Interesting Facts about IAPA

• In 1917, IAPA’s staff totaled seven people: a manager, two stenographers, and four field representatives.
  
  
• The location of IAPA’s Head Office changed eight times before the final move in April 2006 to its permanent location at the Centre for Health & Safety Innovation in Mississauga, ON. Former addresses include:
  
  
• The Excelsior Life Building at 20 Toronto Street, Toronto
• 2 Bloor Street East and West, Toronto
• The office complex in the Eaton Centre at 250 Yonge Street, Toronto
• Queens Quay Terminal at 207 Queens Quay West, Toronto
  
  
• From very early on, IAPA has been involved in the exchange of health and safety information on an international level. In 1928, IAPA is documented as having engaged in knowledge exchange with safety-oriented associations in Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.
  
  
• An IAPA logo didn’t appear on corporate stationery, documents, or publications until 1940. IAPA’s logo has evolved over the years since then. Visuals that have been used to represent the Association include:
  
  
• The smoke stacks of industrial establishments
• The gears of industry
• A protective shield
• A diamond shape within a circle, a symbol then common to all of Ontario’s safety associations and the Workers’ Compensation Board (now the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board)
  
  
• When IAPA General Manager R.B. Morley retired in 1950, a trophy was named after him and awarded to the company operating for the greatest number of hours without a lost-time accident. The Campbell Soup Company was the first recipient.
  
  
• In 1953, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth bestowed the Coronation Medal on IAPA, in recognition of the humanitarian effort of the Association and its volunteers.
  
  
• In 1965, the Colgate-Palmolive plant located in Toronto flew the first IAPA Safety Flag, a public indicator of one month without a compensable injury to a worker.
  
  
• IAPA’s Information Centre opened in 1977, creating one of the first official specialized collections of occupational health and safety resources. Today, the Information Centre houses one of Canada’s largest collections of occupational health and safety information: 300+ journals, 8,500+ texts and reports, 15,000+ indexed articles, and many material safety data sheets.
  
  
• Ontario’s minister of labour from 1982 – 1985, Russ H. Ramsay, was IAPA’s general manager from 1987 - 1995.
  
  
• IAPA has run a number of different safety programs to recognize the efforts of workers and companies in reducing workplace injuries and accidents. While not all remain in 2007, some of the program names remain unforgettable to this day:
  
  
• Wise Owl Club: to recognize the individual work of people who have prevented blindness or serious eye injury through wearing protective eye equipment (started in 1950). The Wise Owl Club was supported by IAPA, but originally organized by the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness in New York before its national sponsorship was undertaken by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
  
  
• Turtle Club: to recognize those who prevent death or serious injury through the wearing of hard hats (started in 1956). The Turtle Club (created by the E.D. Bullard Co. of San Francisco, California and sponsored in Canada by Fleck Brothers Ltd. in Vancouver) would be replaced with the IAPA-developed Crown Club in 1959.
  
  
• Ten-on-Two Club (Ten Toes on Two Feet): to recognize those who prevented the loss of toes or serious foot injury through wearing steel-toed shoes or toe protectors (started in 1957).
  
  
• Seat Belt Club: to recognize workers who avoided injury by wearing seat belts (started in 1963).
  
  
• Shield Club: to recognize workers who avoided serious injury or death through the use of personal protective equipment that is not covered by one of the other four recognition clubs, e.g. bump caps, steel mesh gloves, full-face shields, and protective aprons (started in 1978).
  
  

These personal recognition awards were replaced in 1991 with the IAPA Individual Injury Prevention Award, which was then replaced in 2002 with IAPA’s Health & Safety Achievement Awards, a progressive, three-level, awards program that marks significant milestones in an organization’s dedication to health and safety in the workplace.


• Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman astronaut in space, attended IAPA’s annual health and safety conference and trade show in 1988.
  
  
• In 1997, the Young Worker Awareness Program, a partnership between IAPA and the Workers Health and Safety Centre, launched the “Know Your Rights, Know Your Risks” summer media campaign to reduce young worker injuries. The campaign’s message appeared in print (newspapers and posters) and in PSAs on popular radio. One of the PSAs even ran during game intermissions for the Toronto Raptors.
  
  
• From 2000 – 2004, IAPA was named one of the best places to work in Canada in Canada’s Top 100 Employers by Richard Yerema.
  
  
• IAPA was named an International Labour Organization Collaborating Centre – one of only two in Canada, in 2002.
  
  
• In 2007, at IAPA’s 90th annual health and safety conference, the more than 6,000 people in attendance represented 19 countries: Canada and USA, as well as Anguilla, Brazil, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Trindad & Tobago, and the United Kingdom.