How to Create an Emergency Response Plan for Your Calgary Business

Emergencies don’t follow a schedule. A worker collapses in the warehouse, a pipe bursts above the server room, or a forklift punctures a drum of solvent at the end of a long shift. In those first few minutes, your people will do whatever your system has prepared them to do. A good emergency response plan makes sure that is the right thing.

What Is an Emergency Response Plan (ERP)?

An ERP is your business’s written answer to the question “What if?” It sets out how your workplace will respond to the emergencies you could realistically face, who does what, and how you will get everyone out safely and accounted for.

Under pressure, a working plan answers three questions quickly:

• What is happening?
• Who is in charge, and who does what?
• What has to happen right now?

When those answers aren’t clear, even experienced crews hesitate. Hesitation is how a small fire becomes a large one, or how a medical emergency loses precious minutes. A good ERP helps you limit injuries and damage, reduce downtime and financial loss, and make sure everyone knows their role.

What the Law Requires in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan

Each province expects employers to prepare for foreseeable emergencies. The details differ, so confirm the rules that apply to your workplace.

Alberta. Part 7 of the OHS Code requires employers to establish an emergency response plan for any emergency that may require rescue or evacuation, to involve affected workers in developing it, and to keep it current. Employers must designate the workers who will provide rescue services and supervise evacuations, and those workers must be trained, with practice exercises repeated often enough to keep them competent. The Government of Alberta’s free emergency response planning tool kit is a helpful place to start.

British Columbia. The OHS Regulation requires a risk assessment in any workplace where workers may need to be rescued or evacuated. Where that need exists, the employer must develop and implement written procedures and assign a worker to coordinate them. Emergency drills must be held at least once a year, and a record of each drill must be kept. Workplaces with hazardous substances that could cause an emergency also have more detailed planning requirements, which took effect in February 2025.

Saskatchewan. WorkSafe Saskatchewan’s guidance, based on The Saskatchewan Employment Act and The Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, 2020, calls for an emergency response plan for each potential emergency, training so workers know their roles, evacuation plans posted where people can see them, and drills to test the plans, including fire drills at least once a year.

Due Diligence: The Legal Test Behind Your Plan

If an emergency leads to OHS charges, your defence depends on showing that you took every reasonable precaution to protect your workers. That is due diligence. A plan in a binder isn’t enough on its own. Training records, drill records and proof that you fixed what the drills revealed are what show the plan was real.

The stakes are significant. In Alberta, a first offence under the OHS Act can bring a fine of up to $500,000, up to six months in jail, or both, for each violation. A second or later offence can bring a fine of up to $1 million, up to 12 months in jail, or both.

How to Create Your ERP: Seven Practical Steps

An emergency response plan works best when it is built in sequence: plan, roles, procedures, training and drills. Each step builds on the one before it.

1. Identify realistic emergencies

Start with your actual hazards, not a generic template. Walk the site and look at what you store, how your building is laid out and how your people work. For Calgary businesses, the list often includes:

• Fires and explosions
• Flooding, burst pipes and severe weather, including hail and winter storms
• Wildfire smoke affecting air quality
• Hazardous material spills or releases
• Medical emergencies, such as a worker collapsing or a serious injury
• Power outages and equipment failures
• Workplace violence or threats

Think about people who work alone, outdoors, after hours or at remote locations, and about nearby risks such as rail lines or neighbouring facilities. Then rank each emergency by how likely it is and how much harm it could do.

2. Involve your workers

Alberta requires you to involve affected workers, and it is good practice everywhere. Workers know where the exits get blocked, which radios don’t reach the back of the yard and which procedures don’t match how the job is really done. When they help build the plan, they are far more likely to follow it.

3. Assign roles and responsibilities

Everyone needs to know the basics, and a few people need to know much more. Typical roles include:

• Emergency coordinator: leads the response and makes decisions.
• Evacuation wardens: clear their areas and account for people at the muster point.
• First aid attendants: provide care until emergency services arrive.
• Communications contact: calls 911, meets responders and keeps staff informed.

Name a backup for every role, because emergencies don’t wait for the right person to be on shift. In Alberta, the workers designated for rescue and evacuation must be trained for those duties.

4. Write clear procedures for each emergency

For each emergency you identified, write short, step-by-step procedures that cover:

• How to raise the alarm and report the emergency
• Evacuation routes, muster points and how you will account for everyone, including contractors and visitors
• How to shut down equipment or processes safely
• Spill containment and isolation steps, where they apply
• Who to call, in what order, and how staff will be notified
• What to do after hours, or when the usual leaders are away

Add site maps that show exits and muster points, and keep contact lists current. Keep it simple. During an emergency, nobody has time to read a novel.

5. Check your emergency equipment and supplies

Make sure the equipment your procedures rely on is there, working and easy to reach:

• Fire extinguishers and fire alarm systems
• First aid kits and supplies suited to your work
• Spill kits where hazardous materials are stored or used
• Emergency lighting and backup communication
• Personal protective equipment for anyone with a response role

Inspect and restock these items on a schedule, and record each check.

6. Train your team

A plan nobody has been trained on exists only on paper. Cover the plan in new worker orientation, give role-specific training to wardens, first aid attendants and coordinators, and brief contractors and visitors on alarms, exits and muster points. Refresh the training regularly rather than treating it as a one-time event.

7. Drill, debrief and update

Drills show you the gaps you can’t see on paper. Run evacuation drills, and use tabletop exercises to talk through scenarios that are hard to practise live, such as a chemical release or a medical emergency at a remote site. BC requires emergency drills at least once a year, and Alberta’s emergency response planning tool kit notes that the National Fire Code (Alberta Edition) typically requires annual fire drills. Higher-risk operations may need to drill more often.

After every drill or real event, hold a short debrief. What worked, what didn’t and what needs to change? Then update the plan, and update it again whenever your building, equipment, processes, people or neighbours change. A plan that has never been tested is an assumption, not a control.

Prefer to watch? This video walks through how to create an emergency response plan that works.

How Your ERP Fits With Your Building’s Fire Safety Plan

Many Calgary businesses ask whether they need an emergency response plan, a fire safety plan or both. The two are related, but they aren’t the same document.

Your ERP comes from occupational health and safety law and covers every emergency your workers could face. A fire safety plan comes from the National Fire Code (Alberta Edition) and focuses on fire and the building’s fire protection systems. The City of Calgary notes that fire safety plans are required for a variety of buildings and circumstances, including buildings under construction or demolition. A fire safety plan covers matters such as sounding the alarm, notifying the fire department, evacuating occupants (including people who need assistance), the building’s fire emergency systems, fire drills and the control of fire hazards, and it must be reviewed at least every 12 months.

In practice:

• If you lease space in a shared building, the building owner or property manager often holds the fire safety plan. Ask for a copy, and make sure your ERP uses the same alarms, exits and muster points.
• If you own or operate the building, check whether a fire safety plan is required and keep it consistent with your ERP.
• If you are assessing fire risk in your business, let that review feed both plans: what could start a fire, what would help it spread and how quickly people can get out.

One set of instructions for your people is always better than two that disagree.

Common Gaps That Make Plans Fail

Most plans that fail do exist on paper. They fail because they don’t match reality. The gaps we see most often are:

• Plans copied from a template with little site-specific detail
• Roles assigned on paper but never communicated or trained
• Procedures that don’t match current equipment, layouts or exits
• Contact lists that still name people who have left the company
• No coordination with emergency services or neighbouring tenants
• No drills, or no records of the drills that were run
• Contractors and visitors left out of the headcount

For example, if evacuation routes haven’t been updated since a renovation, workers may head for an exit that is now blocked. Every second of that delay adds exposure.

Don’t forget the human side

Emergencies are frightening, and panic is a normal reaction. Clear leadership and communication matter as much as extinguishers and alarms. Your plan should say who leads each type of emergency, how you will communicate with staff, responders and clients, how you will account for people at the muster point, and what support people will receive afterward, such as a debrief and access to your employee assistance program.

Why an ERP Matters for Your Business

A weak plan doesn’t only put people at risk. It slows the response, and a slower response makes incidents more severe. The costs show up quickly:

• Operational: downtime, halted production and project delays.
• Financial: WCB claims, equipment damage, repairs and rework.
• Compliance: OHS investigations, orders, failed audits and legal exposure.

A well-built, tested plan works the other way. It can mean calmer, faster evacuations, less escalation when something goes wrong and a quicker return to normal operations. It also gives you the evidence auditors look for. Emergency preparedness is one of the areas a COR audit reviews, and a tested plan with drill records is much easier to defend. Our COR and SECOR consulting page explains how this fits into a full safety program.

Consider a common situation. A small manufacturer has a written plan but has never run a full evacuation drill. When an electrical fire starts, workers hesitate. Nobody is sure which exit to use or who is counting heads. After the company clarifies roles, updates its routes and starts running regular drills, the next evacuation is calmer and quicker, and supervisors can confirm that everyone is out. Nothing about the building changed. The system did.

About the author

John Duplessis, B.Sc., CRSP

President and Principal Health & Safety Consultant

John Duplessis is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional with more than 30 years of occupational health and safety experience in oil and gas, construction, green energy, midstream operations, and industrial project work.

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