Mr. Mike's Plumbing pleads guilty over worker killed in 2023 trench collapse

Mr. Mike's Plumbing pleaded guilty Monday to failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare of an employee who was buried alive in a trench collapse in northwest Calgary in June 2023.

Liam Johnston, 27, died when a trench at an excavation site in the Charleswood community collapsed while he was working as lead hand. He had paused his plumbing apprenticeship to take a higher-paying position on the excavation crew.

Justice Gordon Krinke accepted the company's guilty plea to one charge under Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Act. Ten other charges were withdrawn as part of the plea agreement. The company was found to have provided inadequate supervision at the site, which was not properly shored at the time of the collapse.

Mr. Mike's Plumbing agreed to pay $215,000 to the University of Alberta's Injury Prevention Centre and a $115,000 fine.

In a powerful victim impact statement read aloud in court, Johnston's common-law partner Emily Gofton said: "I have become painfully aware that coming home safely is not determined only by how hard someone works."

Johnston's parents joined the hearing by video conference from out-of-province. His mother Kim Ivison told the court: "I don't just grieve the past, I grieve the entire future that was taken away from us."