Canadian Safety Reporter

December 2014

Focuses on occupational health and safety issues at a strategic level. Designed for employers, HR managers and OHS professionals, it features news, case studies on best practices and practical tips to ensure the safest possible working environment.

Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/449291

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 2 of 7

3 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2014 News | December 2014 | CSR Final report released on fatal Elliot Lake mall collapse Public inquiry makes 71 recommendations BY SABRINA NANJI THE PUBLIC INQUIRY into the fatal Algo Centre Mall collapse in Elliot Lake, Ont., in 2012 has re- leased its final report, putting the blame on "human error." Led by Justice Paul Belanger, the public inquiry delved into the roof collapse at the shopping mall that killed two women — Doloris Perizzolo and Lucie Aylwin. In his report — which clocks in at 1,394 pages — Belanger noted that, despite the incontrovertible evidence pointing to severe rust- ing between a beam and column causing the roof to buckle, hu- man error was unequivocally to blame. "Many of those whose calling or occupation touched the mall displayed failings," Belanger said. "Some of these failings were mi- nor, some were not: they ranged from apathy, neglect and indif- ference, through mediocrity, ineptitude and incompetence to outright greed, obfuscation and duplicity." As part of his 71 recommenda- tions, Belanger said there should be a province-wide requirement that buildings be maintained to a minimum standard to ensure public safety. As such, all buildings should be properly inspected by quali- fied structural engineers when a building is sold and, at a mini- mum, at a frequency that is com- mensurate with the risk of harm from a failure to meet that stan- dard. "The standards should be en- forceable by a simple and practi- cal process which requires that the responsible public authori- ties are accountable for the deci- sions they make and the actions they take," Belanger said. "Some of my recommenda- tions are meant to provide more rapid provincial advisory as- sistance and support to smaller municipalities that do not have the financial means to afford the sophisticated systems that large upper-tier municipalities enjoy when faced with a local emer- gency." Those charged with determin- ing the safety standard of the buildings, including professional engineers, municipal officials and Ministry of Labour inspec- tors, should also be appropriately trained and certified, and their conclusions should be made readily and publicly available and accessible, he added. The Elliot Lake mall focused the microscope on account- ability when it comes to safety. Because there were many play- ers involved — think designers, builders, owners, architects, en- gineers and provincial and mu- nicipal officials — the question has been asked: Where does the responsibility lie? "One thing that is striking is that there are so many hands on this thing, so many fingerprints," said David Law, a partner at Gowlings labour and employ- ment law firm in Ottawa. "There is a lot of contributory negligence from a lot of different places," Law continued, liken- ing the Elliot Lake inquiry to the Westray mine in Nova Scotia, where 26 miners were killed in a methane gas explosion in 1992, despite serious safety concerns raised by employees, union offi- cials and government inspectors. That prompted a public inqui- ry and Bill C-45, which amended the Criminal Code to establish criminal liability for organiza- tions and those who act on their behalf. "Private failures and public inspection failures and no fol- low-up — it was very difficult to prosecute anybody. It was difficult then to deal with these multi-causal (events). There was no one player that did it all," he explained. "Criminal law was amended for exactly that pur- pose." The Algo Centre inquiry also discussed the merits of internal responsibility systems, some- thing Law said everybody in- volved should consider. "It needs more muscle or more energy," he said. "It's a really pow- erful weapon, this notion of in- ternal responsibility. Powerful because it empowers individuals and it also has a legal and moral accountability which is imposes on everybody to take care of each other. That's ultimately a far more effective mechanism than waiting for the authorities." Report will be noticed Though the public inquiry is separate from ongoing criminal, regulatory or civil proceedings, Belanger's report will not go un- noticed said Roger Oatley, the lawyer representing the Aylwin and Perizzolo families in a civil lawsuit against the City of Elliot Lake, Ontario's Ministry of La- bour, the engineering firm, the mall's owners at the time and El- liot Lake's mayor. "It certainly creates atmo- sphere and any judge will be very aware of what Justice Belanger (said). It's a very public condem- nation of everyone who we have alleged is responsible," Oatley said. As for the families affected by the tragedy, Belanger's report provides some form of justice. "What was very satisfying and comforting for the families was that blame net being spread to in- clude everybody that had a hand in this failure," Oatley continued, adding, "We have a history of taking recommendations from inquests and public inquiries and putting them there on a shelf and leaving them there to gather dust…There is a tendency to go from one dramatic event like this to the next one the following day and leave tragedy like this behind because we can't carry it all with us." Belanger ended his report by urging the government to pro- vide a snapshot of its progress of its implementation of his recom- mendations within one year. An OPP officer walks near the rubble at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ont., on June 27, 2012. Rescue workers removed two bodies from a collapsed shopping mall in the northern Ontario town. Credit: Nathan Denette (Reuters)

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Canadian Safety Reporter - December 2014