News

Committees are critical association mechanisms for involving its members, tapping into their specific expertise, ensuring that different perspectives are incorporated and for cultivating volunteer leaders.

As we are looking to the year ahead, we'd love to involve new voices in our committees.

Skills Ontario: Career Exploration Showcase Task Force
Objective: To develop material (with a hands-on component) to showcase at the May 6-7^th 2020 Skills Canada Career Exploration Showcase and to help OSA staff man the booth on the day of.  The key objective is for us to showcase the exciting and diverse career opportunities in the sign industry.   

Social Media & Communications Committee:
Objective: to develop visually attractive content that promotes the work of the Ontario Sign Association: benefits, events, professional development.  The content is primarily to be distributed via social media channels and e-newsletters.

Education Committee
Objective: To develop programs that respond to the educational need of the Chapter members and others.

Membership Committee
Objective: To conduct member campaigns with a goal of increasing Chapter member participation levels and communication strategies to bring added value.

Government Relations Committee
Objective: To provide vision, direction and leadership in developing initiative to educate, monitor and review legislation as it pertains to the regulation and activities at the municipal, provincial and federal level.

Time commitment: 1 to 2 hours a month. 

While Committees meet monthly or bimonthly, task forces are set up to deal with a specific task/event and then are done after the task/event is completed. 

If you are interested in joining or would like to talk further about the type of work committees do, please connect with Karin at karin@ontariosignassociation.com or 905.482.4942

The Ontario Sign Association is pleased to announce the launch of the Standard Engineered Sign Drawings Program in partnership with Sign Spec Canada.  

Background: Municipalities around Ontario are requesting more and more sign designs to be reviewed by engineers prior to submission as part of the permit documentation submission.  From the industry’s perspective, the sign design requirements are often too complicated for small sign companies or the general public to navigate. Costs typically range from $400 to $600 per sign for reviewing and stamping a sign design and takes approximately one week to have completed.   From the municipalities’ perspective, they are having to put on hold a high percentage of incomplete sign permit request submissions due to missing or incorrect technical detail on the drawings.  As such, some municipalities are starting to offer fast track processes for permit request submissions if a P.ENG has stamped and reviewed the sign design. 

To fill this gap, the Ontario Sign Association is launching the Standard Engineered Sign Drawings Program in partnership with Sign Spec Canada (SSC), a new business formed by two industry veterans: the owners of Signature Engineering (Chris Sharpe) and Signum Engineering (Marc Carriere).  This program will provide members with access to engineered drawings of the most often used sign types at a discounted price. 

Program: Based on our consultations with the City of Toronto on the types of permits they receive, we have identified the most often used sign types: fascia boxes, channel letters, and pylons. Our program will provide sign companies with a selection of standard sign drawings which can be used to accompany sign permit applications.

City of Toronto has been supportive of this program, and from the association’s perspective, our program will enable the City to fast track the permit process for applications accompanied by these drawings.  Ideally, these drawings will form the platform for future versions of the drawings that would be used elsewhere in Ontario and Canada by the Sign Association of Canada.

Members: Watch your inboxes on the latest news. We will be holding webinars and in person presentations later this year and early in the next year to give you a step-by-step overview of how the program is going to work. 

City of Toronto has been reviewing the sign variance program over past few months and would like to discuss their findings and the plan forward with our members. 

Here are the meeting details:

What: Meeting with City of Toronto Sign Unit Staff to discuss making Sign Variance and Signage Master Plan Applications

When: June 24^th from 9:30am to noon.

Where: Etobicoke Civic Centre, Meeting Room 3

Who (Target Audience): Anyone who makes Sign Variance or Signage Master Plan applications in Toronto.

Contact: Any inquiries should be directed to Michele Blackwood of the Sign Bylaw Unit at 416-392-4231 or Michele.Blackwood@toronto.ca  

Please RSVP to Michele Blackwood at 416-392-4231 or Michele.Blackwood@toronto.ca   

We recommend this session to anyone who does signage work in Toronto as this is a good way to meet the City of Toronto sign bylaw unit staff and get to ask any questions that you have pertaining to sign permits.

A guiding objective for the Ontario Sign Association is to contribute to the operational effectiveness and viability of the sign industry in Ontario and to be the provincial voice of authority on regulatory matters. As such, along with the Sign Association of Canada's Government Relations team, the OSA has been in discussions with City of Toronto to produce a standard set of sign type drawings, which, among other benefits, would help fast track the sign permit application process.

On March 19, 2019, the Ontario Sign Association posted a Request for Propoal (and sent it out to the membership) seeking an engineering firm to produce drawings of standard sign types. These drawings would be used exclusively by Sign Association members to accompany permit applications to the City of Toronto.

This is the first step in a process whereby the City will fast track the permit process for applications accompanied by these drawings. Each drawing would be used multiple times by Sign Association members over a period of multiple years. Going forward it is likely that the number of drawings will increase.

Ideally, these drawings would form a platform for future versions of the drawings that would be used elsewhere in Ontario (we have had discussions also with other interested cities in Ontario) and Canada by the Sign Association of Canada.

The RFQ period will close on April 9, 2019.  We will keep our members posted as this process progresses.   

The Products Containing Mercury Regulations (the regulations) were published in the Canada Gazette, Part II, on November 19, 2014 and came into force on November 8, 2015^tnote1. The regulations prohibit the import and manufacture of products containing mercury or any of its compounds, with some exemptions for essential products which have no technically or economically viable alternatives (e.g., certain medical and research applications, and dental amalgam). In the case of lamps, such as fluorescent lamps, rather than prohibiting them, the regulations set a limit on the amount of mercury that they can contain.

However, based on more current information and further consultations with industry stakeholders, ECCC are now considering prohibiting the manufacture and import of straight fluorescent lamp (LFL) in 2028. For more information on their latest thinking, please find attached a summary of changes since the consultation document was published. It should also be noted that the publication date of the proposed amendments in Part 1 of the Canada Gazette has now been pushed to Spring 2019.  

For the full summary, please see here.