Alberta Rigging Safety Council Launches After Workplace Fatality
New oversight body aims to standardize training and prevent hoisting-related injuries and deaths in the province's trades sectors.
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Alberta has launched a new Rigging Safety Council designed to reduce rigging- and hoisting-related injuries and fatalities in the province's trades sectors. The research into its creation was funded through a $1.2 million creative sentence — the largest ever issued under Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The council was born out of tragedy. Red Seal journeyman Brandon Nelson, 26, died while on the job in Fort McMurray in 2022 after being struck by a piece of equipment suspended from a crane. Thomas O'Neill, lead researcher and a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Calgary, is studying how to improve hoisting and rigging practices in Alberta to prevent similar deaths.
"It's a tremendous opportunity to do right by people who have essentially given their life, and to make sure that that same thing doesn't happen again," O'Neill said.
Jesse Johnson, chair of the Alberta Rigging Safety Council, said the council is needed because Alberta lacks standardized training for rigging. "This is kind of taking a step back and saying, 'Look, if we're going to have any person on any job site performing the task of rigging and hoisting, then we need to have them meet this basic minimum standard,'" he said.
Since 2002, creative sentencing has been part of how Alberta collects fines from offenders of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, directing funds toward projects or organizations that improve workplace health and safety.
