Aquilini farm cited for worker safety again
CBC News
Posted: Sep 4, 2012 8:17 PM PT
Last Updated: Sep 5, 2012 6:09 AM PT
Francesco Aquilini's family owns Golden Eagle Ranch in Pitt Meadows. (Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)B.C.’s Aquilini family — the owners of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks — have been fined a second time by WorkSafeBC for allegedly recurring problems with working conditions on a blueberry farm in the Fraser Valley.
In July 2010, WorkSafeBC inspectors visited Golden Eagle Ranch, the Aquilini's blueberry farm in Pitt Meadows. The officials reported they had found vehicles used to transport workers in serious disrepair and that some employees driving the vehicles did not have valid licences.
Some workers were also reported to be transported while clinging onto flatbeds on the backs of trucks as they bounced along with unsecured loads. Those infractions prompted $60,000 in fines.
The same amount was also levied for a worker injured and allegedly not given timely access to first aid.
The Aquilinis appealed the fines but lost.
WorkSafeBC reported this week that a subsequent inspection found that the worker safety issues at the farm had not improved and in February imposed a further administrative fine of $125,000.
It's one of the largest fine handed out by the provincial government agency so far this year.
With files from the CBC's Chad PawsonShare Tools
Latest British Columbia News Headlines
- Bald and beautiful women host fashion fundraiser
- Two Vancouver women are hosting a fashion show to help people better understand alopecia areata, a condition that causes extreme hair loss. more »
- Former B.C. politician Garde Gardom dead at 88
- Former B.C. lieutenant governor and attorney general Garde Basil Gardom has died at the age of 88. more »
- I-5 bridge reopens after collapse
- Travellers heading south from Vancouver to Seattle no longer have to make a lengthy detour to get around a damaged bridge on the I-5. more »
- Trumps announce exclusive tower deal in Vancouver
- U.S. business magnate Donald Trump and his family are in Vancouver to announce the details of an exclusive deal to build the city's first Trump Tower. more »
Must Watch
Top News Headlines
- Obesity now recognized as a disease
- The American Medical Association has voted to recognize obesity as a disease, while doctors in Canada say they also treat it as such. more »
- Neil Macdonald: Washington's obsession with leakers
- Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are just the most prominent targets in an all-out legal and propaganda campaign that America's security apparatus is mounting against leakers everywhere, Neil Macdonald writes. more »
- How open is Ottawa's new 'open data' website?
- Treasury Board President Tony Clement is touting the federal government's revamped data portal as a "new natural resource." But that online window for previously published data arrives at the same time the government faces controversy over just how open it really is. more »
- Half of First Nations children live in poverty
- Half of status First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, a troubling figure that jumps to nearly two-thirds in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, says a newly released report. more »
- B.C. teacher duct-taped students' mouths
- Police probe death of woman, 27, in Kelowna home
- Parents of son 'brutally beaten' playing hockey want charges
- Hundreds attend 'Change Brazil' protest in Vancouver
- Failed condo pre-sale deal costs Vancouver buyer $750K
- The class photo that made a father cry
- B.C. backcountry mobile maps cause concern
- Police probe Mohinder graffiti in East Vancouver
- 4 Vancouver men aim to row the Northwest Passage

