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In 2005, when the first courses were being rolled out across the province, Grant McMillan was confident that the Construction Safety Association of BC’s new safety program would be a success.

Today, even he is surprised at how well the Certificate of Recognition (COR) program has been received, as over 2000 construction industry workers, supervisors, and owners/managers have taken the courses so far. “Clearly we are providing companies with a way to get consistent, high-quality training that they didn’t have before,” says the Chair of the CSABC, who also believes that the COR initiative has contributed to an industry-wide decline in injury rates and durations.

“There are no hard data on this yet, but our greatest achievement has been to raise safety awareness,” says McMillan. “People in the industry are talking and thinking about safety more, so I do think the program has had something to do with the decreases. We also have the support of WorkSafeBC for our COR program and we value their support very highly.”

Don McNiven, a CSABC Board member and owner of Kelowna’s Kirkmichael Enterprises Ltd. (McNiven Masonry), agrees that the program is making a difference. And that, he says, is in large part due to the dedication of the Council of Construction Associations (COCA) and the CSABC Board of Directors. “What we see today is the evolution of a lot of hard work,” said McNiven, recalling the many discussions by COCA board members in the mid-1990s over what to do about rising injury rates and associated costs. “Everyone agreed there was a problem but there were many different visions about how to address it. But the Board was committed to doing the work.”

The end result is a made-in-BC program that is a good fit for all kinds of companies and is in line with WorkSafeBC’s emphasis on regulations and enforcement. And, while the introduction of financial incentives for completing the program have certainly had an impact (over $700,000 in rebates from WorkSafe BC and $45,000 in course fee reimbursements from CSABC have been distributed), it takes more than that for the program to work, says McNiven. “Everyone has to be on the same page. Owners, managers, workers, supervisors, especially those in smaller companies, have to see the value and the connections between the courses.

You don’t have to convince Jeff Lyth, whose company is so impressed with the COR training that management has decided to offer it to prime subtrades. “In this busy market we felt we needed to take a leadership role to facilitate more smaller companies to take the program,” says Lyth, Director of Corporate Health and Safety for ITC, BC’s largest residential contractor. Given the fact that on a typical site there are up to 40 subtrades and 200 workers, it only makes sense to utilize a program that provides a common language for everyone on a job site to work through safety issues and problems, he adds.

According to Grant McMillan, a number of improvements are planned for 2007, including course revisions and more venues to offer the worker training. The biggest news is WorksafeBC’s plan to boost its rebate offer to up to 15% for companies that add a return to work component. “These and other initiatives are all part of our continuing focus on getting more companies in more sectors to take the program,” says McMillan.