Expert says Ontario legislation for working in confined spaces is a 'bare minimum'
The death of a construction worker in an underground sewer in Mississauga, Ontario last week is a tragedy people who work in confined spaces can’t stop talking about, and one expert thinks it should be a wake-up call for the Ontario government to improve regulations.
“We all talk about it, we think about it, and we say what can we do better,” says Bill Glover, president of Safety Design Strategies, a training and consultancy company.
The incident happened on December 2 while three construction workers were making improvements to the sanitary sewer system. They were inside a watermain at Hurontario street and Burnhamthorpe road. That’s when “a water main burst filling the chamber,” according to the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.
Two of the workers were able to escape, but a 54-year-old man remained unaccounted for until about midnight when his body was recovered after firefighters pumped the water out of the chamber.
Ontario’s labour ministry issued two orders to the employer, Technicore, “one to not disturb the scene and one for the company to provide documents/procedures.”
Canadian Occupational Safety reached out to Technicore for comment but has not received a response.
The ministry is investigating the incident, and Glover acknowledges he doesn’t know the whole story, but he does have questions about what may have gone wrong. “Some procedures might have not been followed, proper lockout for that water to be able to come in, did they have proper blanking?”
These are issues Glover encounters often and he doesn’t want to make allegations against Technicore, but he says he has seen companies cut corners and do the bare minimum under the current legislation governing work in confined spaces.
“We have a minimum guideline on telling companies what they have to follow on training qualifications. They're there in the green book, but they're not implemented, they're not enforced. So, people read between the lines,” says Glover, “it's all about money.”
But a life is priceless, and the steep fines that can follow a workplace death can’t be overlooked either. According to the Canadian Standards Association, it’s estimated more than 100 deaths occur in confined spaces in Canada every year.
Glover wants to see the Ontario government tighten up and enhance the regulations for working in confined spaces under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Glover says there is too much wiggle room in the way it is currently written.
“There's a lot of open areas and a lot of interpretation. The green book is bare minimum for all of us to follow. You can't go below it, but you can go above it. And that's what we're trying to get the government to do, to go more above.”
Glover thinks until the regulations are improved, he’ll continue to see companies put cost-saving measures ahead of safety when it comes to working in confined spaces.
