Opposition New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix continued to call for a public inquiry into the Lakeland and Babine sawmill explosions when he was in Prince George Tuesday, a day after the Criminal Justice Branch said no charges will be pursued against Lakeland's owners.
Coroner's inquests into the two incidents, which occurred three months apart in early 2012, will be held and may be combined into a single inquest, but Dix said they won't go far enough.
He said the inquest into the 2008 deaths of three workers at a Langley mushroom farm resulted in a six-page report and, in its summary of the incident, just one sentence referred to WorkSafeBC, saying only that it did not conduct a formal inspection.
As well, Dix said most of the inquest's recommendations have not been heeded.
In contrast, he said the 2005 inquiry led by former judge Ted Hughes into 951 cases involving child deaths, most of which were prematurely closed when the government disbanded its children's commission in 2002, led to reinstatement of the Representative of Children and Youth.
"An inquiry and an inquest are two different levels of investigation...an inquiry conducts research and investigates and is dramatically more comprehensive," Dix said.
Dix dismissed concerns that an inquiry will take significantly longer to complete than an inquest. He claimed the governing Liberals have opted for inquests because that allows them to keep control of the process, "so the fundamental questions aren't answered and I think that's very disappointing."
Dix laid the blame for flaws in the WorkSafeBC investigations at the Liberals' feet, saying cuts made 12 years ago to premiums, inspections, regulations and benefits are at the root of the problem.
Bruce Germyn, who suffered severe burns and other injuries in the April 23, 2012 explosion and fire at Lakeland, echoed Dix's call for a public inquiry, saying time is not an issue.
"I'll wait two, I'll wait four, I'll wait six [years] to get the truth," Germyn said.
In a statement issued Monday evening, the United Steelworkers union also called for a "full and independent inquiry or review" which appeared at odds with USW Local 1-424 president Frank Everitt's comment to a local media outlet that a public inquiry would take too long.
"The difficulty with inquiries is that they take a substantial amount of time to get to," Everitt told CKPG. "We've already waited two years so if we waited another two years, maybe three, four years, what are we going to accomplish at the end of that kind of period?"
Glenn Roche, 46, and Alan Little, 43, died from injuries in the explosion and 22 other Lakeland employees also suffered injuries.
