Police and health-and-safety investigators to work together
Agreement creates protocols for agencies tasked with probing workplace accidents
Investigations by police and Occupational Health and Safety officials into deaths and injuries on the job in Alberta now must follow a documented set of procedures detailing what needs to happen.
The Westray memorandum of understanding signed Friday at RCMP headquarters in Edmonton between the province and 10 police services provides a “formal set of protocols” between all investigative bodies where none previously existed.
The agreement is named in honour of the Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia in 1992 that killed 26 people.
It means a police service, Occupational Health and Safety officers and the Ministry of Labour will notify each other of workplace incidents as soon as possible and the first authority to arrive will secure the scene to help preserve evidence.
Police and the ministry have also agreed to begin developing a joint procedure for investigating workplace incidents as well as developing a procedure for sharing information.
Plans are also afoot for joint training initiatives.
“This ensures that when there is a serious workplace incident or accident, particularly when there is a death, whoever is responding to that first ... they will have a protocol for working together,” Labour Minister Christina Gray said.
Gray said the agreement will enable “consistency” in investigations in Alberta between Occupational Health and Safety officers and police.
“So no matter where in the province an incident happens, both teams understand their roles and responsibilities when it comes to sharing information,” she said.
Last year in Alberta, 144 people lost their lives on work sites.
Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said around 1,000 workers die every year in Canada “because of something that happened to them at work, and thousands more are seriously injured.”