The company was found to have violated the Occupational Health and Safety Act
An Ottawa justice of the peace has convicted construction and mining company EBC after a worker sustained a critical injury from a construction incident. EBC has been ordered to pay a $125,000 fine and a 25% victim fine surcharge pursuant to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
In June 2021, EBC, a construction, mining, and civil engineering company based in Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec, built a concrete cistern in one of its construction sites. The cistern measured six feet deep and 30 inches across.
The formwork for the cistern was eventually removed, but EBC provided no safety measure around the fall hazard except for a 38-inch plywood across the opening, which the Ottawa court later noted had no visible markings identifying it as a cover to the cistern. Work in the construction site then proceeded as usual.
After more work had been done, a worker cleaning the area picked up the plywood cover on the ground and walked straight into the cistern opening, falling to the bottom of the cistern. The worker sustained a critical injury as a result. A co-worker who had witnessed the fall called emergency services. A confined space rope rescue was performed.
Following a guilty plea in the Provincial Offences Court in Ottawa, Justice of the Peace Sylvie Lapointe convicted EBC for violating the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires constructors to ensure the health and safety of their workers on the project are protected.
The justice of the peace found that EBC’s bare plywood covering on the opening to the cistern was not secured in place and not adequately identified.
