2026 HSE Updates Week of October 12 – RAE, ESC, MHCC

Greetings,

Please review the applicable HSE Updates.

• Company Safety Meeting Presentation:   deadline: two weeks following the Company Safety Meeting
  • It is mandatory to review the Company Safety Meeting on SiteDocs and sign-off that you have done so. If the deadline has passed – you missed it but are still expected to review and sign-off the presentation in SiteDocs.
• H&S Bulletin: Answer due by 8am last Friday of the month
  • Attached: October 2026 Health and Safety Bulletin
• Health and Safety Committee: Next Meeting: usually Thurs before last Fri of the month
  • If you can’t join the HSC meetings,  you can still participate by providing feedback, questions, or concerns to hsc@raeengineering.ca. Please submit feedback prior to the next meeting so it can be brought forward.
  • The HSC meets the last Thursday of each month at 1pm via Teams
  • Previous HSC Meeting Minutes can be found in the Teams Channel and on SiteDocs
• Safety Rewards Program:  Where your commitment to RAE’s Safety Culture is rewarded!
  • Submit more cards! Be specific in how your coworkers contribute to safety! The latest PRC winners are:
    • $500 Best Card Winner: Tyson
    • $100 Safety PRC Draw: Mark W.
  • If you have any questions or concerns about the Safety Rewards Program, or would like to sign-up to do a presentation, please email hsc@raeengineering.ca.
• Peer Recognitions: Due by Company Safety Meeting each month
• Certificates Reminder:
  • Please send all your certs to raesafety@raeengineering.ca. We need to have them on file should clients as for them and submitting to safety sites for clients. SiteDocs does not allow certs to be downloaded and screen shots can’t always be taken (depending on the size of the file uploaded)
• SiteDocs Forms Reminder:
  • After completing monthly inspections, send the form to the branch manager for them to sign

• Energy Safety Canada (ESC)
  • Priority Learning Moments | Two New Safety Notifications (attached)
    • Industry-Submitted Incident Notification: Vehicle Fire Risk from Vegetation Build-Up: Dry vegetation packing into the hot underside of a vehicle has started two fires and come close twice more. The most recent involved a fleet truck that caught fire at a field location. No one was hurt. This alert explains how this hazard works and why it is so hard to spot.
      • What you can do:
        • Talk about this hazard at your next tailgate, particularly with anyone new to field work and with contractors and vendors who drive the same fields.
        • Get approval before entering crop, and travel slowly if you do.
        • Check underneath after crop-season entries, following the precautions above, and report what you find.
        • Check your extinguishers physically, not just that they are present. One water unit on scene held water but had lost its pressure.
        • Do not rush the response. Driving fast to reach an incident adds a second emergency. Getting there safely is getting there.
        • Keep reporting and identify what gets in the way. If checking or cleaning is impractical, slow, or the vehicle makes it difficult, that information is important.
    • Industry-Submitted Incident Notification: Smoke in a Motor Control Centre: Internal Failure of a Variable Frequency Drive: A variable frequency drive failed inside the motor control centre (MCC) at a facility, filling the MCC building with smoke. The plant shut down on emergency shutdown (ESD). No one was injured, and no one entered the building while it was smoke-filled. This alert explains how this hazard works and why there is little warning before it happens.
      • What you can do:
        • Talk about this at your next tailgate, including with contractors who work in and around electrical buildings.
        • If you find smoke or a burnt smell at an MCC, stay out and call it in. That is the expected answer, not a cautious one.
        • Report the signs of heat you can see. Blue or discoloured terminations, burnt smells, dust build-up on breaker cooling fans, and plugged or oily VFD heat sinks have all been reported before. Those reports are how the hazard can be found while it is still small.
        • Confirm MCC smoke and fire detection during facility ESD checks, and report a detector that does not trip. It is the only early warning available for this type of event.
        • Be in your PPE from the start of your day. A call-out gives you no time to make that decision. If the way a day is set up makes that impractical, report the concern.
        • Look after yourself during a long response. During this event, the operator went from midday to 5:30 p.m. on a hot day without a drink and only noticed once the response was over. Adrenaline can hide that. If you are running an incident, someone should be looking after hydration and other basic needs.
        • Keep reporting, and identify what gets in the way. If a check is impractical, if gear is hard to get at, or if something has been concerning you about a piece of equipment, that information is important.
  • Your feedback matters: survey closes October 16 
    • Your feedback matters: Help shape what’s next for Energy Safety Canada
      • Energy Safety Canada is conducting our annual stakeholder survey, and we want to hear from you. This survey helps us take a pulse check on how we’re doing — understanding what’s working, where we can improve, and what matters most to the industry and the organizations we serve.
      • Take the Survey
      • Estimated completion time:  6-8 minutes · Open until October 16, 2026
      • As a thank-you, you can enter a draw for 1 of 5 $100 Amazon gift cards when you complete the survey.
• Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC)
  • The Catalyst: Your next mental health read 
    • Changing the Narrative on Suicide Prevention: What Safety Really Means: What makes someone feel safe isn’t something we can assume. We have to ask. And we have to listen. In this article, three people with lived experience challenge us to rethink suicide prevention through the lens of safety, connection, and community.
    • Not a friend, but an algorithm: When online discussions of mental health are curtailed, people suffer. Why advocates are calling for social media platforms to be more accountable for their content safety practices.
    • World Mental Health Day: This World Mental Health Day, we are amplifying the voices of people with lived and living experience, because those who have walked this path know what quality mental health care truly looks like.
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