It was standing room only at an emotional event Tuesday in St. John’s to honour those killed or hurt on the job.
There was a child who was in her mother’s belly when her father was killed in a workplace accident more than a decade ago. A mother whose son died when a coworker backed over him while working in Fort McMurray. A couple whose lives were shattered by a 30-foot fall.
“It’s very ironic that my husband sustained a life-altering injury trying to protect workers,” said guest speaker Angela Ryan, whose husband Darren was severely injured in 2019 while doing routine confined space gas testing on the Terra Nova FPSO.
“My question is who was protecting him?”
His employer, Suncor Energy, was charged in 2022 and convicted two years after that, for failing to comply with safety regulations. At the time, a company spokesperson said Suncor pleaded guilty in acknowledgement of its failure to meet safety requirements.
Suncor — which reported net earnings of $1.48 billion for the last quarter of 2025 — was fined $110,000.
“In our eyes, the company got away with almost killing my husband,” Ryan told the crowd.
“They recently received a slap on the wrist with a fine that was less than a yearly salary of an employee on the vessel.”
Experts, unions and families have been calling for years for increased punishment for companies that break safety rules, particularly in incidents that led to death.
The Westray Law — named for a 1992 mining disaster in Nova Scotia — was enacted to make it easier to lay criminal charges. But critics say it’s underutilized.
“When criminal negligence leads to death … people need to go to jail,” said Jessica McCormick, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour.
To date, no criminal charges have ever been laid in Newfoundland and Labrador through the Westray Law.
Employers have faced sanctions under provincial occupational health and safety regulations.
In her pre-budget submission to the provincial government, McCormick asked for an increase in resources to the occupational health and safety division to expand investigative capacity.
A CBC News investigation in 2024 found that the government often waited until the last minute of a two-year deadline to lay occupational health and safety charges.
An internal audit conducted in 2022 and obtained by CBC News through access to information found that some employers may have escaped occupational health and safety charges because the clock ran out before those investigations were completed.
Staffing issues and a lack of training were among the “significant findings” of the audit.
According to the audit, at least one-quarter of investigations surveyed weren’t finished before that two-year deadline elapsed, “thereby precluding the option for prosecution.”
At the time, the then-Liberal government said it would be restructuring the division to include a investigations unit for serious workplace incidents.
However, McCormick said it is still taking nearly two years for charges to be laid in some cases, and no additional resources have been added.
“I think the greater problem there is that we’re moving people around without adding people to the pool, right?” McCormick said at Tuesday’s event.
“We need more folks who are working in that department to extend their reach further across the province, to make sure, not just in urban centres like St. John’s, but right across Newfoundland and Labrador, particularly in rural areas.”
A new report released ahead of National Day of Mourning on Tuesday painted a grim picture of workplace safety in Newfoundland and Labrador. The CBC’s Ariana Kelland has the details.
The Tories slammed the Liberals in the wake of CBC’s reporting in 2024, calling for “immediate and decisive action” in response to the audit, which they said exposed severe shortcomings in the investigation of serious workplace accidents in the province.
No new money for OH&S
However, there was no new funding in Wednesday’s budget for occupational health and safety. In fact, provincial government financial documents show the department has spent less than projected on salaries for inspectors in the last several years.
“On the heels of the day of mourning, what is most disappointing to me is a lack of investments for occupational health and safety in this budget,” said McCormick.
Last year, there were 17 workplace-related fatalities in the province: 14 from occupational disease and three due to fatal incidents.
A recent report by the University of Regina paints a grim picture of workplace safety in the province.
Between 2020 and 2024, Newfoundland and Labrador ranked third in the country in workplace injury fatalities and saw the largest percentage increase in workplace deaths in 2024 alone.
The province also has the highest rate of occupational disease deaths, largely due to previous asbestos mining and exposures, according to report co-author Sean Tucker.
“One of the things I think that’s really important for the province to think about its regulatory enforcement regime,” said Tucker in a recent interview.
“Do they have enough officers in the field? Are they inspecting, investigating workplaces? Are they conducting timely investigations into serious injury and fatalities? And are these moving along to be … prosecutions?”
Expert calls for auditor general review
Tucker said there is “room for improvement” when looking at the number of current occupational health and safety prosecutions and the speed with which charges are laid.
“It needs to send a very clear signal to the employer community that it takes its enforcement responsibility seriously and they will prosecute,” Tucker said.
“So coming in a week or two before a deadline, it sends the wrong message to the employer community. It sends the wrong message to workers who have been seriously injured or their survivors having loved ones killed on the job.”
Tucker is calling on the province’s auditor general to probe the occupational health and safety division to ensure there is a “robust, well trained, responsive OH&S service.”
Meanwhile, the minister in charge said workplace safety is also personal issue for him.
“I was a tradesperson prior to this portfolio and also health and safety technician where I’ve been on work sites where three people haven’t returned home,” Government Services Minister Mike Goosney said.
Goosney did not commit to adding resources, but said he is always “assessing” the issue.
“I spoke with a lot of our staff, which were very professional and been here for quite some time. But they know where I am with this file, and we’re going to take it very seriously.”
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