Family of man killed in workplace incident disappointed by owner's absence in court

Relatives of a western Quebec man killed in a workplace accident in 2023 said they were devastated his boss did not appear in person as his flooring company pleaded guilty to workplace safety charges on Thursday. 

Southgate Carpets was fined $100,000 plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge over workplace safety violations leading to the death of Ron Hill, 62, who died doing demolition work for his employer on a weekend in September 2023. 

As proceedings were under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and not criminal or civil, Southgate Carpets owner Mike Charaf was not legally required to attend the provincial offences court in Ottawa. Although Charaf was working with Hill when the employee fell from a roof to his death, it was Charaf's wife Mariam who appeared as a representative of the company.

"Man up, be there," Hill's sister Lynn Chénier said of Charaf's absence after she had read her victim impact statement. 

"When there are family members there reading an impact statement, the owner of the company should be there," she told CBC.

Family hears detailed account

Thursday's hearing was the first time Hill's family heard a detailed account of the events leading to the death of their loved one. 

Although Hill was employed by a company that predominantly did flooring, he had agreed to a side job on a Sunday demolishing a house owned by Charaf.

According to an agreed statement of facts submitted as part of the company's guilty plea, Hill and Charaf were removing roofing trusses, with Hill atop a wall and Charaf operating an excavator.

Hill had attached a truss to the excavator when Charaf began reversing, looking behind him and not at Hill. 

Hearing a loud sound, Charaf turned around to see Hill was no longer on the wall. Charaf found Hill on the ground inside the partially demolished house. Emergency services transported Hill to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Following the incident, four charges were laid against Southgate Carpets under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. 

At Thursday's hearing, Southgate Carpets pleaded guilty to failing to store and move material in a manner that does not endanger a worker, and breaching a requirement against workers standing on walls to remove material without scaffolding, flooring or staging in place. 

As part of the guilty plea, the Crown withdrew two other charges relating to scaffolding and fall protection measures.

'I feel his absence in everything I do'

Following the guilty plea, Hill's relatives read victim impact statements describing a warm and generous man whose death left a gaping hole in their family.

Hill's adult sons Chris and David described losing their best friend and suffering ongoing nightmares about their father's death. 

"Ever since that terrible Sunday, I feel his absence in everything I do," Chris Hill said.

He went on to describe the impact of his father's death on his own children. "To them, he was more than a grandfather — he was their hero, their teacher, their safe space."

A statement read by the lawyer for Southgate Carpets expressed sadness at Hill's death, which had "shattered" Mike Charaf, leaving him "consumed by depression and anxiety."

The statement did not acknowledge specific wrongdoing or offer a direct apology to Hill's family but said Mike Charaf "carries an unbearable weight of grief every waking moment."

Crown counsel and Southgate Carpets agreed that the death of an employee was the most severe outcome of a workplace safety violation, warranting a heavy fine. 

Mitigating the penalty was the small size of Southgate Carpets, its early guilty plea and its owner's commitment to stick to its core business of flooring in future, and not perform further demolitions. 

Afterward, Chris Hill expressed dismay at the conditions his father had been working under. "Fifteen years in construction and I've never seen an excavator used to remove trusses," he said.

But Ron Hill's younger brother Perry Hill said the hearing would bring some solace to the family, including their 93-year-old father. 

"I finally got closure for what had happened to my brother and I'm sure the whole family will be relieved to find out what transpired, especially my dad," he said.