Westray Tragedy

In Memory of the Miners Who Perished

May 9, 1992, Stellarton, Nova Scotia

John Thomas Bates
Trevor Martin Jahn
Larry Arthur Bell
Laurence Elwyn James
Bennie Joseph Benoit
Eugene William Johnson
Wayne Michael Conway
Stephen Paul Lilley
Ferris Todd Dewan
Michael Frederick MacKay
Adonis Joseph Dollimont
Angus Joseph MacNeil
Robert Steven Doyle
Glenn David Martin
Remi Joseph Drolet
Harry Alliston McCallum
Roy Edward Feltmate
Eric Earl McIsaac
Charles Robert Fraser
George James Munroe
Myles Daniel Gillis
Danny James Poplar
John Philip Halloran
Romeo Andrew Short
Randolph Brian House
Peter Francis Vickers

“Our union has fought long and hard for this legislation to hold corporations, their executives and directors criminally accountable for deliberately putting workers’ lives at risk. We fought for the Public Inquiry in the mid-1990s, which put forward a recommendation in favour of this kind of law. Our activists lobbied every federal politician in two separate Parliaments to get their support for a law to amend the Criminal Code of Canada.”

Lawrence McBrearty, National Director, United Steelworkers

Miners’ Deaths Inspired Union to Push for Criminal Code Change 

United Steelworkers Vowed: ‘No More Westrays’

An extraordinary lobbying effort by the United Steelworkers’ union has led to the passage of a bill that amends the Criminal Code of Canada to make organizations criminally liable for workplace injuries and deaths that arise from negligence.

“It was the right thing to do,” said Peter Boyle, President of Steelworkers’ Local 343 in Kingston, Ontario, of the union’s decision to take up the cause of the 26 men who perished in the Westray mine explosion in Stellarton, N.S., at 5:18 a.m. on May 9, 1992. Westray was a tragedy that could have been avoided had the owners not allowed dangerous levels of methane gas to accumulate in the mine. Only 15 bodies were recovered.