Maple Leaf Foods fined $200,000 for worker injuries at Kitchener, Ont., factory

KITCHENER, Ont. – Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has been fined $200,000 for two separate workplace injuries at its Kitchener factory.

In the first incident on July 26, 2010 a worker had his arm crushed while removing a jam from a cardboard box machine.

On Dec. 29 of that year a worker at the same factory had their hand pulled into a conveyor system after dislodging a piece of plastic stuck in a machine.

The province says an Ontario judge has fined the company $100,000 for each incident under Ontario’s workplace safety law.

The court also imposed a mandatory 25-per-cent fine surcharge that will go to a provincial fund assisting crime victims.

Maple Leaf Foods announced last year it would close its plant and distribution centre in Kitchener by 2014.