Forestry Inquest Recommendations Welcomed
Forestry TruckSafe & Northern Initiatives Director, MaryAnne Arcand, is hailing recommendations from the Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Joseph Jules Francois (Frank) Leroux. (click here for previous story)
Arcand attended the inquest conducted by Forestry Coroner Tom Pawlowksi and was called on to testify. After listening to the jury deliver its 17 safety-oriented recommendations, Arcand buoyed, "(The recommendations are) do-able, practical, sensible - I’m happy."
Arcand says she was happy the jury put all the industry players on a level field - delegating responsibility for improving industry safety amongst those with the power and mandate to make changes. The jury directed its recommendations to the Ministry of Forests, BC Forest Safety Council, WorkSafe BC, and ICBC.
Forestry TruckSafe falls under the BC Forest Safety Council and Arcand says she’s quite confident the groups could coordinate their efforts to bring many of the recommendations to light.
She also notes that the jury’s recommendations to the Ministry of Forests are aimed at embedding safety procedures into how the Ministry does business, rather than putting the onus on the contractors and operators out in the forests.
NDP Forests Critic, Bob Simpson, was also at the Prince George Courthouse when the jury returned with its non-binding recommendations. He says was not surprised that the main thrust of the recommendations for the MoF and WorkSafe BC centred on beefing up safety regulations. He says theey’re an indictment of the de-regulation that has occurred under the Liberal Government in the forest sector.
The Cariboo North MLA agrees with Arcand that the suggestions are fair, reasonable and completely do-able, but says they go against the government’s ideological ’bend’ of de-regulating. And Simpson says he’s convinced that when the Auditor-General releases his report on forest safety later this summer, that document will provide further confirmation that it’s the lack of regulations that’s creating safety hazards within the industry.
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Posted by: owl on June 28 2007 12:34 PM
AND the lack of understanding of the regulations which exist.
AND the lack of sufficient funding for ministries to carry out the required awareness raising, oversight and enforcement.
AND the mistaken belief that putting the responsibility onto contractors via their contracts will take care of it.
I think the regulations are there and have been for some time. Not only that, but the notion of due diligence when it comes to industrial safety has been around for some time. Every industrial plant I have ever visited in the last few decades displays signs of the number of lost time incidents including fatal accidents.
In addition to that we have had the Westray mine incident in 1992 which gave rise some 10+ years later to a change in the Criminal Code toughening the laws dealing with criminal liability of industrial corporations and organization.
Westray killed 26 in a single incident. Forestry accidents do not happen in single incidents such as that but, over time, kill more than that. We are lucky to get a coroner looking into this situation. It should be a common occurrence, but isn’t. That should have been a recommendation of the jury. That is the only way we will ever learn whether the parties hit with recommendations are doing their job.
Wed do not need more regulations. We need people to do their jobs, become familiar with existing regulations, understands what due diligence means and take responsibility for those which rightfully belong to them and don’t wash their hands of it because of some legal mumbo jumbo that will likely not stand up in a court with a good lawyer acting on behalf of an injured party anyway.