This July marks my 10th anniversary as President of ERAC, and over the past decade, I’ve seen several significant changes with our industry, organization, and the members we serve.

I began my tenure at ERAC just days before the tragic rail disaster at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. That incident prompted the federal government, along with numerous other stakeholders including ERAC, to work together through a task force, which in turn introduced numerous new measures to promote public safety.

With increasing government oversight encompassing a number of different products (flammable liquids, liquefied petroleum gas, ammonia, etc.) the demand for our ERAP services has grown. Over the past decade, our staff has grown from two employees to 17, our responder network from 48 to over 450, and our Plan Participant members now top 300 organizations. During this period, we have developed a variety of training programs for our emergency responder network (and the next generation of responders) as well as Canadian-based firefighters and first responders. We have also invested over $4 million in fire suppression and transfer trailers, strategically located across the country.

In the future, I expect our industry will continue to face ongoing pressure from our regulators and ERAC will continue to grow our response capabilities to ensure our Plan members remain regulatory compliant.

As I reflect on our success over the past decade, I am humbled by our staff’s dedication and commitment to continuous improvement and their consistent drive to do more for the Plan members we serve and our responder network. I am confident that whenever and wherever there is an incident, our plan members will receive the highest quality emergency response service possible, every time!

Spencer Buckland
President

ERAC is pleased to announce we have hired Cody Davis as our new Manitoba-based Technical Advisor. Most recently, Cody was employed as an Emergency Response/Safety Technician with Koch Fertilizer Canada in Brandon, Manitoba. Welcome Cody!  

We have now finalized the date for our 2024 Dangerous Goods Emergency Management Conference. Next year’s conference will take place from June 4 - 6, 2024, at Hotel Arts in Calgary, Alberta, and will again feature speakers from oil and gas, transportation, government, industry partners and more. More details on the conference to come this fall.

Free Online Training Opportunities 

Did you know that Canadian-based first responders (firefighters, police, EMS) can take our Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Firefighting Awareness Online training and/or ICS 100 and 200 courses free of charge? These courses will be valuable to any first responder who may be involved in a response to an LPG or flammable liquids emergency.

You can find more information on our LPG Firefighting Awareness Online course here.

Information on our ICS courses is available here.