Lakeland inquest adjourned
Coroner postpones proceedings to review new evidence
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnieben@pgcitizen.ca
Coroner Lisa Lapointe adjourned Wednesday the inquest into the Lakeland Mills sawmill explosion to a later date to give counsel time to go over new evidence in the form of an investigation into the fatal blast commissioned on behalf of the operation’s owners.
In the process, Lapointe took WorkSafeBC to task for failing to disclose that it knew of the investigation prior to the inquest, which has now gone on for two-and-a-half weeks, after coroner’s counsel John Orr pinned the blame on the agency for the oversight.
“You don’t get to filter, that is not your role,” Lapointe said.
“And in fact, I would say as participants you have a legal responsibility that anything you have in your possession or information that you know about needs to be brought forward and then I can decide if it’s relevant.”
Orr asked for the adjournment two days after Lakeland counsel Gavin Marshall provided the inquest with memory sticks holding material from an investigation carried out by a forensic engineer, Seattle-based CASE Forensics.
The memory sticks contained a “large volume” of information but no final report on what the firm thought had happened, Marshall told the inquest.
Orr said Wednesday that since then, Marshall also provided him with an email chain showing that even though it was privileged, he had offered to share the material with Work-SafeBC before the agency’s final report on the Lakeland explosion had been completed.
WorkSafeBC’s investigations director declined the offer and Orr said that raises questions about the quality of the agency’s own investigation and conclusions regarding the April 23, 2012 incident, which left two men dead and 22 others injured, many seriously.
“What concerns me, is WorkSafe did not share that information with the Coroners
mi am significantly disappointed that information was known to people... and they chose not to share it.
— Coroner Lisa Lapointe
Service,” Orr said, and noted WorkSafeBC was aware of the CASE Forensics investigation since at least Nov. 17, 2012.
Orr said CASE Forensics lead investigator, Paul Way, is willing to testify either in person or by teleconference and also suggested Work-SafeBC’s chief executive officer at the time, David Anderson, will be called to testify and explain why the decision was made to proceed without the material.
“It is unfortunate that this comes out at this stage in the proceedings and was not disclosed (before the inquest),” Orr said.
“There were pre-hearing meetings before the inquest started with all counsel and this was not disclosed before then.”
Orr said it would be wrong to proceed in the absence of the material, given that the purpose of an inquest is to provide the public and the inquest jury with all of the information available about the circumstances surrounding an incident. In endorsing Orr’s call to adjourn, Lapointe went on to say it’s an offence under the Coroners Act to neglect to supply information related to an incident.
“I am significantly disappointed that information was known to people...and they chose not to share it,” Lapointe said. That a separate investigation had been conducted on Lakeland’s behalf had been alluded to throughout the inquest and Orr acknowledged companies routinely get their own investigations done for insurance and other purposes.
“We did ask about that,” Orr said during a scrum with local media. “What we were told was WorkSafe told them they didn’t need to. And I, if you remember, I kept asking if the
company did an investigation and the answer I kept hearing was no, they didn’t.
“That was technically correct, the company didn’t, the law firm retained CASE Forensics. The investigation was done but I asked the wrong question, I suppose.”
Orr said he hopes the adjournment will not affect scheduling of the inquest into the explosion at Babine Forest Products, which is set to begin July 13 in Burns Lake.
“It may actually make the flow of Babine easier, because we’ll have dealt with so many of the issues here,” Orr said.
Like Lakeland, WorkSafeBC concluded the explosion at Babine was fueled by the fine, dry sawdust from the beetle-killed pine the mill was processing. The Jan. 20, 2012 incident also killed two men and left about 20 more injured.
The United Steelworkers, which withdrew its counsel from the inquest on Monday morning, said the adjournment provides further support for a public inquiry into the circumstances that led to the explosions at both Babine and Lakeland. While Lapointe has committed to a thorough review, “it’s become clear the limitations of an inquest will not allow this to happen,” the union said in a statement.
Greg Stewart, president of Sinclar Group Forest Products, which owns Lakeland, said he was disappointed in the adjournment.
“We had hoped this would be completed by the end of the week, and we had some feeling there was possibly a solution but unfortunately that wasn’t an option today,” Stewart said.
Lapointe had made her decision without asking other counsel sitting in on the inquest for submissions and later Wednesday, company spokesman Cam McAlpine said Stewart’s comment went mainly to that fact.
“If she had allowed discussion of what other options might be possible, we feel she could have achieved the stated objective of a full and fair airing of the facts in an expeditious manner that doesn’t leave this issue hanging over the community for weeks or months to come,” McAlpine said.
WorkSafeBC declined to comment Wednesday.
Inquest decision sparks backlash
Charelle EVELYN Citizen staff cevelyn@pgcitizen.ca
Coroner Lisa Lapointe’s move to adjourn the inquest into the fatal Lakeland Mills sawmill explosion caused ripples through Victoria on Wednesday.
The proceedings at the Prince George courthouse stalled after it came to light that Work-SafeBC had known for two years about an independent investigation commissioned by Lakeland’s lawyers into the April 23, 2012 blast that killed two employes and injured nearly two dozen others.
The B.C. Coroners Service did not know about the investigation until it came out through inquest questioning.
During Wednesday afternoon’s question period in the legislature, Opposition MLAs continued their call for a public inquiry.
“The inquest is supposed to get answers. We now know that the company has its own interests, and they have protected those at the inquest,” said NDP labour critic Shane Simpson.
“It’s now becoming painfully clear that WorkSafe has its own interests, and they appear to be protecting those at the inquest, maybe at the expense of the coroner being able to get answers, and that’s wrong.”
— see BOND, and more coverage, page 3
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