Ontario’s chief coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer has unveiled the government’s new construction death review protocols, promising more experts will be involved, extensive scrutiny of data and trends, speedier resolution and better consultation with the families and co-workers of the victims.
The system will create a new secretariat composed of members of the Office of the Chief Coroner that will provide logistical, policy and investigative support to a lead coroner and a new advisory committee that will conduct reviews.
Huyer outlined the new procedures as part of his presentation of the Construction Death Review report to members of the Ontario Building Trades at their Windsor conference recently. He made it clear the Building Trades had informed and influenced the overhaul plan and would play a key role on the advisory committee.
Three members of the Building Trades Council will sit on the inaugural 11-person advisory committee including LIUNA general counsel Sean McFarling, Operating Engineers executive Brian Alexander and Building Trades director of occupational services Carmine Tiano.
“The good thing is, the very fact that now you’re going to have reps from labour, from industry, from government, looking at trends, figuring out what’s happening, and we can start targeting things right away,” said Tiano in an interview.
“I’m really optimistic that we’ll be in a better place in a couple of years.”
The WSIB has determined there were 20 deaths in the Ontario construction sector in 2020, 28 in 2021, 27 in 2022 and 24 in 2023.
The new procedures replace the system of mandatory inquests into each death that had been in place since the 1970s. The inquests were conducted with a jury of laypersons. By the time the attorney general and solicitor general announced they were scrapping the mandatory system last November, there was a backlog of over 100 cases with the gap between a death and the inquest ranging from two or three years to over a decade.
“It provides us the framework to do what we do,” said Huyer. “Some of the highlights are, we can get all the information that we need to get related to that individual death. We have the authority to talk to people. We have authority to get records. We have the ability to seek perspectives from anybody who was working there at that time. We have involvement of families to help us understand particular issues.”
The committee will be looking for similar trends, causes or factors that may be present, Huyer said, assessing timelines, determining who may be involved and how, and which deaths will be grouped and reviewed.
Huyer explained there will be three interconnected and overlapping steps in the death investigation process that would be concluded sequentially within the new legislated time frame outlined in the Coroners Act — within the third year after the construction death.
There will be a coroners’ investigation established within several weeks of the mishap to gather data and uncover underlying factors that may have contributed to the death; a Ministry of Labour investigation or criminal investigation to determine if charges will be laid; and a new Construction Death Review involving the advisory committee that examines the circumstances of each death on an individual and systemic level.
Reviews are required by legislation to conclude in a report released annually in June, roughly 18 to 30 months following the death.
The advisory committee will release recommendations to the lead coroner.
Tiano said he expects the deliberations of the advisory committee will be far reaching, potentially including the roles of all participants and practices in Ontario’s occupational health and safety hierarchy.
“We have robust health and safety dynamics in this province that we need to utilize to prevent workers from dying,” he said. “Are we being given enough money to target the important areas?”
Besides the Building Trades Council members, the advisory committee is composed of representatives from the coroner’s office, the Ministry of Labour (Prevention Division and Fair, Safe and Healthy Workplaces Division), construction owner organizations and health and safety associations.
The Prevention Division of the MOL includes chief prevention officer Dr. Joel Moody.
The Threads of Life organization, which represents victims of workplace deaths, will be given a standing committee invitation.
Building Trades business manager Marc Arsenault noted Minister of Labour David Piccini attended a roundtable discussion with the organization’s executive board during the October 2023 convention and “the overarching message was, all efforts need to be made to address, in a meaningful way, the construction fatality numbers that have not changed over the last decade.”
A year later the advisory committee process has been formalized.
“We have the utmost confidence with the representation on the committee from the Ontario building trades, with the access to the brain power of our affiliates…We’re very excited about that,” Arsenault said.
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