A commercial food processing company has been ordered to pay $330,000 after one of its workers became trapped in an Edmonton smokehouse and died.
Ontario-based Sofina Foods Inc. was directed by a judge Thursday to put the money toward a workplace training program after a joint submission from the Crown prosecution and the company.
Justice Michèle Collinson told court it needed to be a significant penalty to match the gravity of what happened, but said, “there is no amount of money, or any sentence, that can make up for the loss of life.”
“We don't send our loved ones off to work thinking that this is the last time that we’re going to see them," she said.
The decision comes a day after Sofina pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of Samir Subedi at work. The remaining 25 other workplace safety charges against the company were withdrawn.
Subedi, who had a master's degree in science, had gone to check the temperature of the gas-fired smokehouse, which had been loaded the night before with meat.
But an emergency handle inside the unit was broken.
A makeshift door stopper on the outside had recently been installed, but had to be activated from the outside before entry.
A co-worker found Subedi unresponsive on the floor inside the doors of the smokehouse after the temperature reading from a meat probe had soared to 92 C.
Subedi later died in hospital of thermal burns and heat exposure.
Collinson noted there were mitigating factors in her decision, including the company paying the mortgage for the victim’s family and extending their health and dental coverage.
Including other benefits, court heard Sofina spent $500,000, not accounting for taxes, to help the family. The support came before charges were laid as the result of an investigation under Alberta's workplace safety laws.
Collinson said Sofina's early guilty plea also demonstrated remorse, along with its efforts to quickly resolve safety risks like the emergency door handle on the smokehouse.
But, she said, the incident was easily preventable, and led to an immeasurable loss to Subedi's family, friends, and community.
"The loss has ended not just his dreams, but the dreams of his wife, and his brother who had come to Canada from Nepal in hopes of a better life.”
A victim impact statement from Subedi's widow, Bhumika Bhattarai, spoke of trauma's toll on her family.
Pregnant at the time of Subedi's death, now mother of a two-year-old and a three-year-old, Bhattarai said her children keep asking: "Where is Daddy?"
"I burst into tears whenever I think of him," she said in the statement, which was read in court by the Crown prosecutor Wednesday.
An agreed statement of facts from the Crown and Sofina Foods said the company had comprehensive safety protocols but failed to follow through, including by providing proper training for operating the smokehouse door.
The inside emergency handle had been repeatedly sheared off by meat carts moving in and out, but Subedi had not been properly trained on how to use the door stopper that had been installed as a backstop.
Several company executives traveled from Ontario to attend court in Edmonton.
The funding for workplace safety training ordered by the court is to be managed by the Alberta Food Processors Association and tailored to the sector.
After Subedi's death, Sofina also installed a memorial bench in his honour at its Edmonton facility.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
