A developer and two contractors are facing nearly two dozen charges in connection with the death of a labourer who died after a trench he was working in collapsed in Westmount on April 28, 2015.
Haya Homes Ltd., Sahib Contracting Inc. and Sukhwinder Nagra have been charged.
Haya Homes Ltd. is facing six counts under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act, including failing to ensure regulations were complied with on the work site, making sure Sahib Contracting Inc. complied with Section 443 of the OHS code (stabilizing the soil in an excavation) and failing to ensure Sahib Contracting Inc. was competent to excavate.
Sahib Contracting Inc. is facing seven counts under the OHS Act, including failing to ensure the health and safety of a worker, failing to assess the work site and identify potential hazards, failing to stabilize the soil in an excavation and failing to provide workers with a safe way to enter and leave an excavation.
Sukhwinder Nagra is facing eight counts under the OHS Act, including failing to protect the health and safety of another worker present, performing work that may endanger the worker or others when he was not competent to perform that work, failing to assess a work site and identify existing or potential hazards before work began and failing to stabilize the soil in an excavation by shoring or cutting back.
READ MORE: ‘We just dug until we found him’: Man found dead in collapsed trench
On the afternoon of April 28, 2015, a 55-year-old man was buried while working on a sewer line near 123 Street and 107 Avenue.
The man was working as a labourer for a landscaping company that was connecting a new sewer line from the city’s drainage line to a residential home under construction.
According to the labour ministry, the only other person working on the sewer line was the excavator operator.
While in the trench, the south wall collapsed, trapping the labourer and fatally injuring him, a spokesman for the ministry said.
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