Kiwa Creek

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

7238 signatures so a bit slow yesterday. Just found
D this this morning.

Prince George, B.C.-  NDP leader Adrian Dix and New Democrat Labour Critic Harry Bains are not giving up on their call for  an independent inquiry into the  fatal explosion at  the Babine Forest Products sawmill  of January  2012.
“We met with family and injured workers  last night in Burns Lake” says Dix “We presented to them a proposed  terms of reference for such an  inquiry.”  That session lasted about  four hours.
Dix says he hopes to publicly release the proposed terms of reference by the end of this week once it has been vetted by lawyers  as to the scope of those terms of reference to ensure they meet “all the legal tests required.”
Dix says there is growing support throughout the province for an inquiry  into the  explosion and  why the  investigation was botched. An inquest will be held, likely this fall,  but  Dix says  that inquest will not provide all the answers the families are seeking.  “An inquest is profoundly limited in its scope” says Dix who says he has attended a number of  inquests into the deaths of workers   and not all the  evidence  is presented. “I am  very much in favour of the inquest process, but  it will not deliver either  the answers or the analysis  that a full public inquiry will bring to bear.”
There is an amendment to the Criminal Code in Canada,  which reads:
"217.1 Every one who undertakes, or has the authority, to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task."   
That amendment  is  referred  to as the “Westray law” , a  law  which  was developed in the wake of the 1992 Westray mine  disaster in which 26 miners died when that Nova Scotia  coal mine was ripped  apart by a methane gas explosion.  Dix says since the Westray law came into effect  ( in 2003) “Nobody, not a single company  has  been  prosecuted, or company official  has been prosecuted under that law in British Columbia.  We are talking about work place related deaths in the thousands, and no one has been prosecuted.  What that tells us is that  the system  is not working to bring accountability.”
He says the powers of  a public inquiry are needed to  get to the truth and to see that this kind of  disaster does not happen again in British  Columbia..
I don't like the political help, but help is help.

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/the-honourable-christy-clark-call-for-an-independent-inquiry-into-fatal-babine-forest-products-sawmill-explosion

Picked oranges and grapefruit then bowled in pm. Went to ballroom to watch a bunch of skits put on by local group. I dozed through most of it!

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