Journal Of Commerce
On this special episode of The Construction Record Podcast, digital media editor Warren Frey speaks to British Columbia construction and safety stakeholders about a rising number of work-related deaths as they observe the 43rd anniversary of the tragic incident at the Bentall IV building in Vancouver that claimed four lives on Jan. 7, 1981.
BC Building Trades executive director Brynn Bourke hosted the event and addressed startling statistics both at the event and afterwards in an interview. Fifty-four people died in 2022 at the workplace, 28 due to trauma and 26 due to exposure to harmful materials, representing a 74 per cent increase from the average number of annual construction worker deaths over the previous three decades.
She also spoke to the need to address the opioid crisis and mental health, as well as cautioning all levels of government looking to quickly build affordable housing to not lose sight of worker safety while doing so.
We also spoke with WorkSafeBC senior manager of prevention field services Suzana Pripic both about the 2022 statistics and new asbestos regulations that came into effect on January 1 and with asbestos reform advocate Lee Loftus about the good of the new rules along with more work still that needs to be done.
Thanks for listening to this special episode of The Construction Record Podcast. You can listen to other episodes on the Daily Commercial News and Journal of Commerce websites as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music’s podcast section. Our most recent interview with John Tenpenny about ReNew Canada’s 2024 list of Canada’s top infrastructure projects is here.