Law Times

Law Times ��� March 25, 2013 Page 11 FOCUS Health and safety litigation Tank collapse at energy site nets record fine A tank collapse at an oilsands site has resulted in the largest fine imposed under Alberta���s Occupational Health and Safety Act. The court fined Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co. Ltd. $1.5 million after the company pleaded guilty to three charges under the occupational health and safety legislation. The fine comes after an accident that left two workers dead and two others seriously injured. Initially, the company faced 53 charges under the act. The decision highlights the importance of this type of legislation in fields where the work can put workers��� health and safety at risk. ���I���m not a bit surprised,��� says Michael Styczen, an associate at Davis LLP in Calgary, of the result. ���When you look through the facts and you look at the sort of things that happened that led up to two workers being killed and a number of other workers being injured . . . this was probably the right case for the maximum fine.��� According to the dissenting judge���s recitation of the facts in a separate Alberta Court of Appeal decision on an issue of service, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. had been constructing an oilsands extraction facility in Fort McMurray, Alta. It retained Sinopec Shanghai Engineering, a Chinese company, to construct several large storage tanks as part of the facility. The Chinese company created SSEC Canada Ltd., a Canadian entity that entered into a contract with CNRL. On April 24, 2007, there was a tank collapse at the site that resulted in the injuries and deaths leading to the charges. Another tank collapse occurred in the summer of 2007, but no one died in that accident. What was remarkable about the case to Styczen was the fact that there were foreign workers involved. Sinopec brought in approximately 132 temporary foreign workers from China to work on the oilsands project. ���It���s the sort of thing that would be difficult to imagine in a circumstance where you had Canadian-trained workers because a lot of the Canadian workers are very good about knowing their rights to refuse work, knowing their rights under occupational health and safety legislation.��� He thinks the case serves to reinforce the importance of making workers aware of their rights. Styczen also found it interesting that almost all of the $1.5-million fine would go to a fund to educate new workers on their rights under occupational health and safety legislation, oilsands need to play by Canadian rules.��� Styczen suggests the lack of a certified engineer contributed to the tank collapse. He notes a certified engineer didn���t certify procedures related to a redesign of the way the tanks were constructed. ���If Sinopec had realized you require a professional engineer to certify these plans, a professional engineer never would have let this happen,��� he says. ���This is a case where pretty much everything went wrong,��� he adds. ���To a large extent, compliance with occupational health and safety laws relies on people doing their jobs. It relies on engineers doing their jobs and owners hiring professional engineers because there���s not a government inspector looking at every piece of construction.��� Styczen notes the Association of Professional Engineers and including younger employees who are new to a workplace, foreign workers, and those who are new to Canada. ���A well-informed workforce who know of their rights to walk off the job without reprisal seems to me to be the best way to prevent something like this from happening again.��� But according to a press release from the Alberta Federation of Labour, the $1.5-million fine ���will do nothing to deter [Sinopec] from practices that endanger workers.��� The federation says the fines are too small to make a difference to the company. ���This fine does nothing to dissuade them from playing fast and loose with the safety of their workforce,��� said Gil McGowan, president of the federation, in a press release. ���Alberta missed its chance to send a message that Chinese companies working in the indicating it accepted the court���s decision on the charges and the use of the fine to fund a training and education program. A public relations representative and counsel for the company advised they couldn���t provide further comment. While the case occurred in Alberta, Styczen doesn���t think it���s unique to that province. ���There are lessons here in what happened for everybody in Canada, certainly nothing specific to Alberta. ���The provinces all have similar legislation in the sense that owners, employers have similar responsibilities to ensure the care of, ensure the health and safety of people working on their sites and I don���t think the result would be any different in any of the Canadian jurisdictions. If people had followed the law the way it was written, this never would have happened.��� LT ���If people had followed the law the way it was written, this never would have happened,��� says Michael Styczen. Geoscientists of Alberta recently conducted an investigation into Sinopec but there���s no report on their findings yet. 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