HISTORY

Background

In 1989, a number of volunteers from the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth organized a National Conference on Disaster Management that brought together professionals from emergency response and emergency management from across Canada to address many of the major events, topics and issues that had occurred in the late 1990’s. The great success of the conference led to two more conferences being held in 1991 and 1992.

Following the success of the third conference, the Municipality approached Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology with the objective of forming a not-for-profit organization to develop the conference into a World Conference. In 1993 the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness was formally established as a federally incorporated non-profit organization based in Hamilton, Ontario.

In the early years, CCEP focused on conference planning and organization. Additionally, in the run-up to y2k, the organization provided contracting, consulting and training services in emergency management and business continuity to a number of regional governments and municipalities. However, following the completion of Y2K contingency planning, many of these services were discontinued due to a decline in demand for contracted services and CCEP reverted to its core function of managing the World Conference on Disaster Management, commonly known as WCDM.

In 2001 the conference was moved to Toronto and after two years of spectacular growth the event moved to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where it remains today. In the fall of 2007 CCEP sold the rights to the WCDM to Diversified Business Communications (DBC). While DBC now manages the conference logistics, the trade show and sponsorship opportunities, CCEP is responsible under contracted to develop and present the program.

World Conference on Disaster Management

The conference and trade show now attracts delegates from five continents to attend presentations and workshops in business continuity, emergency planning and emergency management. The WCDM has become the premier North American event for training and networking among Emergency Response, Emergency Management, Emergency Health Care, Business Continuity Planning, Risk Management, and Security professionals world-wide, and for the organizations which supply and service these professions.

Full information on WCDM is posted at www.wcdm.org