Above: On the morning of Splashes of Safety 2019, the Are You READY team hosted a safety demonstration at the Shad Bay Wharf with Captain Keith Colburn of Deadliest Catch. Pictured from left to right: Capt. Danny O’Neill, Capt. Keith Colburn, Derek Fitzgerald, Matthew Duffy and Tommy Harper.
It may be hard to believe, but January 2020 marked 10 years in existence for the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia (FSANS).
After 10 years of working with the fishing industry to reduce injuries, workplace incidents and lower workers compensation rates, it is safe to say that the FSANS has grown its portfolio ten-fold. Looking back, I think the achievements made by this organization are staggering.
Starting from the ground up, the FSANS was created by a determined group of fishing industry representatives that knew something had to be done.
The frequency of injuries and deaths in the fishing industry were too high, marking the industry as one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada. Together, this group formed the FSANS which began operations in January of 2010 from the Nova Scotia Fisheries Sector Council (NSFSC) office in Yarmouth. With one employee to start, the task of creating a strong safety culture in the industry began.
It took a few years, with some trials and tribulations along the way, but the FSANS started to make headway in what seemed to be a daunting challenge.
Soon the FSANS team grew to two employees, at the time Stewart Franck and Amanda Dedrick, and they hit the wharves running.
Successes and advances were achieved and still are today by working closely with key partners like the NSFSC, Dept. of Labour, Workers Compensation Board of NS, Transport Canada, Dept. of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the many fishing groups around the province.
After a few short years, the FSANS was gaining credibility and earning its place along the Nova Scotia shoreline — a safety culture in the industry began to form.
The FSANS team would host town hall meetings, meet with harvesters on the wharves and on their boats — and a trend began to arise, the industry was taking safety seriously.
Jointly, wharf-side safety demonstrations were hosted by the FSANS and NSFSC. These now locally famous safety demonstrations, which includes a man overboard drill, all started in 2012. To date over 200 safety demonstrations have been done around the Maritimes and that small group hitting the wharves to facilitate these demonstrations are now known as the Are You READY team.
We watched in awe as the numbers grew, until one windy day aboard the F/V Trial & Error we had over 120 people standing on the Newellton wharf to watch us talk about safety. This was in 2017, shortly after I, Matthew Duffy, started with the FSANS. Stewart Franck retired from his post as the Executive Director in July 2017, Amanda Dedrick would be his successor. This of course left a vacant position of Safety Advisor, which I happily took over in August 2017.
Early into our new roles, Amanda and I sat down and discussed our visions and aspirations for the FSANS and ourselves. We both agreed on how we’d like to see it grow, and our Board of Directors agreed too. Fast forward to December 2017 while in Ottawa for what was my first Canadian Marine Advisory Council meeting, we learned about a provincial program that would help us hire a third team member.
We knew a gap existed for our processing and aquaculture members and this was just how to fix it. By late spring of 2018, we were now a team of three, adding Robin Rose as our Safety Advisor who works hand-in-hand with processing and aquaculture members.
Single handedly, Robin has built this position from the ground up — developing strong relationships with processing facilities province-wide.
Looking back since I began with the FSANS in 2017, we have accomplished many things, but they would never have come to fruition had it not been those before us. The people that built this organization from the ground up are to be commended for their dedication to safety.
I am proud of the work that I do and I am immensely proud to work with Amanda and Robin. Together we have overcome many challenges and in a few short years have taken the FSANS to a new level, a level that services the entire Nova Scotia Fishing Industry for safety education, awareness and advocacy. Looking at where we are now, the safety culture in the industry is strong. We have folks arriving the wharf for our safety demonstrations already wearing their PFDs.
We see fishermen having active conversations in person and on social media, sharing best practices and advice on what works best with safety equipment. We see companies implementing PFD policies and the fact of the matter is — a lot of people wear them.
When you look at the hard numbers, Workers Compensation rates in the harvesting sector have dropped nearly 50 per cent in the last five years — saving the industry over $20-million annually, that number to me is incredible.
The FSANS team will always continue to work with the entire fishing industry to further our strong safety culture, changing the label of “it’s a dangerous industry” to “it’s a safety minded industry.”
Here’s to the next 10 years.
By Matthew Duffy
Safety Advisor, FSANS
