New precedent from Ottawa Landlord and Tenant Board: Landlords must tackle the source of pest problems

In February, Sean Rollo will take over the reins of the Canadian Pest Management Association (CPMA) from outgoing President Nicholas Holland. The focus of his presidential term: Continuing Education Credits (CECs) for pest control professionals nationwide.

This would allow applicators to attend a required number of approved professional development and training seminars to renew their licenses.

Some provinces already encourage CECs to recertify. These include Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador and Nova Scotia. Quebec approved CECs for applicator license renewal in 2022; it plans to implement the program in 2023 and accept cumulative credits retroactively.

But the province with the most pesticide applicators, Ontario, does not.

“In fact, they have the most archaic pesticide applicator licensing program in Canada,” says Rollo, who is technical and business development manager for Orkin Canada in Moncton, New Brunswick.

While many Ontario pest control companies provide ongoing training for their employees, he says it’s possible for an applicator to take an exam once, then issue checks annually for the next 30 years and keep their license. .

“It’s a little scary,” says Rollo. “The fact that we handle chemicals that are potentially very dangerous if not used correctly and that we don’t have credits or continuing education opportunities in the province of Ontario is ridiculous. Regulations change, products change, and applicators need to stay on top of it, he says.

To be considered a professional service, industry must hold applicators to a higher standard. “Every major profession has continuing education credits,” including teachers, dentists, doctors, chiropractors, plumbers and mechanics, Rollo points out.

He hopes that a renewed direction will make progress in Ontario. “We’ve been trying to solve this problem with the Ontario government for over 20 years,” he says. “They just don’t seem interested in changing.”

Rollo is optimistic. CEC programs can be improved or expanded in Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

COVID INTERRUPTION. Rollo previously served as CMPA President from 2019 to 2021. He ran again for election because “I felt I had some unfinished business; COVID kind of threw a wrench in things,” he says.

Instead of working on continuing education efforts, he quickly focused on getting the government to classify pest control as an essential service so that PMPs could continue to protect human health, property and life. ‘environment.

“At the start of COVID, we weren’t considered an essential service,” Rollo recalls. He and other CMPA members spent “many, many hours” in meetings and calling all branches of government “to make sure they fully understood that we should be on that list. Fortunately, we were able to accomplish this in a relatively short time, and every province and territory deemed us essential,” he says. Then the task became to figure out how the industry would operate safely in a COVID environment.

Serving a second term as president will allow Rollo to complete this “unfinished business”.