MYSTERY MUDDLES LAWSUIT
The Rideau Canal Celtic Cross case
A lawsuit has partially solved a mystery surrounding the collapse of a monument along the Rideau Canal.
It’s also deepening a labour group’s curiosity about unsanctioned alterations that may have been made to the stone before it broke last year.
The Ottawa and District Labour Council installed the Rideau Canal Celtic Cross in 2004 to honour those workers who died building the canal between 1826 and 1832.
The monument, located along a path where the canal meets the Ottawa River, was found busted into multiple pieces on Aug. 14, 2017. The broken monument revealed two pins attached to the base.
How the monument was broken would remain a mystery for several months.
Then, in April of this year, Brandon Anderson filed a statement of claim for $2 million at the Ottawa courthouse.
In the lawsuit, the Ottawa man blames the labour groups, the federal government and the monument builder for his injuries and the cost of his medical treatment, stemming from the collapsed monument.
According to his version of the events, Anderson visited the monument after getting off a tour boat and asked a friend to take a picture. He put his right foot on the base of the cross and stood up, extending his right arm around the cross. The cross separated from the base and fell forward on his right hand and arm, the suit alleges.
His injuries, according to the lawsuit, included multiple fractures to his dominant right hand and soft-tissue injuries to his right arm, leg and knee. The list of alleged suffering includes chronic pain, loss of strength and motion, diminished dexterity, increased anger and frustration and loss of motivation. He has incurred expenses for medical care and rehabilitation and might need extended treatment, the lawsuit says. On top of that, Anderson, who has done work involving physical labour, alleges a loss of income and restrictions to the type of work he can do.
The allegations haven’t been tested in court.
Sean McKenny, president of the Ottawa and District Labour Council, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, is certain the monument was disassembled and rebuilt sometime before it broke.
“We know for sure it was taken down before,” McKenny said.
The smoking gun, in the labour council’s eyes, is the extra pin inside the monument structure. It was installed in 2004 with only one pin.
McKenny thinks the monument might have been moved for the Red Bull Crashed Ice races in March 2017. The races were a flagship attraction for the city ’s Ottawa 2017 program celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday. The course, which helmeted skaters raced down on a frigid but picturesque Ottawa night, was built above the canal.
The problem is, no one who would have a record of the monument’s disassembly has so far produced documented proof that it happened.
At city hall, the director of the Ottawa 2017 operations and special events branch, Dan Brisebois, said to the city’s knowledge the monument wasn’t affected during the Crashed Ice preparations or the event itself.
Gary Foster, president of Campbell Monument, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the claim, other than to say that the Belleville-based company in 2004 installed the monument “above and beyond industry standards” and did it with one support pin.
That leaves Parks Canada, which oversees the canal corridor. The agency declined to comment to “safeguard the integrity of the legal process.”
It would be strange for the owner of the monument, the labour council, not to be notified if the structure was taken apart.
If another party was involved in the alteration of the monument, it could inform how a court decides on matters of responsibility.
The federal government owns the land, but not the monument.
The Attorney General of Canada has filed a statement of defence dismissing the lawsuit’s claims that the federal Crown should be blamed for the plaintiff’s injuries. The plaintiff was negligent because he “engaged in horseplay” and caused the cross to fall, the statement of defence says.
Even if the claim has merit, the labour groups and monument builder should be liable, not the feds, the attorney general’s statement of defence says. The attorney general has also filed a cross-claim, calling for the other defendants to be liable for any damages.
Kevin Butler, the plaintiff ’s lawyer, disputes the attorney general’s claim that horseplay was involved and contends the man was just taking a picture.
Butler wasn’t aware of the labour council’s belief that the monument was disassembled and rebuilt sometime before his client’s involvement with it.
The labour council replaced and rededicated the monument last April.