Scaffold Industry Association of Canada aims to raise industry's safety standards Canadian Design and Construction Report staff writer The Scaffold Industry Association of Canada (SIAC) is a member-driven association with chapters in Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and Eastern Canada. Its members include scaffold contractors, manufacturers, field service in- stallation companies, engineers and general interest members. The association has about 150 members across Canada. The Ontario chapter represents 80, with a workforce of about 3,000. One of SIAC’s key objectives is to raise the scaffold industry's safety standards, by representing its members in the development of improved standards and regulations and to disseminate information to its members. Since a tragic workplace accident on Christmas Eve 2009, the SIAC has been working closely with the Ministry of Labour and a tri-partite industry working group to prepare a proposed regulation for suspended access equipment. Jim Wilkinson, SIAC director and government relations committee leader, says the working group has been working hard to define new train- ing standards for users and installers of suspended access equipment as well as comprehensive design and engineering requirements. The Building and Concrete Restoration Association of Ontario has also participated in this process. “We created a proposal that was sent out to the labour – management network of the construction industry for their comment and input and we expect to complete a consensus proposal to be sent to the Minister of Labour early (this year),” Wilkinson said. Wilkinson says SIAC created its government relations committee to work on this and other similar issues and to create a more formal relation- ship with the regulatory authorities. “We’ve made recommendations for regulation amendments that will set out requirements for building owners doing restoration work, compre- hensive requirements for project planning and user training,” he said. On the engineering side, he says the recommendations clarify many of the requirements for design and testing and outline specific requirements for site-specific engineering. The only controversial issue he says has been non-destructive testing of welds and equipment components. The Ministry has proposed strin- gent requirements for testing all welds and serializing components but Wilkinson says industry believes this requirement is impractical and will result in little benefit to the safety of the users of the equipment. The working group proposal recommends a stringent mandatory inspection protocol. Meanwhile other committees of SIAC are focused on training, sus- pended access, fixed scaffolding, and continue to work to educate and provide added value for members. “We have a quarterly magazine for members, an annual golf tournament for networking and we try to keep our website updated with important news and information.” The association has also developed guidelines for safe codes of prac- tice and its members share information about new technologies and equipment. SIAC members also participate on technical committees of the Canadian Standards Association. For more information about SIAC, visit scaffoldaccess.ca. The Canadian Design and Construction Report — Winter 2015 – 43