What’s Cooking? Those Saskatchewan Contractor Breakfasts are HOT!
Contractor Breakfasts are not a new or unique idea — they’ve been done. The thing is they just never seem to catch on over time.
Except in Saskatchewan. Somehow the SaskCGA — Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance) — has found the recipe for success. Before COVID broke out, they were hosting 30 breakfasts per year. COVID shut them down for two years, but this year they’re coming back with two events planned in Lloydminster (April 27) and Estevan (April 28).
According to a 2018 tweet, even the CCGA wondered how the SaskCGA does it.
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In a recent episode of Utility Safety Partners popular Prairie Podcast, Shannon Doka, the Executive Director of the SaskCGA, explained how the breakfasts got started "It started over 30 years ago with a group of overhead and underground infrastructure companies. They all got around the table and discussed ‘How do we create an awareness program and keep getting best practices and dig safe on the brain?’”
"So, these companies all got together, and they created what was called the ‘Contractor Safety Awareness Association’, well before our Common Ground Alliances began. And they decided let’s have a breakfast. If you feed them, they will come.”
The breakfasts have since become an anchor program for what was the Contractor Safety Awareness Association with the SaskCGA Public and Awareness and Education Committee in later years. By 2019 over 17 thousand people had attended the breakfasts over the years.
Jason Matity is the co-chair of the SaskCGA Public and Awareness Committee and Consultant of Safety Awareness and Promotion at Saskpower. He says the breakfasts have been more than successful events — they’ve helped move the dial to establish a greater culture of safety.
"It’s a slow process. In 30 years, what have we accomplished? Well, there’s a whole safety industry that wasn’t there 30 years ago. We have Safety Departments at Utilities. We have discussions about safety. That’s what we’ve tried to as well through our video content is tell stories about people.”
One of the features of each breakfast are popular videos shown. A selection of them is featured at the bottom of the SaskCGA website.
"That’s eventually going to lead to a safer work culture,” adds Matity.
Why is this so popular in Saskatchewan? It could be the connections to rural roots in the province that go back more than a century.
Doka explains, "I think it’s the grassroots concept that works anywhere in Saskatchewan from volunteerism, to big events, to small events. It’s always like-minded community people that work on the ground that make things happen.”
Listen to the SaskCGA Contractor Breakfast episode on Prairie Podcast.
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