TORONTO—The 2011 death of a worker and injury to another at a Toronto Transit Commission subway construction site in North York has resulted in a $50,000 fine to a subcontractor of the project.
Advanced Construction Techniques Ltd. (ACT) was found guilty on Aug. 16 and sentenced in court on Sept. 26 by Judge Brent Knazan, the ministry of labour recently reported.
On Oct. 11, 2011, workers were on the job site at 4700 Keele St. near York University, where twin bored tunnels are under construction to add an 8.6-kilometre subway line from the existing Downsview Station to the Vaughan Corporate Centre in York Region. The project is being constructed by a limited partnership, 1842887 Ontario Ltd./ OHL-FCC GP Canada Inc., with 1793380 Ontario Ltd./ACT, a company that provides geotechnical construction services, as a subcontractor.
On that afternoon, the drill rig operator raised the auger from the hole and swung the mast. The worker saw the boom of the machine going to the right and felt the machine move; witnesses saw the rig moving back and forth with the auger in the air and saw one of the tracks go into a rut. The drill rig suddenly toppled and the mast and casing crushed the excavator as well as the backhoe. A worker operating an excavator was seriously injured and a worker operating a backhoe was killed. Two other workers were also injured by the falling equipment.
The court found that the defendant, ACT, failed to design an adequate work platform for the drill rig by identifying the soil-bearing capacity as required by the manufacturer’s specifications for stability.
The sentence was imposed by Judge Brent Knazan in Old City Hall Court in Toronto.
After two weeks at trial in 2014, OHL-FCC GP Canada Inc. pleaded guilty to failing as a constructor to ensure that safety measures required by the Occupational Health and Safety Act were followed, and was fined $400,000. A subsequent, separate safety violation by the same company resulted in a guilty plea and a $20,000 fine. These sentences were handed down on Nov. 28, 2014.
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