For the Canuks here "Alberta OHS Draft regulation"

[John Paul Sanborn]

bject:
Fwd: OHS Draft regulation effective Feb/ 03






Dear Safety Committee Members,
Norm St. Jean sent this in and asked for comments. This is a draft copy of a revision for
the Alberta provincial health and safety regulations. Please review and send your
comments to Norm. He has a number of concerns with the fall arrest section. For those of
you working on rigging definitions please review the section on rigging. It may help you
develop your definitions.



http://www3.gov.ab.ca/hre/whs/law/pdf/OHSReg_Code.pdf

Hi Jim,

If you have a chance please open the link and have a look at the proposed Fall Arrest section.

Part 11 section 181


You will see my concerns right away. Any help is appreciated.

Norm St. Jean

 

[rborist1]

:Eye:

 

[Solace]

Clarification

In response to rborist1

Actually, the use of a crane for life support anckor is not permissable in Alberta.

On the topic in general

There is an initial meeting scheduled for (Jan 17, 03)
with OHS to discuss the situation.

I am quite confident there will be positive results.

Such regulations, as worded in this document, would shut the Arboriculture industry, as we now practice it, down in Alberta.

This is not the intent of regulators.

Keep in mind that the government of Alberta takes great pride in being industry driven.

Arborists, as an industry, must shoulder the responsibility for the development of regulations and codes. We must also shoulder the lack of realistic regulations.

This is a classic example of the " Do it or we will do it for you"
syndrome.

It is by luck we did not miss the boat entirely.
We still have time to change the Draft.
6 weeks from now this is scheduled to go before the legislature and will be voted into law.

I strongly encourage Arborists everywhere to stay abreast of where your local OHS or labor standard entity is in regards to your industry.


Get involved!!!


Norm St. Jean

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Welcom to the site Norm!

Hope you stay here longer then just this one post.

 

[Solace]

In truth John, I have not had a lot of time to surf the site since my first post. What I have seen is quite interesting. I admit some fear of the forum in that I am often taken out of context or misquoted.
Now that I have seen the resourse provided here I will stick oround.

Damm the torpedoes!

Norm St. Jean

 

[treeclimber165]

Welcome, Norm

We all get taken out of context once in a while. But it doesn't hurt much.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

It is good to see some of the higher profile industry members here.

Tom Dunlap is here often and Tim Walsh shows from time to time. We managed to drive Scott Cullen away, but hopefully he will come back sometime when time permits.

I have found this a very good medium for professional networking, we have actualy gotten some dedicated oldschoolers to enter into modern climbing.

 

[Solace]

Update

There was a meeting held on Fri 17th Jan.

I am confident the future will bring good results. We are now at the stage of submitting alternatives to OHS. They will hash them over and get back to us. We have some very good data with which to present our case.

This is much apprieciated by that department.

I will update again when there are developments worth mentioning.

Norm St. Jean