Ottawa LRT sites has seen 470 workplace orders
Ontario’s Ministry of Labour has issued 470 workplace safety orders on Ottawa’s LRT project between January 2013 and April this year, citing problems with bad lighting, dust and a host of other problems.
The ministry provided data on the orders following a Metro access to information request. The numbers Metro received also showed that, over the same period of time, there were 56 worker complaints called into the ministry about the project.
The department could provide no comparative data to other projects. In 2012, the last year where information was available there were 60,000 orders issued in the construction industry across Ontario.
Ottawa and District Labour Council president Sean McKenny said that number of incidents is stunning to him. He said a normal construction project following all the rules would not have any orders.
“Most projects, the ministry doesn’t issue any orders, because there is compliance with the act and the regulations,” he said. “Even for a project of this size, it’s not a little high, it’s way, way high.”
Janet Deline, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, said the volume of orders isn’t necessarily indicative of a problem.
