October 18, 2002 VARIANCE

In accordance with Section 38(1) of the Safety Codes Act, a variance is hereby issued for equivalency to Section 6 of the Pressure Welders Regulation (Alberta Regulation 169/2002).

Effective October 1, 2002, performance qualification cards that conform to the requirements of an issuing authorized testing organization’s quality system as accepted by ABSA are deemed acceptable as performance qualification cards under Section 6 of the Pressure Welders Regulations provided all of the following conditions are satisfied:
i) the performance qualification card is issued by an authorized testing organization prior to October 1, 2003,
ii) the authorized testing organization’s certificate of authorization to conduct the specified activities in the quality system was issued prior to October 1, 2002,
iii) the performance qualification card shall expire on the expiry date indicated on the card, but no later than September 30, 2005.

The expiry date of the performance qualification card issued under this variance shall not be extended under the provisions of section 8(8) of the Pressure Welders Regulations.

Background
The Pressure Welders Regulation that came into force on October 1, 2002 includes requirements for items that must be addressed on a performance qualification card issued to a pressure welder by an authorized testing organization. The requirements include additional items that were not specified in the Pressure Welders’ Regulations (Alberta Regulation 229/ 75) that was in force prior to October 1, 2002. The purpose of this variance is to facilitate compliance with the new Regulation by allowing a period of time for authorized testing organizations to revise their existing quality systems to address the new requirements of Section 6 of the Regulation and implement those revisions, while continuing to issue performance qualification cards to previously acceptable standards.

K. T. Lau, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Chief Inspector and Administrator
Pressure Equipment
Province of Alberta



First published November 2002