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WEYBURN, SASK. — Saskatchewan Power Corporation has been fined $840,000 for two worker fatalities at a Weyburn, Sask. worksite on Oct. 8, 2020.  

The utility company was sentenced on Oct. 18 in Weyburn Provincial Court for violating the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, 1996.

 The two workers were fatally injured when they fell to the ground from the bucket of a bucket truck.

SaskPower was found guilty of violating:

• clause 12 (a) – being an employer at a place of employment, failing to provide and maintain plant, systems of work and working environments that ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of the employer’s workers, resulting in the deaths of workers;
• clause 12 (c) – being an employer at a place of employment, failing to provide any information, instruction, training and supervision that is necessary to protect the health and safety of workers at work, resulting in the deaths of workers; and
• clause 192 (2) (h) – being an employer, requiring or permiting a worker to be raised or lowered by any aerial device or elevating work platform or to work from a device or platform held in an elevated position unless the worker is provided with and is required to use a personal fall arrest system that meets the requirements of Part VII, resulting in the deaths of workers.

The court imposed a fine of $300,000 with a surcharge of $120,000 on the first count and $150,000 on each of the other two counts with a surcharge of $60,000 on each of those charges, for a total amount of $840,000.