Inquest begins into farm deaths
‘The fines will never be collected,’ B.C. Federation of Labour’s Sinclair says
A coroner’s inquest into the tragic deaths of three workers on a Langley mushroom farm in September 2008 will begin in Burnaby this morning.
Ut Tran, 35, Han Pham, 47, and Chi Wai “Jimmy” Chan, 55, all died Sept. 5 within moments of entering a pump shed on the south Langley farm, succumbing to toxic hydrogen sulphide gas that accumulated in the confined space.
Two other workers, Michael Phan and Thang Tchen, survived but suffered permanent, serious brain injuries.
B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair hopes the inquest will lead to changes in B.C.’S “dangerous” farming industry, which employs many foreign workers without unions to protect them.
“If you follow it through, everything failed these people,” Sinclair told The Province.
“First of all, there was no safety program at the farm at all, which is typical in the farming industry.
“There was no understanding of the dangers. And when they did raise safety issues, the employer shirked them off and told them to go get another job if they didn’t like it,” said Sinclair.
“These owners confessed already in the reports they know nothing about safety and never had a safety meeting,” he added.
“The owners didn’t know what hydrogen sulphide was.”
Two of the three companies operating at the farm in the 23700-block 16th Avenue — A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd., which produced mushroom compost, and H.V. Truong Ltd., which grew mushrooms — were fined following a provincial court hearing under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Regulation last fall.
But A-1, fined $200,000, went bankrupt. Sinclair said he believes H.V. Truong has so far been unable to pay its $120,000 fine.
“The fines will never be collected,” predicted Sinclair, who is scheduled to testify Thursday at the inquest.
“The lawyer for the defence said right out the fines will not be paid.”
Sinclair said for the five lives that were affected, “there has been no deterrent.”
“The Crown didn’t even ask for jail time,” for the owners and supervisors, Sinclair lamented. (The maximum sentence available to the judge was six months in jail.)
The tragedy began when Tran and fellow worker Tchen entered the shed to unclog a pipe.
Thinh Huu Doan, their boss and part-owner of A-1, followed them.
During the repair, the men smelled something strange and were quickly overcome.
Others went into the shed to help, but they also became overwhelmed by the poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas oozing from the clogged pipe.
Sinclair said the families of the five men, who were all VietnameseCanadians, “are all in tough shape” financially.