HALIFAX – The Canadian Society of Safety Engineering (CSSE) kicked off its annual Professional Development Conference in this city with a keynote from the guy who literally had a picnic on the deck of the Titanic.

CALGARY – The Canadian Society of Safety Engineers (CSSE) has urged safety professionals to maintain safety standards in the workplace despite the economic downturn that’s causing many companies to reduce cost and downsize.

At the opening ceremony of the CSSE’s annual Professional Development Conference, being held in this city this week, CSSE president Art Nordholm told attendees that it’s important to ensure the continuity of their safety systems because the economy will recover.

QUEBEC CITY – Have you ever put your employees on safety probation for continuing to perform work unsafely? Do you use incident investigation scorecard for measuring safety performance? Do you know who are in your “bottom 30” of worst performers in safety?

Provisions for the prevention of workplace violence will soon be part of the federal occupational health and safety regulation, according to Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec.

Blackburn made the announcement at the Canadian launch of the North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week in Ottawa on May 5th.

Safety managers have been urged to revisit their roles and responsibilities within their company in light of what is seemingly an increasing trend among prosecutors to pursue personal charges against safety managers in workplace health and safety-related cases. 
 

The caution came from Toronto lawyer Cheryl Edwards, partner with Heenan Blaikie and leader of the firm’s national occupational health and safety (OHS) and WSIB practice group. Edwards was among the speakers at the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering’s Education Day event held in Toronto this week.
 

As company health and safety departments plan for the next fiscal year, professional development is an important item on many priority lists. Government agencies and safety associations invest months of planning, and a lot of money, to attract health and safety professionals to their out-of-office seminars, trade shows and conferences, but it's hard to know which of these events will be worth the time and money.