Workplace Safety Board Says Scaffold Design Led to Two Deaths at Quebec Paper Mill

Company signage is seen at the Domtar paper mill in Windsor, Que., Oct. 28, 2021. The Canadian Press/Perry Beaton

Quebec’s workplace health and safety board says design failures led to a scaffold collapse that killed two workers and injured several others at a western Quebec paper mill in October 2021.

The Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail says in a report released today that an engineer working for Boileau & Associés—the company that designed the 16-storey scaffold—improperly calculated how much weight the platform could hold.