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Logging safety task force
Task force finds agreement on key issues
Prince George Citizen
Saturday, October 25, 2003
by Gordon Hoekstra
Doug Enns, who is chairing the B.C. government's logging safety task force, said Friday there's already agreement on some of the core safety issues that need to be tackled.
Those include training requirements and the need to create overarching ability to manage responsibility, said Enns, who delivered a breakfast speech to the Prince George Chamber of Commerce Friday.
For example, Enns said, if you're a licencee — a company that holds timber harvesting rights — and you're subcontracting work, there's a question of how do you ensure your subcontractors are following the same safety standards as the licencee.
The Liberal government established the task force this summer and has mandated it to reduce accident rates and deaths by half within three years. Logging has the highest fatality rate of all industries in B.C.
Between 1993 and 2002, there were 250 logging-related deaths in the province.
The safety task force has already had some consultations with the forest
sector in Vancouver. Consultations will also take place in Prince George
and Terrace in the coming weeks.
No exact times have been set, but the consultation meetings will be organized
by Keith Playfair, a Fort St. James logger who is on the task force. Playfair
is also vice-chair of the Central Interior Logging Association, which
represents about 400 logging and trucking companies.
A 1996 report by the Workers' Compensation Board on the logging industry
showed that more than half of the 70 deaths between 1993 and 1995 took
place in the Interior and northern B.C.
While fallers were most at risk for fatalities, accounting for 20 per
cent of deaths during the period, truck drivers and log loaders and sorters
were close behind, accounting for 19 and 18 per cent of fatalities respectively.
The task force is expected to have their first recommendations ready for Labour Minister Graham Bruce before the end of the year.
Last January, the WCB reported that while the forest sector's injury rate has been on a decline since 1997, it still meant that in 2001 one in 13 forestry workers were killed or injured. There were 28 fatalities in 2001.