A separate inquest will be held in Burns Lake to examine the deaths of the two workers in the explosion at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in 2012.
While a single inquest was previously announced to examine the deaths of both fatal incidents in Burns Lake and Prince George in 2012, the B.C. Coroners Service will now be proceeding with two separate inquests.
The inquest into the Babine Forest Products mill deaths will begin on July 13, 2015, at the Island Gospel Fellowship Hall in Burns Lake. The inquest into the Lakeland Mills deaths will proceed as scheduled at the Prince George courthouse on March 2, 2015.
Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe noted in a press release that the B.C. Coroners Service hold inquests to assure communities that the deaths of their members will not be concealed, overlooked or ignored.
“The Burns Lake community has argued eloquently that it has a powerful interest in hearing first-hand the information about the explosion that took place in their community,” said Lapointe in a press release. “Those community needs outweigh what advantages there might be in combining the two inquests.”
Steven Zika, Chief Executive Officer of Hampton Affiliates, said he would have preferred to have one inquest instead of two.
“We think both cases are very similar; it would have made it a lot more efficient for everybody to have one inquest,” he said.
Zika said a representative from Babine Forest Products will participate at the inquest in Burns Lake.
“It’s going to be a very emotional process for a few of our employees, but maybe that’s part of the process.”
Carl Charlie, aged 42, and Robert Luggi Jr., aged 45, were killed in the Burns Lake explosion on Jan. 20, 2012.
Robert Luggi Junior’s wife, Maureen Luggi, was one of the people lobbying for a separate inquest to be held in Burns Lake.
“We asked First Nation leaders to support our families and to have this separate inquest,” she said. “The reason we wanted this is because these workers grew up in Burns Lake, they raised their families here, they worked here and they died here. It was only logical that the inquest regarding their deaths would be held in Burns Lake.”
“The magnitude of this tragedy has impacted the entire community, and even though it’s three years later, there are a lot of people that are still picking up the pieces, specially the injured workers and their families,” she added.
“The inquest will bring out information within the community that the rest of the greater public has no knowledge of,” she continued. “The general public feels that the injured workers are doing really well, I am hoping that this process will enable the injured workers to communicate that they are not [doing well]... their lives are not normal anymore. They still live with nightmares of what happened that day.”
“As for the families, I think it will bring some healing and some closure to us to some degree. At least it will take us a few more steps forward. We will be able to ask questions that we have never been able to ask anybody before.”
Lake Babine Nation Chief Wilf Adam said, “It’s satisfying that our voices were heard and understood. It’s very important to have some sort of closure for the workers at Babine Forest Product explosion on their home turf. It will provide insight of what happened on Jan. 20, 2012.”
“It’s going to be intense this July as a lot of old wounds will be opened again,” he continued. “We pray that the truth prevail and understanding of forgiveness and closure of this sad tragedy.”
Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad also expressed his support of a revised inquest plan by the B.C. Coroners Service.
“After working with local chiefs and the entire community to try to make sense of these tragedies, I am pleased to learn that their concerns around a single inquest have been heard,” he said in a press release. “Both of these incidents were terrible tragedies for the families and for everyone involved. I’m very confident in the chief coroner, and believe that these two inquests will help us move forward and prevent similar deaths in the future.”