Concrete Pumping Association of Canada Holds First Meetings Following Merger

At World of Concrete 2019, the Concrete Pumping Association of Canada first announced their intentions to merge with the American Concrete Pumping Association and operate as an ACPA chapter while retaining its CPAC name. The merger will allow CPAC to benefit from ACPA’s resources developed over the past 45 years while combining its own resources into a unified organization.

The initial meeting at WOC was met with positive feedback, according to Daryl Dika, CPAC co-founder and board member and stakeholder with Reach Construction Services.

“We talked about what it meant for Canadian pumpers and the message was uniformly that this was a win-win,” Dika said. “We can now start to address the issues on our side of the border that didn’t previously have a voice, if you will, as a pumping community.”

Much as in the U.S., different Canadian provinces and municipalities have their own rules and regulations regarding safety, transportation and taxes. The merger will provide a unified chapter for addressing them.

Marcia Duiker, owner of CanCrete Equipment in Ontario, attended the second meeting at the Canadian Concrete Expo in February. “We got representation from a few different provinces,” Duiker said. “One thing that stood out is each province has been doing its own thing, and now we need to be talking about doing things together. We’re just starting out now, but we will be working on building the infrastructure to get more participation going forward.”

Duiker says Canadian businesses have been working in silos rather than working together, and the merger will facilitate more cooperation. “Each province has its own set of requirements and we’ve all been doing our due diligence as business owners to do the right things and to work safely. However, we’ve all been trying to reinvent the wheel instead of working together because we didn’t have an association,” she explained.

Dika said the feedback reported following the February meeting in Toronto reflected a lot of interest and excitement. “The message was that this was going to help us as the Canadian chapter leverages the resources available through ACPA,” he said. “What it means for us as Canadians is we will have the opportunity to develop our own infrastructure for the needs here in Canada through independent committees and through utilizing some resources already in place.”

Duiker and Dika both recognize that right now the chapter is still on the ground floor and it will take time to establish the committees and grow. They are actively seeking greater participation from businesses across Canada, which will help them more quickly achieve their goals.

The next CPAC meeting will be held during the ACPA spring board meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona on May 17-18, 2019. At this meeting, the board will discuss a path forward for committee involvement on addressing the top issues that face Canadian businesses.