Ministry ordered work stopped twice before scaffold deaths

The Toronto construction site where four men died on Christmas Eve was temporarily shut down by the Ministry of Labour months before the accident because of safety concerns.

Provincial documents obtained by CBC News Thursday show that the Ministry of Labour issued a stop-work order on Oct. 20 that temporarily halted construction at the apartment building on Kipling Avenue and Steeles Avenue.

The order listed a number of concerns questioning the equipment being used by Metron Construction. Officials wanted the company to:

• Provide the latest drawings of the roof anchors and the last annual inspection report.
• Provide proper access to the swing stage, which is a suspended platform that supports workers.
• Ensure wire mesh is "securely fastened" from the floor to the top of the guardrail on the swing stages.
• Install additional guardrails.

Metron said it complied with the orders, and the ministry lifted the stop-work order the next day.

The ministry returned to the site on Dec. 17 and issued a second stop-work order for issues relating to a swing stage located at the garage door of the building. A ministry official said the stop-work order was not related to the stage that collapsed, which was at another part of the building.

Metron resolved the issue and the stop-work order was lifted the same day.

Eight days later, five men fell 13 storeys from the swing stage. Only one of the workers survived the fall.

"On at least one occasion, Metron proactively invited the Ministry of Labour to attend the site so that it could satisfy itself, the residents of the building and the property manager of the building that Metron was operating in compliance with all of its legal obligations," said Metron president Joel Swartz in an email to CBC News.

"The Ministry of Labour did attend and was satisfied that Metron continued to be in compliance with all of its obligations."

He did not specify when the company extended the invitation or when ministry officials conducted the inspection.

Criminal charges possible

Police are investigating the incident and will determine whether criminal charges should be laid, a Ministry of Labour spokesman said Wednesday.

The ministry is investigating whether the province's Occupational Health and Safety Act was violated. It can institute its own proceedings leading to fines of $500,000 against a company or jail time for its staff. Investigators haven't said whether the men were wearing safety harnesses, and if so, whether they were clipped in.

Swartz maintained that the company has never been charged with any violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act throughout its 23-year existence. He acknowledged that the "Ministry of Labour attended the site a number of times, as is routine practice, during the course of the project."

"In the coming days and months, we will continue to work with the investigators, including the one we have retained, to determine the cause of this tragic accident," Swartz said.

"On behalf of Metron Construction, our deepest sympathies are with the friends and families of those workers who died and the individual who remains in the hospital."

On Tuesday, Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan called on the province's attorney general to look into whether negligence was a factor in the men's deaths.

Dilshod Mamurov, a 21-year-old man of Uzbek origin, remains in intensive care with broken legs and a shattered spine. Bakhtier Shakhnazarov, a member of Toronto's Uzbek community, says has been visiting the young man in hospital as he has no family in the city.

He said he hasn't had the heart to tell Mamurov his co-workers are dead.

"He ... several times asked about his friends, who … [were] from Uzbekistan as well, but I preferred not to talk about his friends' death," Shakhnazarov said.

The ministry and police have not confirmed the identities of the men who died, saying only that they had "European backgrounds."