Alberta Court of Appeal decided that the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) was justified in levying administrative fines against four employees and their employer, who refused to speak with an Occupational Health and Safety officer without their lawyer present.
The officer was conducting an investigation into the cause of the on-site vehicle accident that killed a Volker Stevin Contracting (VSC) utility employee in 2019. The employee – a 38-year-old man who had immigrated to Canada from Israel in 2017 and was married with four children, some of whom he had brought to Canada only weeks before the accident – had been inspecting storm catchment drains at a construction site when his supervisor, another employee of Volker Stevin, struck and killed him with a Ford F-550 truck.
The supervisor had been positioning the truck to use as a “shield” to protect the site, the court heard. The employee and the supervisor were the only two employees present on the site.
