Tears, memories and a moment of silence were shared by almost 80 people gathered at Dougall Park for the Day of Mourning ceremony held in Gibsons on April 28.
The ceremony was one of hundreds held across the province that day to mark the 122 work-related deaths in B.C. over the last year and redouble efforts to lessen the grim statistic.
During the Gibsons event hosted by the Sunshine Coast Labour Council, WorkSafe BC safety officer Mark Benoit said he wanted to see safety regulations increased in the province and he also encouraged employers to enforce those regulations already in place.
He said employers should have their employees “do whatever it takes to minimize the risks, and where that’s not possible, make sure they have the equipment, training and supervision they need to keep them safe.”
He noted 2015 was a particularly “bad year” for work-related deaths on the Coast, pointing to the accident that took faller John Phare’s life while he was battling the Old Sechelt Mine fire last summer.
“I didn’t know him, but from what I understand in talking to people who did, he was a pillar of the community. He was a leader and a character guy,” Benoit said.
“He was unselfishly responding to a call to duty because of his special skills and knowledge in the falling industry.”
Fellow faller and member of the Sunshine Coast Labour Council, Ron Norgaard, said he had the pleasure of working in the logging industry with Phare for a time, calling him “an elite logger.”
“He did not play around with people who didn’t respect the need for safety that the logging required, and I guess that’s what bothers me, because I know how safe John was,” Norgaard said, holding back tears.
“I’m sure that the tree he was falling, everything that had to be done was done correctly. But I’ve fought fires over a number of years, a lot of different fires, and I know that it’s one of the most dangerous jobs you can deal with because a fire does so many things to the timber. It undermines it, it leaves it half burnt off. You never know when you’re going to have a widow maker go down there. There’s just so many things that can go wrong even though you’re doing everything right.”
Norgaard pointed to some high school students who were in attendance at the ceremony with their teachers and he thanked them for coming to honour the workers who had lost their lives, noting the safety messages being shared were important for youth to hear.
“It sounds great – going to work and making a little money and all that – but there’s a price, a serious price that can be paid if we don’t pay attention to safety,” Norgaard said.
Roberts Creek regional district director Mark Lebbell thanked the labour council for putting on the event and for its work getting the workplace safety message out to the people.
He motioned to the students in attendance, saying: “It will be safer work for you because of the work that goes on here, with this generation.”
