A report reviewing the government and WorkSafeBC’s actions following two fatal sawmill explosions recommends changes to strengthen and streamline the investigative process, provide more accountability, better supports and safeguards for workers.
On Jan. 20, 2012, two people died and 19 were injured in an explosion at Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake. Three months later, on April 24, two people died and 44 were injured in a similar explosion at Lakeland Mills in Prince George.
A B.C. Coroners Service Inquest into the deaths of four individuals along with two government reports were commissioned in 2014.
These reports along with the 2015 B.C. Coroners Service verdicts included numerous recommendations directed at government and other agencies on how to make improvements to workplace safety, inspections, education, enforcement and investigations.
Lisa Helps, a Vancouver lawyer was contracted earlier this year to assess both government and WorkSafeBC’s progress in implementing the recommendations.
Helps noted that all recommendations from these reports have been implemented.
