“The jury can make recommendations aimed at preventing such deaths in the future, but cannot lay blame.”

4 dead and over 40 injured… and it’s no one’s fault, the government and sawmill companies should take a bow on this one… well played, well played.

What is the point of the inquest if they were to find that someone or an agency was negligent in the explosion?

Makes it look like we are doing something.
How many recommendation are active and how many are shelf dust bunnies?
Jaded much!!

“The jury is tasked with determining the date, time, location and cause of death,”

I am sort of thinking that
1. determining the date is kind of easy
2. exact time might be a bit more difficult
3. location, depending on how detailed in needs to be is also easy.
4. cause, would we say explosion or blunt force trauma or extensive burns, possibly asphyxiation.

I think the autopsy report by the doctor who performed it would have 1, 2, and 4 in the report, if not also 3. I am not sure what else the jury would have to go by.

“as well as classifying the death as accidental, suicide, homicide, natural causes or undetermined.”

That is the interesting one, of course.
1. Accidental. As they say, all accidents are avoidable. If it is that which is selected, then how could it have been avoided and who is responsible for not avoiding it.
2. Suicide. Unlikely it was a suicide pact which ended up in an explosion.
3. Homicide. That is the interesting one. The killing of a person by another person or persons.

We know that under the Criminal Code of Canada criminal homicide is intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causing the death of an individual.

Since the jury has to differentiate between accidental and homicidal deaths, they actually need to partially look at blame. In other words, was the explosion set up intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence?

I feel that recklessly is certainly possible as is criminal negligence. Thus, if the jury believes that, then they would have to rule homicide. If they do that, then it is up to the legal system to figure out who to blame and lay charges when they do.

From what we get to read in the newspaper about the specifics of this incident, and from what one can read from other such industrial incidents which can be applied here, it is certainly not only possible, but it is also likely that several groups of people as well as agencies who had oversight acted without due regard – in other words, they were reckless. In addition, that recklessness could be called negligent since the agencies and people who were reckless were knowledgeable in the industry, what is best practices, standard practice, minimum practice and where there was no compliance to the minimum practice standard.

In my opinion, from what one knows without being on the jury, if they rule accidental, then the jury could be considered to have been negligent.