Come See. Come Saw. Could be this way? Could be that way? Something is better than nothing.

You have all seen the ads for Visa -You know, the ones that are followed by the statement: “If Life where like this, we wouldn’t need a visa card.”

If life were perfect, we wouldn’t need a forum like the CADC, we wouldn’t need CSA standards, or a Regulatory Authority to ensure compliance.

We wouldn’t need Doug Elsey or Jim Wilson or others for that matter to spend their valuable time working behind the scenes.

Reality is:      Hazardous work environments.

Resulting in:  A heavily regulated industry.

In this reality, regulations are a fact of life, or death, depending on how you look at it. Either way, this fact has driven the development of the CSA standards for diving for more than 30 years. Regulations for diving go back 70 years as we all learned yesterday from Steve Duffy of the WCB of British Columbia.

Think about it, some people in this room along with many others have been sharing ideas about how to make our industry safer for more than seventy years.

And even after all that time, it is still considered a work in progress.

A perfect world does not exist.

Often I’m asked what I do for a living?

The standard reaction is intrigue. Most people on the street want to know about the danger, the risk, the excitement!

My standard answer is: “With the right equipment, procedures and training the risk can be managed quite well. At times our jobs can be repetitive labour intensive and boring.”

This is not what they want to hear.

They are looking for an episode of fear factor. A gripping tale of danger and suspense! They think we are another version of some kind of extreme sport.

Honestly, I don’t mind these encounters, as one would not expect the average person on the street to know much about what we do.

What is troublesome, however, is when people that work in the industry think that way!

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely risk in our business.

But it’s all about risk management, not risk taking.

Where is that line in the sand?

When is the exposure too great?

Who decides if a job can be done safely, how it should be done and who will be the participants?

A janitor in a hospital could be the most competent person to ensure the operating room is clean and sterile. Should he assist with the operation? Of course not, but he is an integral part of the team.

Perhaps that janitor is in Med School, working nights to pay his tuition. The outcome can be much different.

The CADC has recently objected to a decision by the Nova Scotia Government to make law, a proposed diving regulation that is seriously flawed.

Nova Scotia members of the CADC have openly objected.

Divers and other interested parties have objected.

Under some pressure from the CADC, and others, The Nova Scotia government has agreed to meet, next week in fact, to hear the concerns, raised over the proposed regulations. Jim Wilson will be traveling to the Maritimes to attend the meeting.

The obvious question here is why would a regulatory authority not recognize, nationally accepted standards like the CSA standards?

I have written to the minister responsible in Nova Scotia and he has replied to each correspondence in a timely manner. In his last letter he stated that intake pipes in the seafood harvesting industry are measured in inches and therefore pose no additional risk to Scuba Divers.

The minister is obviously miss-informed.

A six inch inlet with a 100ft. differential can draw about 1,400 psi across it’s open end. This is a basic calculation that is taught to students in accredited diving schools in Canada along with lock-out procedures and other relevant facts.

If entry level divers, “right to refuse dangerous work” is to be effective, the regulatory authority has a responsibility to ensure that they have been diligent in the development and promulgation of the applicable regulations.

In our hearts, we know that fatalities will occur and that efforts will be challenged as not good enough! Just as we have challenged the Province of Nova Scotia.

We can always do more.

Nova Scotia in fact has done less! They have taken the minimum standards developed under CSA and redefined minimum. This is unacceptable.

If the regulatory authorities are not willing to promulgate the standards as written, what does that say about their diligence? What message are they sending to the workers and their families?

Thank you .

(signed)

John McFadzen

President – CADC.