MORE ON REGION'S LATEST EMPLOYEE FATALITY

Today's Waterloo Region Record has this front page story titled "Construction site shutdown a relief to fall victim's mom". Similar to the Ministry of the Environment, The Ministry of Labour are hell on wheels after the fact for small businesses. I think of all the years I worked on construction (non-union) and never, ever saw a Ministry of Labour inspector. Anyhow a total of 17 work orders were laid on the construction site, including five stop work orders, after the fatality.

At the OMB hearing last week in Elmira dealing with the proposed Hunder gravel pit in Conestoga; we were informed that the average active gravel pit in Ontario will see a Ministry of Natural Resources inspector about once every five years. Again after fourty years working in construction and industry I rarely if ever saw a Ministry of Labour inspector. Ministry of Environment inspectors would come in, by appointment only, twenty years ago, at a licensed hazardous waste disposal site that I worked at in Elmira. Clearly Ontario are great at writing legislation and hopeless at enforcing it. In the case of this most recent fatality, when the smoke clears, let's see if the construction company were flagrantly in violation of safety standards or is the Ministry of Labour simply putting on a show here.