Although former premier Gordon Campbell disagrees with a WorkSafeBC ruling concerning the death of a roofer at his vacation home, he said Tuesday he will not appeal it.
Now Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Campbell said he’s more worried about the family of David Lesko, the roofer who died after falling through an open skylight during renovations on the Sunshine Coast home last July 4.
“Throughout this, my concern has been for the worker’s family, for his friends, colleagues and fellow workers on the site,” Campbell said in an email to The Vancouver Sun.
On Monday WorkSafeBC made public an investigation into the accident. It said Lesko, an experienced roofer with Weather Tight Supplies of Sechelt, was wearing a fall arrest harness but hadn’t hooked it into an anchor line. He fell nearly 18 feet to his death.
The investigation revealed that Campbell had not assigned the role of “prime contractor” to any of the companies working on the renovations, and by default was responsible for ensuring all the workers complied with health and safety regulations.
WorkSafeBC said it is considering financially penalizing Weather Tight, and that Campbell would be issued an order but no penalty.
Paul Devine, a Vancouver lawyer who specializes in health and safety law, said most people have no idea they need to assign prime contractor status to a company working on their property, or that they could be held financially liable for any injured workers who aren’t registered with WorkSafeBC.
Campbell, who lives in London, said he ( Read More … )
Source: Vancouver Sun
This is another workplace safety tragedy that occurs more often than not. Every Canadian could find themselves in this same situation, it does not matter what position you hold in society either in the private sector or government it is and has been the law of the land since the mid 1990’s. I became aware of this law and its implications in the late 1990’s in the development of a fall protection system for the construction industry. My efforts to provide answers to this serious issue have taken me far beyond my wildest dreams as an individual that worked his whole life in the construction industry. The information that my website contains is written in plain language so that every person (homeowner) can understand what they need to know and how to apply it. This law for the most part is unknown by the majority of the Canadian population. The basic information that they (homeowners) receive is to ensure that the person you hire carries WCB and liability insurance. Unfortunately there is alot more to this law than those simple procedures as Gordon Campbell has now been made aware of and now regrets.
Posted by David Dahr | April 12, 2012, 3:14 pm