Scaffold Fall Kills Four Workers On Toronto Apartment Project

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour and Toronto police are continuing to investigate a Christmas Eve scaffold collapse at an apartment building under construction that killed four construction workers and injured a fifth. The workers were repairing a 13th-floor balcony when a swing stage on which they had been standing broke, sending them tumbling to the ground. The names of the dead were not released, but the Ministry of Labour has identified their employer as Metron Construction Corp., Toronto. Ministry spokesman William Lin would not comment when asked if the workers had been wearing safety harnesses. “Our investigation will take some time,” he says. While Lin could not release provincial fatality figures for 2009, he says there were 19 industry deaths in 2008, compared to 15 in 2007.