N.S. Labour Department creating position to try to help grieving families

Nova Scotia's Department of Labour says it is creating a new full-time liaison position in hopes of improving communications with people who were injured at work and the families of people who died on the job. 

The move is a response to families who have long said it's challenging to get information about an investigation following a workplace fatality, said Gary O'Toole, senior executive director with the safety branch of the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration.

"We understand very well that there's a lot of frustration on the part of families who are waiting for the results of an investigation, waiting to hear details of their loved ones and what happened to them," he said. "And of course, they deserve to have those answers."

When someone dies at work, the province launches an investigation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to determine if there have been any safety violations. The legislation sets out that any prosecution that results must start within two years of an offence. 

There will continue to be limits on what information can be shared with families during an investigation so that evidence is preserved before charges are laid, said O'Toole. 

"In a court, you want to make sure that people are hearing information for the first time in a court and are not biased or influenced in any way with that information," he said. "But can we do better in just describing what those steps are? Absolutely."

Shannon Kempton has long called for changes to the way the province treats families. Her father, Peter, died in 2013 of severe burns he sustained working as a mechanic in Dartmouth, N.S. 

It took three months — and only after "harassing" Department of Labour staff — for anyone to confirm the province was looking into what happened, Kempton said.

The investigator assigned to the case would call every six weeks but only ever told her charges were coming, she said.  

"You get your hopes up and at the end of the day ... it was lip service," she told CBC from Middle Musquodoboit, N.S. 

'In the dark' about case

Kempton said it would go a long way for someone to contact families within 48 hours of an incident and to provide specific information — for instance, whether witness interviews were finished or if a prosecutor was in the process of reviewing the file. 

Her father's employer was finally charged 10 days shy of the two-year anniversary of Peter Kempton's death. After that point, victim services workers from the Department of Justice have helped guide her family through the various parts of the long court process. 

"They were phenomenal and they helped me every step of the way. But for those two years in between, I was sort of in the dark as to what was going on, who to contact, what to do next. You know, emails would be sent, they came back unanswered or you'd get those auto responses," Kempton said.

She said she's seen the same problems repeat themselves for the family of Andrew Gnazdowsky, an engineer from Rothesay, N.B., who drowned last October while working as a subcontractor at a Nova Scotia Power dam near Sheet Harbour, N.S. 

It wasn't until his family contacted WorkSafe NB that they were connected with a Nova Scotia Department of Labour investigator. Last winter, Kempton attended meetings with department officials at the request of Andrew's sister, Nicole.

Family receives monthly email

After Nicole Gnazdowsky shared publicly her frustrations about the quality of the investigation, the department stopped discussing details of the case with her and her parents. An official who had spoken frankly to her about information gathered later described her as "hostile."

They now receive a brief monthly email from the Department of Justice. 

O'Toole contacted Gnazdowsky about the plans for the new position, but she doesn't think another staffer is the answer. She worries it will be "another barrier between families and the people that actually have the truth."

"We're now being put even a step further away from what's actually going on," Gnazdowsky said.

Kempton shares some of that scepticism. Earlier this year, the Labour Department asked her for input on a brochure it was putting together to send to grieving families. She responded with two pages of feedback, including that there be a liaison for families who could give honest updates about the status of cases.

She said she hasn't heard anything from the department since and thinks officials should talk to families about what exactly they need. 

"If the point of the [new] role is just to continue to tell families that we have two years to investigate and lay charges, then what's the point?" she said.

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