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B.C. government pushing forward on crane safety changes following repeated incidents

VICTORIA – The Government of British Columbia has announced that changes to tower crane safety training requirements are in the works following a series of crane-related accidents over the past two months.

B.C. Labour Minister Harry Bains stated that three recent crane incidents have led the government, WorkSafeBC and B.C. Crane Safety to fast-track changes to crane safety regulations that have been in development since last year, in response to the deadly Kelowna crane collapse in 2021.

“It is heartbreaking that three incidents involving tower cranes happened in the first few months of this year,” said Bains. “I certainly believe that all accidents, workplace incidents, are preventable, injuries and deaths are preventable.”

As part of this initiative, the government, WorkSafeBC and B.C. Crane Safety will be consulting with industry stakeholders to discuss addressable gaps in tower crane training and how they can be managed, with an announcement of these changes expected in the next few months.

The most recent of these incidents across 2024 occurred last week in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood, where a worker died after a load fell from dozens of storeys above. Earlier this year, two crane incidents occurred within four days of one another in both Surrey and Burnaby.