe Panel Discussion.

The ON1Call event was held at the Woodbine Banquet Hall in Toronto between Sept. 9 and 10 and showcased a wide range of experts sharing industry insights, discussing the latest trends and innovations in excavation safety, damage prevention, regulatory updates and more. As for our panel discussion, my co-panelists and I were asked to provide some collaborative insights from our respective provinces (Ontario, Quebec and Alberta) and from neighbouring Michigan.

The session was professionally moderated by Jean Lepine, chief strategy officer with ON1Call. Jean and his colleagues worked with and coached us panelists in advance of the event to ensure the session met expectations and I hope that we delivered.

For me, the session underlined how notification centres in Canada and the United States face similar/same challenges relating to GIS expectations from our users and members and how each of us struggle with damage prevention legislation — whether operations are carried out in a regulated environment or not. More importantly, it further illustrated just how far we’ve come, but also, how far we have to go.

Over the past decade, the way locate requests are submitted, how they are mapped and the ability of the person creating the locate request to manage their tickets has evolved dramatically. However, the back end of the damage prevention process — getting “paint on the ground” has remained virtually the same for 30 years or more. Today, we’re finally witnessing an evolutionary moment in how locating and marking is carried out with ON1Call’s Designated Locator and Alberta’s Alternative Locate Provider program. Both options maintain the highest level of integrity while providing the excavator with all the tools necessary to safely carry out the locating and marking process on their own time.

Collectively, we wonder what the future of damage prevention looks like. How long will things remain the same, and how long until the next big change comes? I have some ideas but I’ll leave that for a future article or Safety Moment Podcast episode.