Safety was the focus for an early morning breakfast in North Battleford Tuesday.
The Contractor Safety Awareness Association, in partnership with Saskatchewan Common Ground Alliance, held their annual Contractor Safety Breakfast at Gold Ridge Centre.
This is the 25th year for such breakfasts. The North Battleford event attracted contractors, construction workers, supervisors and others from around the region.
There are 29 such sessions being hosted at various locations across Saskatchewan, consisting of a short video presentation and informational handouts as well.
The issue of safety is an important one in the Northwest in the light of the heightened amount of construction activity in the area recently. Failure to take precautions in identifying underground lines could result in serious or even fatal consequences to workers and to local residents. The same goes for overhead lines.
Garry Aveyard, safety advisor for SaskTel and a board member for the CSAA breakfasts, said the breakfasts are designed to promote the simple messages: "call before you dig" and "look up and live."
The message is for all contractors to do their due diligence ahead of time and make sure they know what is underneath the ground and to have those areas clearly marked before starting excavation work.
Aveyard said various crown corporations have partnered in the CSAA committee "trying to mitigate, trying to lessen the risk for people. It seems to be working, but there's still a long way to go."
It was noted Saskatchewan has the worst record for workplace injury in Canada.
"Our injuries are way up too high," said Aveyard.
"It's just important to ensure that everything has been located, because it puts yourself and possibly anyone in the housing, living in personal houses at risk."
