FSIN, SFNSA aim to bring safety ed to all FNs
- Andréa Ledding | October 19, 2016
FSIN and Saskatchewan First Nations Safety Association(SFNSA) signed an MOU to formalize partnership to enhance the availability, quality, and consistency of safety education for all 74 member First Nations communities.
Toby Desnomie, founder and CEO of SFNSA, said he put the organization together in hopes to put together safety directives for all First Nations, collectively.
“Our main mission is to help First Nations, and develop safety directives, within our communities. Public safety awareness, as well as training advice and management systems,” noted Desnomie.
Chief Bobby Cameron noted that with more than 150,000 First Nations members and a growing young population, safety in the workplace was a priority.
“We have many of our First Nations populations who work in the trades, who work in schools, and this covers a whole lot of occupations across our territories, so we look forward and we certainly support the safety of our First Nations workers.”
Desnomie is a national construction instructor and officer, and saw a need because of gaps in First Nations practices and procedures, so is bringing the programs along with a health and safety administrator and officer to oversee the work, “whether it be roads, housing, infrastructure, water treatment plants, gaining support for occupational health and safety,” Desnomie explained.
Cameron said the next steps would be to get directives from their 74 First Nations in implementing it, but they would also be looking at bringing it to a national level through the Assembly of First Nations.
“We’ll offer that to the 634 First Nations across Canada. Because the reality is, we have many First Nations who are fully involved with the workforce, in the schools and the trades, thousands and thousands in the workforce, so we want to ensure safety. We want our employees across Canada to work during the day, and come home safely,” noted Cameron. “It’s about safety. It covers a wide array of items.”
Desnomie is working on data for March 31 of next year studying current health and safety data. In working professionally with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients, he identified a safety gap and came up with this non-profit association as a potential solution.
Cameron and Desnomie then signed the MOU, and Cameron spoke to media about the upcoming Mayoral candidates’ forum, noting that voting is an important First Nations task. He stated that 40 to 80% of typical reserve membership lives in towns and cities across Saskatchewan and they pay taxes and deserve representation and programming.
“We’re pushing for anything that improves the quality of lives for our population of people living in the cities.”