International Safety Considers Spinning Off Its Internal Software to Empower Other Canadian Businesses
NEWMARKET, ON, Feb. 13, 2026 /CNW/ - When the pandemic hit, many companies had to change course. International Safety didn't. It accelerated its existing plan.
Based in Newmarket, Ontario, International Safety has long been known as a trusted Canadian distributor of PPE. The essentials that keep Canadians, first responders, and industries safe at work. International Safety scaled performance during the pandemic, but behind the scenes, something else was happening: the company was transforming into a technology company in disguise.
The COVID-19 Pandemic didn't just stress supply chains; it stress-tested decision-making. Demand spiked overnight. Rules changed weekly. Customers across Canada needed answers immediately. International Safety responded by being agile and relying on its internally-developed software while abandoning traditional business methods for good.
Years of investment in e-commerce infrastructure and business process automation paid off when it mattered most. Tools for ordering, fulfillment, customer communication, pricing logic, and inventory signals were already in place to perform at scale, so their technology team turned the dials up.
That software-first mindset allowed the company to serve customers coast to coast, in real time, without sacrificing reliability. Construction workers, manufacturers, municipalities, and first responders needed PPE despite supply chain disruptions. International Safety figured out how to deliver essential PPE to key customers, leveraging its technology. Responsiveness became a competitive tool.
But here's where the story gets interesting.
What started as an internal web-based e-commerce and sales tool has quietly matured, which raises a very Canadian question in light of current geopolitical shifts: Why not share this advantage with other Canadian businesses?
As global uncertainty grows and reliance on massive U.S.-based tech platforms becomes riskier--financially, strategically, and politically--Canadian businesses are starting to look inward. They want resilient systems, built here, for Canadian realities. They want tools that understand our markets, our regulations, and our scale. Not everything needs to be Silicon Valley-driven.
International Safety is now in a position to consider something bold: spinning off its e-commerce and business process software to help other Canadian companies leapfrog into a web-first, AI-enabled future. "We're now in a position to consider something bold and dramatic," says KC Chang, Head of Business Operations at International Safety, who has seen the software evolve dramatically in the last half-decade.
"Imagine mid-sized manufacturers, distributors, and service firms across Canada plugging into proven systems designed under pressure." Software forged during a pandemic doesn't panic easily. It adapts. It scales. It works.
International Safety's journey demonstrates that the line between "retailer" and "tech company" is thinner than people think. The companies that win are the ones willing to build the tools they need--then realize those tools might be valuable to others. Shopify, which began the same way: its founders built custom e-commerce software out of frustration with rigid, bulky platforms while running their own online snowboard shop, Snowdevil, before recognizing that the solution they'd created could serve countless other companies.
Canada doesn't need to copy big tech companies. It needs to outmaneuver them.
International Safety may have started with safety equipment, but what it's really been building all along is a blueprint for how Canadian companies can scale intelligently, serve nationally, and thrive in a digital world--without waiting for permission from anyone else - to control their own destiny.
International Safety now plans to engage in market feedback from industry partners as it advances its platform.
SOURCE International Safety Systems Inc.
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