RDP trades students, staff and member organizations sit together for the Safety Week BBQ & Trade Show in the school's parking lot on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

"It's not common sense"

Safety Week BBQ & Trade Show teaches students about workplace and community safety

May 9, 2023 | 3:23 PM

Smoke was coming from a Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP) parking lot on Tuesday, but it wasn’t from a fire; it was ironically from the Safety Week Barbeque and Trade Show.

The event returned for the first time since the pandemic, focusing on promoting the importance of preventing injury and illness in the workplace, at home and in the community.

While Safety and Health Week takes place from May 1-6, Treena Dixon, Chairperson for the Safety Week Planning Committee and Treasurer for the Parkland Regional Safety Committee (RSC), noted the event was postponed due to trades competitions held at RDP during the same week.

Typically attracting upwards of 600 invited guests, including Polytechnic trades students and staff and member organization employees from the construction, manufacturing and oil and gas industries, various booths were present showcasing their latest safety goods.

The event began with a spokesperson from Threads of Life, a charity supporting families affected by workplace tragedy, who shared the impacts of losing her husband on the job.

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Dixon says roughly 300 RDP trades students were in attendance for the presentation.

“It’s really important to get the message of how important safety is out into the college, high school, and elementary school age groups so that they start thinking about safety in everything they do, not only just at work, it’s for home and in their community as well,” she said.

Ryan Hawley, Chair of the Alberta Construction Safety Association (ACSA) and Safety Officer for Bruins Plumbing & Heating, said one of their mandates as an association was to have an increased presence in elementary schools to teach children about health and safety, as well as college students about to begin their careers, to help them adjust their behaviors on the job site.

“Human beings, in general, have a tendency to take shortcuts; it’s easier to carry all the groceries in at once and get mad at yourself later that you dropped the milk. So it’s stopping and thinking and saying ‘how can we do this the right way’. That key step of stopping and thinking is really hard to do; it’s easier said than done because we just want to get it done,” he said.

He described seeing unsafe practices in all industries from construction to retail. He gave a simple example of ordering a 16-year-old to reach an item on the top shelf in a warehouse using a ladder.

He says most people don’t properly train for this task, assuming it is ‘common sense’; however, he notes common sense is ‘cultural’ and not the same for everyone.

“To say safety is common sense, well, who were you told by? Who were you shown by? When you were raised, did your dad take safety seriously? Was it in the school? That’s where we’re trying to get away from. It’s not about common sense; it’s about teaching and training the foundational behaviors that make you just unconsciously safe,” he said.

Dixon added that everyone is responsible to educate themselves and others on how to keep safety at the forefront in every aspect of life and stop putting others at risk.

“Being educated about what their hazards are, what people are doing around them, because sometimes it’s not what they’re doing that’s the hazard, it’s the people around them or the activities around them. Stop when you’re not sure; ask questions before you proceed if you think something is unsafe,” she said.

The event is sponsored by RDP, the ACSA, Parkland RSC, Red Deer Construction Association, Canadian Society of Safety Engineering and the Manufacturer’s Health & Safety Association.

READ: Day of Mourning: Red Deerian shares journey of vision loss from workplace injury