Our members are doing everything they can – in large and small ways – to win the war against the coronavirus.
CCIL applauds all of you for the steps you have taken to protect your employees, clients and suppliers, and for the extraordinary actions of those who have gone “above and beyond”. At LabWatch, we want to honour the laboratories that have demonstrated leadership in this effort by sharing their stories. Here’s just one example.
Wood PLC, the global engineering and consulting company, has been making a positive difference by providing facemasks. In Norway, the company has been 3D-printing face shields for the protection of healthcare workers. In Winnipeg, Wood PLC has donated N95 masks to the regional health authority.
And in Calgary, Brett Baron, Wood’s safety coordinator, needed masks but was unable to source them immediately. So along with a friend and her mother, he spent a weekend making masks. Their small production line turned out 30 masks which were sent to the company’s worksites.
Brett Baron, Wood’s safety coordinator in Calgary.
“We are truly proud of our staff for demonstrating our values in action during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Trevor Gluck of Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions and a member of CCIL’s Board of Directors.
If you have a story you’d like to share about your company’s response to COVID-19, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact Muktha Tumkur, CCIL’s Executive Director, at mtumkur@ccil.com or 905-805-1170.
AGM to Be Held Online
Members please note. Because of the coronavirus, our Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held online this year rather than at a hotel. It is now scheduled for 1 p.m. (ET), July 20. We will keep you informed as details are confirmed.
Help Centre
For the most recent information you need to meet the challenges of the pandemic, we encourage you to visit the COVID-19 Small Business Help Centre. Click here:
This website, developed and managed by our partner the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), will help you navigate the crisis. Resources include FAQs, a weekly webinar, a rundown on the available relief measures, and free templates for your business.
Advocating for our Members
Advocating for our Members
The Board and Executive at CCIL continue a busy schedule of representing the interests of members in several critically important matters.
Canadian Centre for Product Validation
One of the biggest threats to our sector is competition from tax-subsidized institutions such as universities, colleges, and research organizations. For example, we were strongly opposed to the establishment of Fanshawe College’s Canadian Centre for Product Validation (CCPV) in London, Ontario, which opened in 2016 and had an ambitious plan to capture a large percentage of the product testing and validation market.
Through an FOI request, we were recently able to obtain information showing that the CCPV has been hemorrhaging red ink and costing Fanshawe millions of dollars. This revelation has strengthened our position that subsidizing these institutions and then allowing them to compete with the private sector is not only a misguided public policy, but also a misuse of public funds.
Centre for the Advancement of Water and Wastewater Technologies
CCIL also became concerned when it learned that Fleming College’s Centre for the Advancement of Water and Wastewater Technologies (CAWT), located in Lindsay, Ontario, had considered offering services in competition with our members. We met with college officials who resolved the issue by making it clear that the CAWT would not engage in routine testing services. This positive outcome has now opened up the potential for greater collaboration between Fleming and CCIL members in the future (see Hiring Co-op Students).
New Performance Measures for Colleges and Universities
Following Ontario’s lead in negotiating new Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMA3s) with its colleges and universities, Alberta is also considering introducing new performance measures for its post-secondary institutions.
In both of these case, CCIL is concerned that the changes will have the unintended consequence of encouraging some colleges and universities to seek alternative revenue sources by offering routine testing services in competition with the private sector.
CCIL has warned both the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Alberta Ministry of Advanced Education about the potential damage that could be inflicted on the commercial laboratory industry as a result, and we have also communicated our concerns to the respective Ministers – Ross Romano in Ontario and Demetrios Nicolaides in Alberta.
Say Hello to Kelly Whitney
Kelly Whitney, a member of CCIL’s Board and Director within the Geotechnical/Construction Materials Division, will take on the additional responsibility of Secretary-Treasurer later this year.
For more than 20 years, Kelly has provided leadership to operations in the consulting engineering, mining and health care industries. Over the past decade, she has been appointed to increasingly more senior positions within WSP – from Laboratory Supervisor to Operations Manager, then Regional Business Director to her current role as Directory of Laboratory Services.
Kelly graduated from Fleming College in 1991 with an Environmental Science Technologist Diploma, and became a registered member of OACETT, receiving the designation of Certified Engineering Technologist (C.E.T.).
Kelly Whitney
In her spare time (what little there is!), Kelly enjoys a round of golf. “I love the game. But my score, not so much,” she laughs. Her two daughters live in Ottawa. One works for an interior design firm, and the other works for a consulting engineering company.
Kelly wants CCIL to continue its important work of bringing consistent standards to the industry by possibly expanding its certification programs into other testing areas. She is also a strong supporter of STEM education and promoting STEM career choices to young people.
CCIL Scholarship Program
If you are employed by a CCIL-member firm and you have a teenager graduating from high school next year, here’s some exciting news. Your young student may be eligible for a $500 scholarship.
Open only to children of employees of CCIL-member companies, the new scholarship program begins January 2021. We will be awarding five annual scholarships, each in the amount of $500, to graduating high school students who have been accepted into a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) program at a recognized Canadian university or college.
Scholarships will be awarded based on academic excellence as well as leadership demonstrated through extra-curricular involvement or volunteer activities within the community or school. We will be providing further details soon. Stay tuned.
Hiring Co-op Students
In the article on Advocating for our Members, you’ll note that CCIL and Fleming College were able to work together to address our concerns about competition. This has laid the groundwork for greater collaboration, and consequently we are pleased to support the college’s co-op program by encouraging our members to participate.
If you have an opening for a co-op student, at any of your laboratories anywhere in Canada, we urge you to consider Fleming College. Programs that have a co-op work term and whose students would be suitable for laboratories include: Advanced Water Systems Operations and Management; Environmental Technician; Earth Resources Technician; and Health, Safety, and Environmental Compliance.
And remember, there are financial incentives available for hiring a co-op student. In Ontario, for example, companies can get a tax credit of up to $3,000. Up to $5,000 is available from Eco-Canada, and Biotalent Canada offers up to $7,000 under its student work placement program.
The SGS Canada Inc. laboratory in Lakefield has been hiring co-op students from Fleming for several years now, and it has been delighted with the results. “It’s a great way for both students and employers to determine if there’s a good fit,” said Ryan Carey, Assistant Operations Manager for SGS. “I recommend the program.”
The company typically takes on two or three co-op students each year, and a high percentage of them end up being hired full time. One such employee is Aditi Patel who is now working at SGS as a Laboratory Technician after having completed the program. “This has been a tremendous opportunity for me. I have learned a lot since I started working here,” she enthuses.
Aditi Patel
For further information about the Fleming College co-op program, you can contact:
Meet Dylan Roth. He’s a 22-year-old student at the University of Waterloo, and he’ll be spending the summer working as a co-op hire on a research project for CCIL.
The project will involve identifying how public funds are being used to support applied research, development and innovation in Canada. Dylan will be exploring some important issues – who are the key funding agencies and decision-makers, where and how is the money being spent, are any of these subsidies leading to potential areas of conflict with the private sector, and are there better ways to apply Canada’s research dollars?
The information will help CCIL in its advocacy efforts to keep tax-subsidized institutions from competing in the commercial marketplace, strengthen its stakeholder network, and enhance its communications capabilities.
Dylan Roth
Dylan is currently in his fourth year of a five-year honours B.A. program, majoring in political science. He has worked for the National Research Council in Ottawa and the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade in Toronto.
He has a passion for contributing to the field of policy research, and hopes someday to serve in government as an elected representative.
Welcome New Members
We extend a warm welcome to the newest members of the CCIL family!
LabWatch is a quarterly newsletter produced by the Canadian Council of Independent Laboratories. By opening this ‘window’ on our sector, we hope to engage government, industry and other stakeholders in an informed discussion of the issues.
