Alberta Workplace: Workplace Deaths

Immigration Minister Dept: The news comes on the same day that Alberta Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk announced he will be hiring 10 new occupational health and safety officers each year, for the next three years. These provincial employees conduct on-the-spot inspections of companies, educate employers and workers on safety laws, and investigate serious incidents, according to Calgary Herald. In 2010, a major Herald investigation of Alberta workplace deaths and creative sentencing procedures highlighted the province's lack of oversight on penalties. Up until this year, the government hasn't systematically followed whether companies convicted of safety offences have actually paid their fines or not and alberta employers punished with creative sentence fines after a worker is seriously injured or killed will now be tracked under the same provincial system that looks at whether all other court-ordered penalties are paid or not. These two new measures are part of a series of actions taken by the government to crack down on workplace safety offenders, an initiative begun last year. As reported in the news.
@t calgary herald, thomas lukaszuk