Dan Knutson, President — I have participated in a few things since my last report; further meetings of the Public Safety Review Committee (PSRC), a face to face meeting with Minister Huyghebaert, two meetings with Alliance of Canadian Building Officials Associations (ACBOA), as well as co-hosting a reception for the representatives of June 23rd, 2009. Provincial/Territorial Policy Advisory on Codes (PTPACC) and on September 22, 2009 a reception Canadian Commission of Building and Fire Codes (CCBFC), we also met as an executive back on June 4th to take care of some pressing SBOA business.
We were disappointed to receive a letter of resignation form Cynthia Alcorn our vice-president effective this past May 12, 2009. Regrettably we had no choice but to accept her resignation. We will leave the door open if she chooses to pursue a position on our executive in the future; I believe I speak for all of us the executive that we will miss Cyndi’s input and energy. The resignation left the vice-president’s chair open and as it is a required position by our bylaws, we felt that it would best to appoint someone to fill the slot. As it happens Chris Gates who had to step down from his position on the executive last fall due to conflicts with his employment had recently gone back to the job he had held before which freed him up for the executive once again. Chris has put a lot of energy into the SBOA in his former position as Education Chair. Chris was the one who brought Certification thru to home plate. We felt that Chris’s experience and history especially regarding certification was something we still badly needed on the executive;
Therefore as allowed under Bylaws of the Saskatchewan Building Officials Association Inc. 6 (5) the directors, or members at a meeting of members, may fill any vacancy among the Directors by appointing a director to hold office for the unexpired term of the director whom the new director is replacing.
The executive formerly and unanimously appointed Chris Gates as Vice-President effective June 4th, 2009.
The Public Safety Review Committee has met several times in the past 6 months to review and design a plan to provide a complete safety net for the whole Province; I have brought our concerns regarding a need for better training in order to meet the shortfall of qualified Building Officials to this table.
Shortly after our last conference we sent a letter to Minister Hicke with copies of our resolutions with the hope of receiving some positive reaction. As expected we did get a response from the Minister’s office. Shortly after we sent the letter Minister Hicke was replaced by Minister Huyghebaert. As soon as I heard about the change I fired off a letter to him as well with basically the same message along with a request for a meeting. I was able to deliver a synopsis of the resolutions in person. Mr. Hawkins was there as well and was a great help in delivering our concerns regarding the lack of current training, and supervision of new Building Offi cials. As well I was able to chat with the Minister and Bill about the use of “interests on title”. I have now taken a different approach to this issue than the one we had previously discussed. I would apply an interest on a title right at the application stage as soon as a permit is taken out I would apply the interest and I wouldn’t take it off until the project passed final inspection. Perhaps other people had already considered this approach but I am a little slow on the uptake regardless the minister was very receptive to the use of an interest in this manner.
This past summer Saskatchewan co-hosted a PTPACC conferences as well as a CCBFC conference. Both events went very well and we were able to meet the movers and shakers who influence the NBC throughout Canada.
Last May I joined the other provincial representatives in Nelson BC for our spring ACBOA meetings this was coupled with the BOABC Spring conference. I have to commend the BOABC for a very nice conference. The work with ACBOA has been a continuation of our efforts to gain acceptance for National Certification by all the provinces and to work toward finding core training to use by all Canadians interested in becoming Building Officials. We continued discussing training development with the people from ICC.
At the recent ACBOA meetings held this past October 5th, 6th and 7th in Huntsville Ontario we continued to explore the International Code Council (ICC) partnership; some of ICC’s existing training is easily adapted to Canadian content and they have developed four soft courses for our consideration which I hope to demonstrate in the near future. As part of our ongoing initiative to raise the profile of the Canadian Building Official we will be producing an ACBOA newsletter that we hope to couple with the provincial newsletters and web site at least annually.
I want to thank Todd for his hard work in putting the last conference together I think we had another very informative agenda. I would also like to thank Jerry and his crew for their hard work as hosts for the event. These things take a lot of work but if we work together things do get easier. We need your help to fi nd speakers and topics for our next conferences so please don’t hesitate to give us your suggestions.
As always this is your SBOA please let us know if you have any issues or comments regarding the way it is run or not run.
