The company was guilty
of the charge because no
one provided the required
training to the worker
killed in the explosion. completely destroyed. At the time of the explosion, there
for all industries, particularly when it comes to employee
were two employees on site; one was able to escape with
training and fines for individuals.
minor injuries, but the other was killed.
The main conviction with applications outside of the
Unlike the Metron case, this case dealt with statutory fines
propane industry was the charge for failing to provide
rather than fines for criminal negligence. The defendants
instruction, information and supervision to a worker to protect
were convicted under the Ontario EPA as well as under the
health. The company was guilty of the charge because no
Ontario OHSA. Many of the charges were specific to the propane
one provided the required training to the worker killed in the
industry, but some of the charges will have implications
explosion. The company had three employees who trained
workers and none of the three provided
training to the employee. There
was no documentation showing that
the employee had been trained. The
defendant argued that the documentation
may have been destroyed in
the explosion and the three trainers
may not have remembered training
the employee, but the court said that
by showing that none of the three
trainers remembered training the
employee was sufficient.
On the charge of failing to provide
instruction, information and supervision
to a worker to protect health, the
Crown proposed that Sunrise Propane
pay a fine of $250,000. The court agreed
with the $250,000 fine suggested by
the Crown exclusive of any victim
fine surcharges against the defendant
Sunrise Propane Energy Group. The
court found that the failure to provide
COM
training to be an aggravating factor for
sentencing purposes, as such training
SHUTTERSTOCK.would have been inexpensive and
easily provided. Another aggravating
factor was that the defendants
MORETTO/had previously discovered another
DEL employee who had been working without
GIULIANO the proper training.
84 Q2 2016 www.pilingcanada.ca
LEGAL
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