Industry Engagement

State of Safety 2025

Safety Engagement

Working together with our clients helps us identify and address industry trends and concerns that affect public safety. We look for ways to improve how we design, implement, and evaluate safety policies, regulation, and services by engaging with clients and thoughtfully including their point of view in our decision making.

We aim to better understand our clients' needs by:

holding consultations on code and fee changes;
engaging groups of industry experts who provide input and recommendations on technical and service-related issues;
building relationships with safety partners and associations to discuss and address issues faced in their industries;
having conversations with clients through discovery sessions;
deploying client satisfaction, trust index, and net promotor score surveys;
and using call transcription AI technology to gain insights from client calls.

Shared Accountability through Learning

Licensed contractors play a critical role in the safety system. They are responsible for working within the scope of their licence, hiring the right qualified workers, obtaining the right permits, and installing and maintaining equipment to the latest codes and standards. Understanding all these responsibilities can be daunting to a new contractor, and keeping up with the latest technology and regulatory requirements can be challenging for even the most experienced contractors.

To help us understand the challenges and needs of licensed contractors in learning about their legal responsibilities, we recruited nine licensed contractors from various technologies we regulate to participate in a Licensee Education Advisory Group. The group identified barriers such as:

Lack of information for new licensees

With the exception of BPVR licensees who have a more comprehensive licensing process, contractors are given little to no guidance or reference material upon obtaining their licence. Contractors want to know precisely what the licence enables them to do and what it prevents them from doing as well.

Misunderstanding between licences and certification

Licensees found it difficult to distinguish between responsibilities of a licensee versus the responsibilities of a certified individual. Many also confused technical compliance with broader licensing requirements.

Motivation to obtain and maintain a licence

Licensees wanted to know how a licence could benefit a duty holder and the general public, and what consequences could occur for performing unlicensed work.

Roles and Responsibilities of a Licensed Contractor

Additionally, we addressed concerns about the need for flexibility in boiler, pressure vessel, and refrigeration plant supervision requirements. We consulted on a draft directive that allows the person in charge to define the area where operators can safely maintain control of the plant in alignment with the needs of their individual plant. The final Directive: Plant Supervision Requirements: Definition of Immediate Vicinity was issued in December.

Our proposed fixes for these barriers include tailoring content to the target audience, using short-form formats, highlighting consequences and enforcement penalties, and integrating messaging within the client journey. Working closely with this group resulted in a pilot project focused on co-creating and evaluating educational materials. We tested the effectiveness of these materials with over 200 gas contractors through a voluntary online course and an informational blog post that focused on the legal responsibilities of licence holders.

We also improved quality control program requirements for BPVR contractors who now have a more comprehensive onboarding process, clear requirements, and controls for ongoing compliance and responsibility. Effective January 1, 2026, contractors obtaining or renewing their Class B or Class REF licences at Technical Safety BC will be required to submit a quality control program (QCP) manual. Building on the input of the Quality Control Programs Advisory Group in 2020, we developed templates and guidelines to help Class B and REF contractors build their quality control program (QCP) manuals.

Addressing the Grey Market

One of our primary goals is to address grey market activity taking place across the province. The grey market refers to individuals or companies who perform regulated work outside of the safety system.

Safety In Focus

How We're Addressing the Grey Market

Learning from Incidents and Industry Expertise

The fatal ammonia release incident in Fernie in 2017 gave rise to several initiatives to learn what factors led to the incident, and develop processes and knowledge bases to improve safety in the refrigeration industry.

In 2021, we issued a safety order relating to secondary coolant systems using ammonia as a refrigerant. These requirements are now in the CSA B52:23 code and applicable to all types of refrigerants. We rescinded the safety order and clarified the requirements in a draft directive. We consulted on the draft directive assessing the refrigeration industry’s ability to comply with the requirements to prevent over-pressurization in secondary coolant systems and test the secondary coolant for the presence of leaked refrigerant. The final Directive: Secondary Coolant Systems was issued in December.

Technical Safety BC engaged with the refrigeration industry to better understand the failure scenarios that can lead to an uncontrolled release of ammonia from refrigeration systems. The potential underlying factors that lead to these failure scenarios were organized into a diagram called a fault tree. This fault tree will advance our ability to identify common scenarios of ammonia release. Understanding these common scenarios will advance our ability to develop effective risk treatment actions.

Continuous Improvement through Ongoing Listening

Through our engagement efforts, we gather insights from industry workers, licence and permit holders, manufacturers, associations, trade unions, fellow regulators, government representatives, and members of the public. Their perspectives help us understand how policy, regulations, and services can evolve to effectively support technical safety across the province.

Throughout our business transformation project, we’ve gained industry perspectives from our Business Transformation Advisory Group. This diverse group of industry experts volunteers their time to provide insights and validate client journeys, pain points, and optimal processes, all with the aim to transform our business. The advisory group provided valuable feedback on our certificate and licence renewal system implemented in our business transformation project and gave input on our plans for upgrading our permit process.

Consultations and Surveys

We regularly invite industry to provide feedback on regulatory changes, safety initiatives, and fee setting through our Engage portal. We consulted on a general fee increase to recover costs and develop infrastructure to improve our services and support better data for determining compliance and safety risks, as part of our business transformation. In addition, we proposed and requested feedback on changes that would simplify how we charge fees for boilers, pressure vessels, and refrigeration, and introduced new fees to recover the costs of technical and regulatory guidance work for railways, alternative safety approaches, and compliance and enforcement.

We also introduced discovery research as an engagement method to build connections with our clients and understand problems from their perspective before designing solutions. Through discovery research, we identified pain points in Online Services, barriers to renewing certification on time, homeowner sentiment on the importance hiring licensed contractors and obtaining permits, and motivators for contractors to address their non-compliances.

To leverage data and improve our services, we regularly conduct surveys to measure client satisfaction and trust. We introduced a more frequent Client Satisfaction Survey and a Trust Index Metric (HXTrustID), both of which collect valuable client and safety partner feedback on a regular cadence. In addition, our net promotor score survey measures client satisfaction with our Online Services portal.

In addition to grey market and enforcement concerns, clients raised concerns about certification wait times, the online exam process, and our Online Services. These concerns help us identify major areas of concern, prioritize fixes, and develop improvements. We thank our clients for sharing their feedback and concerns and will work to address these issues in 2026 and beyond.