Ontario Construction News staff writer
Two Ontario construction companies are facing several workplace safety charges following the December 2020 collapse of a London apartment building that killed two construction workers and injured five others.
Just days before the Dec. 11 anniversary of the fatal collapse at 555 Teeple Terrace, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour announced that two companies that were working at the site have been charged under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. One unnamed person was also charged.
“Any company in Ontario that thinks worker safety is just the cost of doing business should think twice – they will quickly feel the full force of the law,” Labour Minister Monte McNaughton wrote on Twitter.
“We owe it to family and friends of the victims to ensure something like this never happens again.”
Tillsonburg-based East Elgin Concrete Forming is charged with “failing to provide information, instruction and supervision to a worker to protect the health and safety of a worker,” the ministry stated.
ISpan Systems LP faces six charges, including “failing to ensure that a building, structure or any part thereof, or any other part of a workplace, whether temporary or permanent, is capable of supporting any loads that may be applied to it in accordance with good engineering practice.”
An unnamed person is also charged with “providing advice negligently or incompetently that did endanger a worker.”
About 40 construction workers were on the worksite at Nest on Wonderland, a four-storey apartment building when a section of the fourth floor collapsed, killing two concrete workers.
John Martens, 21, of Langton and Henry Harder, 26, of Tillsonburg died and five workers were injured. They were employed by East Elgin Concrete Forming.
