New role ‘highlight of my career’

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Paul Belair embraces his position as chair of the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals and has his sights set on securing the future of the safety profession

IN PAUL BELAIR'S 25 years in the safety profession, he has experienced things most people never get to do in their careers. He has stood beside the calandria of a nuclear reactor, been to armored-vehicle testing sites, visited a facility where locomotives are manufactured, watched employees of a mining company pour gold to make bricks, and even seen a T-Rex skull up close and personal. “One of my favourite experiences was an audit at the Royal Ontario Museum where we went behind the scenes and got to walk up to dinosaur skeletons,” Belair says. “It’s been good, it’s been really good. But I got to a point in my career where I needed to do more – not just for health and safety but also for the profession.” To that end, Belair joined the board of governors of the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals (BCRSP), and supports the organization’s vision of safer workplaces through certification. The BCRSP designations are earned by safety professionals working to the highest standards of occupational health and safety. After seven years of progressively senior roles, Belair was recently honoured to be named chair of the board. “Working in this capacity with such a great organization is a highlight of my career,” he says. “Our board is made up of innovative, strong professionals from all different industries and from across this country, and as a diverse group we get a really holistic view of the issues we tackle.”

The mission of the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals (BCRSP) is to act in the public interest in granting certification and upholding it as a recognized standard of excellence for competent and ethical safety practitioners. A federally incorporated not-for-profit organization, BCRSP establishes and enforces education, examination, experience, and ethics requirements for CRSP and CRST certified professionals.

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“It’s been really good. But I got to a point in my career where I needed to do more – not just for health and safety but also for the profession”

Paul Belair, BCRSP

Belair is passionate about “the BCRSP promoting the safety profession to the point where safety professionals are seen as peers at the board table, have an influence on how organizations operate and continually improve, and are part of an organization’s safety journey.” To reach that level, it’s not just about certifying safety professionals – it’s about helping them maintain those certifications and continue to learn and grow. BCRSP certifications require participation in a continual professional development process. This is done to advance the body of knowledge, the competency of the profession, and the value certificants bring to society.

BCRSP works closely with other like-minded safety organizations in an effort to “to encourage cooperation to make our profession stronger and more streamlined [and our] workplaces safer, and protect the public interest,” Belair says. From participation in other boards to conferences, educational seminars, and guidance documents for certificants, “it’s very interesting how BCRSP combines these things – and, as one of the bigger organizations, we support smaller groups because we're all looking for the same result.”

Belair believes the way forward for health and safety professionals in Canada is title protection, and that’s something he’s focused on. Public polling in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia found well over 80 percent of respondents believe there should be a minimum standard for safety professionals and, in collaboration with the Alberta Society of Health and Safety Professionals and Health and Safety Professionals Canada, the group is working to move title protection regulation forward.

“This work is going to strengthen our certificants and the profession itself,” Belair says. “Right now, there's really no barrier to entry to practice in safety, and as the conversation on title protection advances, it's going to fix that for safety professionals.” One critical advancement into which BCRSP has put much thought, time, and effort is the New Canadian Registered Safety Technician Blueprint, published for implementation 2024. Part of BCRSP’s ongoing commitment to keeping current with changing practice, the blueprint – which is reviewed, updated, and subjected to a rigorous validation process every five years – outlines the competencies expected of an entry-level registered safety technician, as well as practical information about the exam. “We want to make sure people are exercising critical thinking as our profession grows, and the whole intent behind this, once again, is continual improvement,” Belair says. BCRSP is also keen to keep abreast of changes within the profession, and one tool for doing that is foresight discussions at the most recent governing board meeting. Using forecasting research that was done by the Institute of Credentialing Excellence, “the BCRSP governing board took a look at drivers of change – examples include turmoil in higher education, DEI challenges, growth of corporate certifications and training, big tech encroachment, cross-border credentials, polarization of intrusion – and used structured methodologies to explore multiple potential futures,” Belair says.

“Our board is made up of innovative, strong professionals from all different industries and from across this country, and as a diverse group we get a really holistic view of the issues we tackle”

PAUL BELAIR, BCRSP

Aiming to map the potential trajectory of any future change when it comes to credentialing, using the tool of foresight discussions allows the BCRSP to go beyond identifying trends, take on a longer time horizon, and consider how the trends will develop. If one identified change could cause discontinuation of credentials in the future, for example, can it be reversed? Possibilities are not always negative, however: Are there opportunities to further BCRSP’s vision? How do other drivers combine with a trend to create outcomes, and what strategies could be employed to achieve or avoid them? It always comes back to the same question, Belair says: What impact would that have on BCRSP’s designations? “The intent is to focus on our credentials in the future. What does this look like five or ten years from now, and what can we start doing today to have an influence? Then that gets baked into our strategy discussions, which we have at the end of every year.”

BCRSP’s role is one of constant evolution, and Belair has had a front-row seat for – and a hand in – much of that change over the last decade. The organization takes on different initiatives at different times, from using various media tools to raise the profession’s profile to leading the charge with lobbying to advance recognition of the profession — for example, the high-priority issue of title protection. “That has really pushed us out there, and it's helping us get some brand recognition with employers and government bodies alike,” Belair says, adding that no matter what area is top-of-mind for them at any time, the one common denominator is that all the work BCRSP does is in service of safety professionals both current and future. Belair would like to see a continuum of information on a safety career start in high school and carry on through post-secondary to the actual profession and beyond. “That's one of our big focuses, and we've always got that lens on,” he says. “Ultimately, we want to add value to our certificants and give people the support they need and don't get anywhere else. We work to the highest credentialing standards for Canada’s safety professionals, and as a board we continue to advance and to improve.”

A shared vision

Safeguarding the future of safety

Published 03 Oct 2023

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Provincial polling data

agree (62% strongly) that there should be a minimum standard for calling oneself a “safety professional”

87%

ALBERTA

agree (55% strongly) that employers should have access to safety professionals with recognized qualifications

85%

agree (64% strongly) that there should be a minimum standard for calling oneself a “safety professional”

84%

BRITISH COLUMBIA

agree that employers should have access to safety professionals with recognized qualifications

81%

agree (60% strongly) that there should be minimum standard for calling oneself a “safety professional”

85%

agree that employers should have access to safety professionals with recognized qualifications

82%

ONTARIO

Provincial polling data

Paul Belair, BCRSP

BCRSP forms a critical part of Canada’s safety ecosystem

New CRST Examination Blueprint Competency Categories

Hazard identification, risk assessment and controls

26%–32%

Health and safety systems

14%–20%

Legal, ethical, and professional practice

14%–20%

Technical safety fundamentals

22%–28%

Social and human sciences

9%–15%

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