While the annual

Operations, Health & Safety Seminar

is the

Ontario, Stone, Sand & Gravel Association

’s (OSSGA) signature event, the organization representing the province’s aggregate producers has evolved its educational offerings in other ways.

OSSGA now runs more than 40 programs each year, including Common Core, supervisor modules and confined space training.

“Workers at sites in

Ontario

are required to complete their base Common Core training,” says

Julie Harrington

, senior director of training and events at OSSGA. “Beyond this foundational training, workers may also be required to complete specialty modules. For example, anyone operating a front-end loader or a fuel truck has 12 months to gain knowledge and experience before being certified.”

More than 30 modules are currently offered on top of OSSGA’s base educational offerings. While OSSGA members are among the biggest proponents of them, the association also engages a number of nonmembers because the education is only available in so many places.

“We come to their site – and on their equipment, which they’re comfortable with – and we certify them,” Harrington says. “We don’t train them on everything, but we certify they’re competent. It’s a great service, and every site must have it.

“Even municipalities and townships will come to us if they have a small gravel operation,” she adds. “We’ll go out to their sites.”

In addition to providing mandatory modules, OSSGA hosts broader educational offerings – often with industry partners – to build a big-picture understanding of crushed stone, sand and gravel operations. OSSGA’s Aggregates 101 course is one example that gives participants a start-to-finish view of how sites function.

“Our focus is on taking people through the full life cycle of a site – one-on-one,” Harrington says. “We start with definitions, then buying and licensing a property, then extraction, crushing and processing through to delivery and rehab. We want them to understand the full life of a site.”

According to Harrington, between 50 and 100 students take part in OSSGA’s Aggregates 101 course each year. The association moves the course around Ontario to extend its reach, hosting it three to four times a year.

OSSGA also offers an Aggregates 201 course that goes deeper on core operations topics such as logistics, blasting and washing and classifying.

“If you’re interested in operations, we do an operations tour,” Harrington says. “If you’re interested in rehab, we have a rehab tour. If you’re interested in QC, we have a full-day training on quality control, sampling and what happens in a lab.”

The OSSGA Operations, Health & Safety Seminar, which includes a trade show component, is yet another knowledge resource in Ontario. OSSGA hosted its 2026 seminar Jan. 21-22 at the Toronto Airport Marriott, drawing more than 350 attendees.

Attendance was just a few people shy of an event record, the association says.

“It’s rare to get 350 like-minded people together with the goal of advancing operations, addressing health and safety, and meeting suppliers they may not have worked with before,” Harrington says. “This group may not be the final decision-makers, but they’re strong influencers in terms of what can be added or adjusted on-site. The seminar also lets people in similar roles have discussions they might not be able to have at their own site. You get people brainstorming together.”

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