The Canadian Risk Management Standard. James W. Wright, Risk Management Associates, Chairman, Canadian Standards Association, Risk Management Technical Committee, Box T8, 15 Drum Road, Old Chelsea, Quebec, Canada, J0X 1N0
The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) has recently published a Canadian Risk Management Standard (CSA-Q850). This standard describes a unique, science based framework for formulating and implementing well informed judgements and communications about risk issues. The standard is designed as a decision process and provides a systematic methodology for identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and controlling risk. The Canadian approach to risk management incorporates stakeholder perceptions into the decision process providing for more informed decision-making and insuring that the legitimate interests of all affected stakeholders are considered. This standardized approach creates efficiencies in the analyses and provides credibility in both process and decisions. It provides the decision-maker with the information he or she needs to make decisions with confidence, and enables decision-makers to defend and easily explain decisions. The approach offers significant benefits in the area of regulatory policy by providing both the regulator and the regulatee with an accepted standardized approach to analyzing risk issues of concern to both parties. Because of this, and other benefits, the CSA standard is under consideration for adoption within the regulatory framework of a number of federal government departments in both Canada and the US. As well, Q850 is being considered as policy within a number of large and small industries and industry associations within Canada. The presentation will provide an overview of the Canadian Risk Management Process and will proceed with a discussion of the benefits of adopting this approach for the analysis of risk issues.