Well Worksafe has to be seen to do something as they were also negligent in over seeing mill safety. There has to be a scapegoat.

Yes, let the witch hunt begin. Point the finger of guilt at the Company without even giving them the evidence of the supposed crime with which they ‘may’ be charged, and have already just been convicted in the public conscienceness. Who in their right mind would ever want to be an employer in BC nowadays? We have bureaucratic lawlessness running wild and a near complete absence of not only common sense but the traditional principles of Common Law.

well said

There is no doubt that there is more than 1 person responsible for what happened..inc worksafe bc, but in the end it was the responsibility of lakeland to ensure the safety of the employees…pushing the limits, cutting jobs, lack of cleanup and ignoring warnings especially after Burns Lake is unacceptable…someone needs to be accountable…mills across BC are still uncompliant with the regulations set out…come on Worksafe, do your job..don’t comply..shut them down..end of story.

There are several agencies which have responsibilities in the case of fire hazards in industrial operations.

I think it is important for everyone to read the report published in the Vancouver Sun in August which identifies the apparent lack of communication among the three key agencies – B.C. Fire Commissioner’s Office (along with the local fire departments throughout the province), B.C. Safety Authority, WorkSafeBC. It states that “Prince George fire department inspections that warned Lakeland Mills about combustible wood dust levels before a deadly explosion earlier this year were not communicated to the province’s key workplace regulatory agency, WorkSafeBC.” However, those inspection reports would have been communicated to the mill owners.

It goes on later in the article that “WorkSafeBC spokeswoman Donna Freeman ….. would not comment on WorkSafeBC’s reaction when it learned of the Prince George fire department’s combustible dust warnings to Lakeland Mills in the past five years.”

Further, “Becky Denlinger, the province’s fire commissioner, cautioned it does not normally receive inspection reports from local fire departments, so couldn’t share that information with other regulatory agencies.”

“But Denlinger said she believed a way could be found to include the approximately 450 municipal and volunteer fire departments in an information-sharing agreement with other regulatory agencies.”

So, do we have a dysfunctional bureaucratic system here? I think so. To me this is like the Earthquake/Tsunami warning system, or lack of an effective and consistent one as was uncovered recently. We have the information, but we do not have the smarts to make sure it is shared with all those who are working in the same sphere of influence. And this is in the “information age”.

Time for the province to step in once again to make sure the agencies it has out there are not all acting like they own the workplace and no one else does.

As far as the mill knowing about this, the article states the following: “During inspections between 2007 and 2012 by Prince George fire and rescue, Lakeland Mills was warned three times about combustible dust hazards. WorkSafeBC inspections of the mill, which have been previously reported, noted high levels of dust but keyed on the harm that wood dust could do to workers’ lungs.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/WorkSafeBC+warned+about+dust+Prince+George+mill+before+fatal/7124860/story.html

Yep! Fire in the lungs is not a good thing!

I’m certain that the company will get every chance to defend itself, am i right in assuming that in criminal investigations the police don’t keep the perpetrator up to date before he gets charged?

Whether there are ever any charges what Worksafe has done in proceeding this way is to unfairly cause the perception of guilt where there should be, under all the protections afforded us in the great body of Common Law by which we should be governed, the presumption of innocence until PROVEN guilty.

They could have, and should have, if they suspect there are grounds for criminal charges, had Crown look at the evidence in their report FIRST, privately, before releasing ANY information they were doing that to the general public through the media while keeping the report’s findings confidential.

This has now created the presumption of guilt in the minds of the public, where there may indeed be none.

It smacks of possible political interference by government, and a government agency, to now try to make themselves look good in the minds of the public. When they, too, may have put ‘cost cutting’ ahead of
THEIR reasonable responsibility for the ensurance of workplace safety. A perception, whether correct or not, they now seem so anxious to lay solely on the employer.

Profit comes before safety. If this place was truly safe we would not be having this discussion.

Tell me socredible. Here we a garound the same topic of safety once more and you and I certainly differ again.

None of the authorities operate the plant. They raise red flags. The owner is the operator and is fully responsible. The owner should not rely on ANY inspection agency to tell them how to run a safe operation. That is up to the owner.

From other cases I have dealt with, that deal with worker as well as public safety, the Fire Commissioner’s office is actually the one who has the powers to shut down a facility. The same with health inspections.

The failure to do so does not remove responsibility from the owner/operator.

If everyone, authorities and owner/operator, did the best they could and what any average person in similar position would have done, there should be no major concerns other than to bring anything new learned forward.

Remember, WorkSafeBC stated there no criminal charges expected here. The thing being looked into is whether process described in legislation and regulation was properly followed. In the eyes of the WorkSafeBC lawyers there MAY be a question with regard to that but they are unwilling stick their necks out and take action. That tells me it is not a clear cut situation.

I agree with socredible posts on this one.
The lessons of the “unsinkable” titanic come to mind and just how a number of seemingly minor things can combine and become a disaster. Airplanes crash as do trains as do cars and each time there are lessons learned and changes are usually made.

As instinctive as it has become to find the scapegoat and roast them at the stake, there is much more to this than one error in the system that caused these disasters.

I too fear that the political players of this will be integrated into the whole process and whether there is mileage to be gained by how the scapegoat is found and what happens to them.

It is completely ironic that the expected role of due diligence on the part of the regulators to prevent such disasters and they are the same entity that can find and charge (who they are supposed to regulate) for not being diligent enough. Something wrong with that picture.

The second thing that must be clearly thought out is that solutions to whatever problems that were involved with these disasters need to be corrected in a constructive manner rather than setting in motion a series of responses that do no justice to anyone other than lawyers.

Worksafe and its heavy handed financial penalty approach is not constructive to preventing most injuries whereas if it were actively involved with companies and workers to collectively find solutions that would be the constructive way to achieve everyone’s goals of making safe and productive workplaces.

Remember that there will be no jobs unless they are productive jobs. There will be no job creators if it seen as an inevitable risks of being charged for things that even Worksafe itself cannot determine without their lawyers finding that it is in fact a breach worthy of a charge. Something wrong with that picture as well.

The concept of dummy proofing as well as taking for granted that someone else has made and keeps a perfectly safe workplace is the cause for complacency of individuals and IMO that causes most accidents and injuries not just in the workplace but in every walk of life.

Everyone is responsible and yet everyone is human.

Absolutely, foresight, very well put. Your analogy to the ‘Titanic’ is one I was thinking about myself, before I read your comments.

I am more than certain that the overwhelming majority of employers do their very best to have as safe a workplace as possible given the very real financial constraints we are all subjected to.

And Worksafe should indeed drop the heavy handed penalty approach except in those rare instances where it is clear there is a willful avoidance of known safe work practices.

My own past experience with most Worksafe inspectors I’ve met over the years is that when they are left to pursue their proper objective of actually ensuring workplace safety instead of being charged with being another source of government revenue, many have a wealth of experience in both spotting potential hazards both employees and employers may often inadevertantly overlook, and can often recommend how they may be rectified from what they’ve seen elsewhere.

To me, that is the kind of approach that should be taken. Sadly, in recent years, that hasn’t often been the approach taken at all. Penalisation seems to be more the goal now, along with ensuring Worksafe has covered its own butt if any safety issues do occur.

Somewhere there has to be a reasonable balance between doing a minimum of inspecting for the maximum returns of penalties, as we’ve had under the Liberals; and having an agency so bloated and bureaucratic it literally has to invent supposed safety concerns to justify its inspectors continual visits, as we once were subjected to under the NDP.