Our Connections

Lambton College is one of the co-founders and allies of the IEC and sits as a standing ex-officio Director on the Board. The College defines itself as the higher education partner of choice for students who want a hands-on advantage as they train for careers in traditional and emerging industries. It emphasizes the level of care it invests in every student, staff, and partner.

The members of the Sarnia Construction Association (SCA) collaborate closely with the IEC and the President of the SCA sits as a standing ex-officio Director on the IEC Board. The SCA was established in Sarnia-Lambton on June 25, 1948 with a focus on serving the region’s extensive petrochemical industry. Members of the SCA have the knowledge and specialized skills to meet the required demands for any construction project.

The Sarnia-Lambton Building & Construction Trades Council connects into the IEC through the Sarnia Construction Association. Members of this Trades Council participate directly on Committees and Project Teams. This regional council is affiliated with the Canada Building Trades Unions and their mission to represent all workers in the building, construction, fabrication, and maintenance industry and support their efforts to improve their working conditions and quality of life.

The Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership (SLEP) is a stakeholder in how the IEC functions to promote our region as an exceptionally safe place to live, work and raise a family. SLEP helps local business leaders, educational institutions, and municipal governments collaborate with one another. SLEP plays an important role in the continuing development of the petrochemical industry in Sarnia-Lambton by attracting conferences, workshops, and new businesses to the region. 

Many of the members of the Sarnia-Lambton Industrial Alliance (SLIA) are connected directly to the IEC.  SLIA is a coalition of companies that specialize in all aspects of metal fabrication, engineering, environmental and support services geared to manufacturing. Their messaging often references our exemplary construction safety record, and how safety culture is fostered through the IEC partnership design. 

The IEC sits on the Sarnia-Lambton Workforce Development Board’s Board of Directors and actively participates in, and assesses the learnings from the EmployerOne survey. In 2019, the survey indicated that the top planned hires for employers in the region were in the skilled trades. The survey also reported that nearly 80% of participating businesses provided some form of training for their employees, with the most common being health and safety and new employee orientation that is offered through the IEC.

The IEC participates directly on the Sarnia Regional Labour-Management Health and Safety Committee that is coordinated through the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association (IHSA). The work of this committee feeds into a broader network of labour-management health and safety committees operating at the provincial, regional, and trade/sector level. The IEC actively works to identify synergies in training offers to workers to address hazards such as material rigging and hoisting.

All courses developed by the IEC include consideration of legal and provincial agency requirements and priorities. The IEC assisted the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training, and Skills Development (MOLTSD) in the development of a province-wide course for Safe Work at Heights and was the first training institution in Ontario to receive accreditation to instruct the course that it helped develop.

The IEC and the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) work together to identify synergies between the WSIB’s Safety Excellence initiative and the IEC’s Safety Management Assessment Program. The WSIB has two long-term visionary aspirations: to make Ontario the safest and healthiest place to work, and to set the standard for outcomes in recovery, return to work, occupational health care, and claims decision-making.

The members of the Sarnia-Lambton Industrial Education Corporation have long supported and shared our educational program content with Enform Canada to help protect workers at Alberta worksites. Energy Safety Canada (ESC) was recently created through a merger of Enform Canada and the Oil Sands Safety Association (OSSA) and continues to connect with the IEC to benchmark and align on best practices in Sarnia-Lambton.