No criminal charges for BC company whose negligence killed a worker: Where's the justice?

WorkSafe BC's March/April 2008 magazine came across my desk to-day and the headline at page 17 blares "Crown prosecutes logging company and owner".

My first thought, of course, was that British Columbia had followed the lead of Quebec and laid its first charge under the Criminal Code for negligence causing death of a worker.

The story is about how, following an investigation into the death of a skidder operator employed by Aaron Goenhuysen Mechanical Ltd.(AGM), WorkSafe BC referred the matter to Crown counsel to pursue prosecution.

WorkSafe had taken this unusual step because it found that "this was an egregious departure from the standard of care required by employers."
The conduct was so bad that it "warranted the stigma of prosecution."

Families of workers killed on the job and unions who advocate for safe workplaces know too well how unusual prosecution is in such cases. The wording of WorkSafe makes a direct reference to negligence (a breach of the standard of care is one element of negligence). It was open to the provincial Attorney-General's office(acting on behalf of the Crown) to choose to prosecute the company and its owner under the Criminal Code. That's what the Quebec Attorney-General did late last year. (see my March 21, 2008 posting on R. v. Transpave).

But British Columbia's prosecutors instead chose the lesser "stigma" of breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. The company and its owner/supervisor plead guilty before a provincial court judge who fined them $60,000 and $20,000 respectively.

In Quebec, the Transpave case involved an equally "egregious a departure from the standard of care required by employers". That death attracted the stigma of criminal prosecution with its attendant criminal record and criminal fine
($110,000.00 in total).

Parliament added the "corporate murder" provision to the Criminal Code to address exactly these kinds of cases. Why is the Criminal Code not being used in British Columbia when workers are killed on the job due to the employer's negligence? And why was it not used in this case?

Check out page 17 of the March/April 2008 WorkSafe magazine at the following url:
http://www.worksafebc.com/publications/newsletters/worksafe_magazine/default.asp