By Andrew Bates | Telegraph Journal
A $30,000 fine related to a fatal workplace incident at a construction site east of Sussex feels like a “minimal” punishment, says the victim’s sister.
Windfarm Construction Team, Inc. pleaded guilty Monday to a single Occupational Health and Safety Act charge for failing to ensure that an industrial lift truck was not loaded beyond its capacity, according to court documents. The Halifax firm was fined $25,000 plus a $5,000 victim fine surcharge by Judge Lucie Mathurin for the offence, which stems from an incident during construction July 18, 2024, at the Neweg Energy Project west of Sussex that killed Regina truck driver Matthew Brawn, 46.
“It feels like a very minimal amount to exchange for the life of somebody,” said Erinn-Jane Brawn, who told Brunswick News in November that her brother worked for Regina firm Richards Transport and had arrived in New Brunswick to work on the wind farm project starting July 1.
The Neweg Energy Project is a six-turbine project east of Springdale, N.B., developed by Halifax energy firm Natural Forces and approximately 20 kilometres southeast of Sussex. According to a WorkSafe NB document, Richards worked as a transportation subcontractor for Natural Forces, and Windturbine Construction Team was a contractor in charge of turbine installation.
In July, Natural Forces said a subcontractor died while working on the project. WorkSafeNB said it was investigating, and the RCMP said it found there was no criminality component. Windturbine Construction Team was charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in November with two offences including failing to ensure that an industrial lift truck is used for its intended purpose and that is not loaded beyond its capacity. In court Monday, the firm pleaded guilty to the second of the two charges, according to documents.
According to the investigation, Brawn and a co-worker from Richards were delivering a section of a turbine tower to the site on a truck with two linked trailers, referred to as a “jeep” and “dolly.” The procedure involved lowering the tower to the ground using a “telehandler,” which resembles an excavator with a forklift attachment, at which point the truck drives away with the “jeep” trailer and the “dolly” trailer is removed from the site, according to the report.
A site supervisor for WTC instructed the operator of the telehandler to help move the second trailer, according to the report. The telehandler operator, who told Brawn he had not previously moved a dolly trailer, attempted to pull it using the device’s rear towing hitch, but Brawn had told him that “would not work because something was broken,” according to the report.
Brawn told the operator to lift the trailer by its frame and back up, but when the telehandler hit a slope it began to lose traction and steering control, according to the report. The report says that the supervisor told the operator to give steering instructions and told Brawn to release the valve on the air brakes, allowing them to lock. Brawn walked towards the trailer and was walking back when it slipped off the forklift blades and started rolling backwards down the hill, the report said.
“Brawn started running towards the front of the trailer in an attempt to turn the valve and was fatally crushed when he was run over by the trailer,” the report reads.
The telehandler has a lifting capacity of 4,000 kilograms and a towing capacity of 1,000 kg with the hitch, and the dolly trailer has a gross weight over 27,000 kg, according to the report. The investigation found that the telehandler “was unsuitable for the task.” Windturbine Construction Team told the investigation that moving the transport vehicles was “not part of their scope” and they had not received instructions on doing so.
The supervisor told investigators that he had overseen the task “for as long as he can remember,” and the operator said he had seen other co-workers move the trailers short distances using chains before the truck returned to tow them away. Both were certified in the use of a telehandler, according to the report.
OSHA charges carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or a six-month jail sentence. A brief in the file labelled as a WorkSafeNB document said that sentencing factors include the size of the company, the economic scope of the work and the extent of the actual or potential harm.
The brief outlined four cases in the last two years where $25,000 fines were levied for fatal workplace incidents where the law or its regulations had been violated and said that that amount would be “fair and appropriate.”
WorkSafeNB communications manager Lynn Meahan-Carson said they do not comment on court sentences. In an email, Windturbine Construction Team president Rob Scoffield said “it was a tragic loss” and declined further comment. Richards Transport did not respond to a request for comment.
Natural Forces spokesperson Peter L’Esperance declined comment on the charges but said they would continue to cooperate with WorkSafeNB and any other government authorities in their investigations.
“Matthew Brawn was respected by all those who worked with him and it is a tragedy that his life has been cut short. We have offered our sincerest condolences to Erinn-Jane Brawn and her family for the tragic loss of her brother Mattie,” L’Esperance said in an e-mail Friday.
“On Thursday, Erinn-Jane Brawn called it “almost a token fine … or a slap on the wrist.”
“I don’t think it provides much incentive to prevent further accidents from happening,” she said.
Federal spokesperson Maja Stefanovska said that the Employment and Social Development Department’s labour program has launched an investigation into the death as Richards Transport is a federally regulated employer, and it may consider enforcement under the Canadian Labour Code.
“The government of Canada extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and coworkers of the victim of the fatal incident,” Stefanovska said.
Brawn hopes that learning more about the incident can prevent similar deaths.
“Matt’s gone, but something happened that day that really shouldn’t have,” she said. “Nobody’s here to point fingers, but we just want to figure out what actually happened so we can prevent it from happening next time.”
She said her brother’s loss “will always be felt by our family,” which includes another brother, Duncan, half-sister Jackie and aunts, uncles and cousins, according to his obituary. Their mother Gail died in 2021 after being hit by a car and their father Jack, who began receiving full-time dementia care in 2023, has a terminal cancer diagnosis, Brawn said.
“Duncan and I will have to go through his final days without Matt there,” she said. “It’s still the first year he’s gone, and I still walk around missing him every day.”
