CANUTEC: 42 Years of Public Safety

CANUTEC is a free, nationwide 24/7 emergency bilingual advisory service. CANUTEC’s registered Canadian consignors have also provided over 2 million safety data sheets (SDS/MSDS) to businesses like you. These services are predominantly used by first responders, which provides them with crucial technical information on products, evacuation distances, first aid measures, possible product incompatibilities, firefighting and containment procedures, and most importantly – PPE requirements. CANUTEC deals with nearly 1000+ emergencies year over year and receives 25,000+ telephone calls each year.

In 1979, the year of the Mississauga Miracle – coincidently, CANUTEC was established. The Mississauga Miracle happened in Ontario, Canada, when a train derailment led to more than 200,000 people evacuating their homes and their city for almost a week. This train was carrying a list of dangerous goods, many cars catching on fire and exploding. One of the main concerns was from a ruptured chlorine tank, which could’ve caused a deadly cloud of chlorine gas to spread through the city. This was the largest peacetime evacuation in North America at the time, and there were luckily no fatalities. Emergency plans like this were soon developed among other cities to model Mississauga’s evacuation procedures utilizing the services that CANUTEC offered.

The Directorate of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods of Transport Canada has been operating CANUTEC for 42 successful years. Their principle mandate is to promote public safety in relation to the transportation of dangerous goods, similarly to the National Response Center (NRC) in the United States, which is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. CANUTEC also offers awareness information of the Emergency Response Assistance Plans (ERAPs) and are very involved in the production of the Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG), which is released every four years.

BUT – what does this mean for you? What can CANUTEC do for you and your business of shipping, handling, or transporting dangerous goods!?!

CANUTEC is utilized as a reporting agency in the event of accidental release of dangerous goods by either road, rail, or marine transportation when:

The death of a person, or serious injuries to a person;
If evacuation or shelter in place of an area was required; or
If the closure of a facility, road/rail line occurs.

The center’s 24-hour emergency telephone service for Canadian consignors for their dangerous goods needs is always free, but the consignor must first register with CANUTEC and submit pertinent contacts and Material Safety Data Sheets before receiving authorization to use it. For future reference, the 24/7 telephone lines are listed: