A rare conviction shows how inadequately Canada enforces worker safety |
Jeffrey Caron was 28 on that October day in 2012 when he went to work at a trench excavation site in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. He never got to see 29. Like too many other Canadian workers, he died that day on the job, a victim of employer negligence.
Caron died of blunt force trauma when a retaining wall above the trench collapsed into the trench. According to the record of a trial that finally followed up on this death in 2025, Dr. Carol Lee, an expert in forensic pathology, testified regarding the post-mortem examination of Jeffrey Caron.
“She found that Mr. Caron was healthy at the time of his death, with no significant disease or pre-existing conditions. Dr. Lee found that he died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries, consistent with trauma from a heavy object, specifically, the wall that fell on him. The injuries included a fatal transection of the aorta, severe brain trauma, including bleeding around the brainstem, multiple rib fractures, and significant internal bleeding,.” Dr. Lee’s testimony reads.
Another worker with Caron in the trench was injured. Evidence heard in the long-deferred trial resulting from this incident showed that the trench was not shored properly and ran too close to the retaining wall that fell on the two workers. Many legally required safety measures were not observed or documented properly.
In a Vancouver courtroom at the end of 2025, Caron finally got some too-long-delayed justice, as Justice Michael Brundrett of the BC Supreme Court ruled: “I find the Crown has proven the guilt of J. Cote and Son Excavating Ltd. on counts 1 and 2 beyond a reasonable doubt. Convictions will be entered against the company on those counts… I find, beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the party provisions in s. 22.1(a) of the Code, that J. Cote was a party to the offence by........