Union Safety Inspectors Monitor Work After 4 Deaths at Hydro-Québec Worksite

February 16, 2017

A $6.5-billion construction project on Quebec’s North Shore has become the first Hydro-Québec workplace to permit union safety specialists to monitor the work on site, reports the CBC.

The monitoring comes as a response to the deaths of four workers since the project began.

The 11-year project on the La Romaine river, now in its eighth year, is the biggest construction project underway in Canada. Four new hydroelectric stations are being built, each with dams and water reservoirs, about 500 kilometres from the Quebec-Labrador border, north of the municipality of Havre-Saint-Pierre (shown in photo: just one of the project work sites).

Since construction got underway in 2009, four workers have died:

• Luc Arpin, 51, when a wall of rocks fell on the excavator he was operating

• Alex-Antoine Proulx, 26, died when he fell two meters onto rocks

• Steve Barriault drowned when his excavator drove over an ice-covered pit filled with water

• Raymond Ste-Marie drowned when his machinery broke through an ice-covered pond

Yves Ouellet, the head of the construction wing of the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), told the CBC that “we are more than happy that Hydro-Québec took that step for the prevention, but we are very sad that it took four deaths to do it.”

Ouellet said many construction crews have never worked on a site like La Romaine before. “You work with tonnes and tonnes of rock. The weather conditions are very hard. And you are isolated in the woods, in the middle of nowhere.”

The union’s prevention counsellors will spend their time touring the construction site, which covers a vast territory. Hydro-Québec has seven of its own safety agents in place, and private contractors have their own advisors. Hydro-Québec has also launched an internal investigation and set up a special committee to analyze safety practices at every worksite.

Find out more about Hydro-Québec’s investigation: http://electricalindustry.ca/changing-scenes/2762-death-of-hydro-quebec-worker-prompts-review-of-health-and-safety-practices.

Read the full CBC article: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-construction-fatality-hydro-electric-dam-la-romaine-1.3981913.