'It rips a hole': Calgary unions lay wreaths for workers who died on the job

After a record number of Albertans died in workplace-related incidents last year, the Calgary and District Labour Council hosted a memorial at city hall Monday, to commemorate the National Day of Mourning. Held annually on April 28, the National Day of Mourning is dedicated to remembering workers who died, were injured or experienced a workplace tragedy, and promote the importance of occupational health and safety. Roughly 20 people, including representatives of local workers’ unions, attended the ceremony.

Held at the City of Calgary Workers Memorial, the event included speeches, a moment of silence and the laying of wreaths. “Everybody has a role to play in health and safety,” said Alexander Shevalier, president of the Calgary and District Labour Council. “The worker has a role to keep themselves safe and to keep their co-workers safe, employers have the obligation to keep their workers safe and government has to enforce the law.



” In 2024, Alberta recorded 203 workplace-related deaths — an all-time high , according to the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta. In comparison, 165 workers in the province died in 2023. Of last year’s worker fatalities, 112 died of occupational diseases, 50 from trauma, 29 in motor-vehicle collisions and 12 from other causes.

During Monday’s sombre ceremony, Shevalier read out the name of each Alberta worker who died last year. Afterwards, attendees bowed their heads in a moment of silence, before wreaths were laid at the base of the memorial. It’s hard to explain the record number of workplace deaths in Alberta last year, according to Shevalier, due to the “invisible” nature of some causes, such as illnesses that resulted from unsafe working conditions.

Every loss of life creates a cascading effect of grief for the worker’s friends, families and co-workers, Shevalier said. “It’s important to remind us that 203 people died, that families lost a family member — whether it was a mother, father, sister or brother, friends lost friends — and workplaces lost one of their colleagues,” he said. “It’s important for us to remember, because we don’t want to have to go through that, because it rips a hole.

” ‘One injury is too many, one death is too many’ Events such as the National Day of Mourning are an important reminder that occupational health and safety is a shared responsibility, Shevalier said. He added it’s also a reminder to ensure job-site safety standards and protocols are strictly followed. “Within the union context, (safety) is always a priority, and I think for the most part, it’s taken quite seriously in most workplaces,” he said.

“But there are always workplaces where it’s not taken seriously, so it’s important for us to remember why we do this, and that everybody comes home safely.” While Monday’s gathering focused primarily on workers who died last year, one speaker highlighted a workplace tragedy from Calgary’s past. Paul Hutchinson’s speech centred on the 1975 explosion at the Canadian Industries Ltd.

(CIL) factory in southeast Calgary. The blast on April 21, 1975, killed his uncle, as well as five other employees of the plant. On that afternoon, 1,360 kilograms of dynamite ignited at the plant, sending a 300-metre fireball into the sky.

The blast levelled a three-storey building on CIL’s sprawling complex just south of Glenmore Trail, killing six and severely injuring three other workers. “People needed to remember it, because it’s been 50 years and yet we see time and time again where companies and governments roll things back in the name of (interference),” Hutchinson said. “It’s actually protection, not interference.

” Workplace safety has come a long way since the CIL explosion, Hutchinson said, but it’s nonetheless important for unions to hold employers and government to account in upholding those policies, such as the right to refuse unsafe work. “Certain governments tend to roll those back as red tape, but they keep forgetting why that tape is red in the first place,” he said. “Most companies only apply the minimum when they need to be going above and beyond to exceed those demands, because one injury is too many, one death is too many.

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