Ontario engineers continue Elliot Lake mall collapse investigation

The body that regulates professional engineers says it continues to investigate the conduct of members involved with the Algo Centre Mall.

The public inquiry report into the fatal roof collapse released earlier this week was highly critical of the work of some engineers involved with the troubled structure over its 33 year history.

Chris Roney is a structural engineer who sat on a special Elliot Lake Advisory Committee for Professional Engineers Ontario.

"Where those engineers did fail to meet their moral and ethical and legal obligations, PEO as the regulator will deal with that," he said.

"There are currently active ongoing investigations into the conduct of engineers that were involved in the Algo Centre Mall."

Lucie Aylwin, 37, and Doloris Perizzolo, 74, died and 19 others were hurt when the roof-top parking deck at the mall gave way in June of 2012 after decades of water penetration corroded the steel structure below.

PEO was involved in advising the public inquiry on the engineering profession. Roney said the organization is pleased to see many of its recommendations reflected in the final report.

Those included stronger standards of specialization for structural engineers and a public database of structural reports done on major commercial or public buildings.

"As a profession as a whole, I think we will be judged, and the profession will be judged, really on how we responded to this tragedy," Roney said.

The final engineer to inspect the Algo Centre Mall is facing two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. 

Robert Wood is expected to be back in court in Elliot Lake Friday.