What is the Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Associations?

How IHSA’s membership in this national alliance improves workplace safety from coast to coast.

IHSA provides the training and resources that help keep workers healthy and safe in Ontario. But it’s also part of a national effort to ensure those offerings meet a consistently high standard. Since 2010, IHSA has been a member of the Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Associations (CFCSA), which brings together provincial and territorial construction safety associations from across Canada in order to share—and continuously improve—their health and safety resources.

Through the CFCSA, participating associations (there are 13 in all) promote best practices and programs, share information, and collaboratively develop standards and resources, all while ensuring regional initiatives match national goals. They also look at current construction safety products in Canada to identify missing information and make plans to fill these gaps.

The CFCSA leads many national initiatives, including the Certificate of Recognition (COR^®) standard and the National Construction Safety Officer (NCSO^®) and National Health and Safety Administrator (NHSA™) designations. Each member association facilitates these programs within its own province or territory, monitors compliance, and grants certifications.

Resource sharing makes prevention more efficient

Because of the CFCSA’s high level of collaboration, prevention strategies and materials can be developed and put in place quickly. When one member association creates a construction safety product, tool, or standard to meet the needs of those they serve, the CFCSA encourages the association to share it with other federation members.

“Instead of remaking the wheel, we use our partnership to get faster prevention,” says Enzo Garritano, IHSA’s President and CEO. “It’s about sharing experiences of how we can better deliver materials, programs, and initiatives to members. We want to share to make ourselves more efficient.”

Garritano notes that one CFCSA member may adopt another member’s resource without making any changes. However, they can also use it as a starting point to develop materials suited to their individual circumstances.

For example, in 2023, IHSA worked with AuditSoft to develop a tool to improve the COR^® audit process. That tool is now available for other CFCSA members to use. On the other hand, IHSA’s new NCSO^® and NHSA™ application portal is based on work first undertaken by the British Columbia Construction Safety Alliance.

More effective communication with industry

The CFCSA also connects with groups like the Canadian Construction Association (CCA), which represents builders, contractors, and suppliers nationally. CFCSA representatives meet with the CCA to discuss topics such as aligning provincial and territorial health and safety laws and improving training requirements.

Garritano says the CFCSA allows for more efficient communication on these and other issues by creating a single channel for the CCA to reach all thirteen CFCSA members. This can be helpful when looking to introduce changes across the country.

“There’s that huge benefit of collaboration on resources within the construction sector,” he says.