Virtual Event
WPAC Conference & AGM 2020 – Day 1
September 22, 2020 at 11:00am ET

Canadian wood pellet producers have radically improved their safety performance in recent years, as measured by lost time, injury frequency rates and similar measures.

However, major unwanted events such as fires and explosions still occur. These incidents can lead to debilitating injuries, fatalities or rarer catastrophic impacts on people and the environment.

To prevent fatal and catastrophic events from occurring – Critical Controls must be clearly defined and understood, with clarity as to who is responsible for implementation. A Critical Control Management (CCM) approach is an effective way of achieving this, by focusing risk-management on those controls that are most critical for health and safety.

In June 2020, WPAC and WorkSafeBC agreed on a CCM implementation plan for the British Columbia pellet sector and also offered to support any companies from outside BC who wished to participate.  Cherie Whelan will introduce CCM fundamentals and describe the how WPAC and BC Forest Safety Council will cooperate in supporting BC pellet producers with implementation.

Cherie Whelan

Cherie Whelan, Director, SAFE Companies, BC Forest Safety Council. Cherie Whelan is the Director, SAFE Companies of BC Forest Safety Council with more than 25 years of health and safety experience from both public and private sectors. Cherie has held multiple roles with Workers’ compensation Boards in two different jurisdictions and also worked as a Lead Investigator for Occupational Health & Safety in Fort McMurray, Alberta where she participated in 19 fatality investigations and numerous other serious injuries. Cherie left the public Sector to work with Suncor Energy as Investigation Team Lead for their Oil sands operations, and then with TransAlta Energy overseeing their safety programs. She is a Certified Registered Safety Professional with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration, who truly believes in BCFSC’s motto “Safety is good business”.