 Take two, let's go. Welcome to Code Corner with Katie. Let's kick it! Let's see what's on thinking man's mind today. How are the codes in Canada different from the United States? That's another great question and thankfully we've got Joe Mayer here. Joe, welcome and can you just briefly introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do. Hi everybody. As Katie said, I'm Joe Mayer. I am the training guy for Assa Abloy Opening Solutions in Canada. I've been with the company for, I don't want to age myself, but quite a few years and have held a number of roles and now I look after all things training. Awesome. So can you tell us briefly what the differences are between the United States and Canada when it comes to the building codes? Sure. The language itself is actually fairly similar. The IBC is a very influential model code, so a lot of that is sort of picked up in the Canadian codes. We use the National Building Code as our model code. The big difference for us is that our codes are objectives based codes. And for those of you that aren't familiar with that, what that means is whereas a code like the IBC has some prescriptive elements to it. Are you trying to do this? Okay. Well, as long as you do X, Y and Z, you're good. In an objectives based code, it's more about what we're trying to accomplish. So here's the objective. Here's what we're trying to do. And it's up to you to provide a solution that meets the objective. In theory, an objectives based code is meant to foster innovation and provide room for alternative solutions and that kind of thing. And it does do that. But in practice, it can also get a little bit tricky because it means that the fire marshal or the provincial inspector or whoever the authority having jurisdiction is has a lot of responsibility on their shoulders because it's up to them to interpret whether or not you've met the objectives of the code. So I don't know whether Canadians are more polite than Americans, but we definitely have to be more polite to our code officials up here because of that. Gotcha. And it looks like there's different additions depending on what province that you're in. Exactly. Yes. So the actually the most current addition of the National Building Code of Canada is the 2020 edition. But as you can imagine, it takes, there's a little bit of a lag between when a code is published or released and when it's actually adopted by the provinces as a part of their law. There are a number of provinces that use the National Building Code, but the most current version that's in play in Canada at the moment is the 2015 version. Most of the provinces are on track to adopt the 2020 National Building Code in 2023. You've got the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick and Saskatchewan all using the 2015 version of the code. The Yukon uses the 2015 version of the code, but they use a version that was amended specifically for them. So that was adopted in 2022. And Alberta uses the National Building Code 2015 edition, but they use the Alberta edition of the National Building Code, which was adopted by them in 2019. And they move that will surprise nobody that doesn't live in British Columbia or Ontario. British Columbia and Ontario feel like they need their own building codes. So the British Columbia or BC Building Code is the 2018 version, and the Ontario Building Code is the 2012 version. And for those of you that are thinking, you know, get with it, Ontario, what's going on? There are regular amendments that are made to that 2012 code. The most recent amendment was September 2022. And there was a big amendment made that took effect in January of 2020 that covered a lot of accessibility issues and that kind of thing. So amendments are being made. It can make it a bit tricky for people in Ontario because they're using the 2012 code, but they've got to make sure that they're up to date with the amendments. Got you. So where do people find information about the codes? Good question. The codes, as they should be, are free to anyone that wants a copy of them. So the National Building Code, including the Quebec edition and the Alberta edition can be downloaded from the Canadian Government website. And there's, I think you're going to offer a link to that. The Ontario Building Code can be downloaded from the Ontario Government site. The BC Building Code can't be downloaded. It is an online only resource, but that's available from the BC Provincial website as well. The downloadable codes are locked to a single computer, so that's something to keep in mind. It's not like you can download it and sort of share it around. Whoever wants a copy is going to have to download their own copy. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Joe. For more information and continuing education opportunities, please visit Osa Abloy Academy by clicking in the link in the comments below. I'm also going to include the links, as Joe mentioned, to getting the building codes, the resources that you need. Please click like and subscribe to this channel. You can follow me on Twitter at Art Consultant and or connect with me on LinkedIn for updates. You can email me if you have any code questions. You may see them on a future edition at Catherine.Flower at OsaAbloy.com. And as always, thanks for joining me in the Code Corner today. My name is Katie Flower, and my goal is to help you achieve safe purity in the built environment.