Clearwater Seafoods pleads guilty to workplace safety charges in 2024 death
CBC
Clearwater Seafoods has pleaded guilty to two provincial safety charges in the 2024 death of a worker in Nova Scotia.
Scott Dicks, 36, of Grand Bank, N.L., died in February 2024 while working on board Clearwater's ship Anne Risley, a clam-harvesting vessel.
Details are scarce, but according to court records, an incident occurred with an industrial space heater that was being used during a maintenance refit while the vessel was docked in Mulgrave, N.S.
On Tuesday, the company pleaded guilty to two of five charges laid under Nova Scotia's Occupational Health and Safety Act.
They include failing to properly install, maintain or use the space heater, and failing to take every precaution in its use, including training, instruction and supervision.
In a statement to CBC News, Clearwater said it is deeply saddened by Dicks's tragic death and is co-operating fully with the authorities.
Dicks left behind a wife and three children.
"He was a valued and experienced member of the Clearwater clam fleet crew," the company said in an email.
"Our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies remain with Scott’s family as well as his shipmates, who are a family at sea."
An agreed statement of facts, victim impact statement and joint sentencing recommendation are expected to be delivered April 22 in Port Hawkesbury provincial court.
Dicks's death was the second workplace fatality in Nova Scotia in a week.
Jamie Knight, 43, died in February 2024 after being struck by equipment during snow clearing at Irving Shipbuilding's Halifax Shipyard.
Irving Shipbuilding pleaded guilty to one count under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and is expected to be sentenced April 24 in Halifax provincial court.
MORE TOP STORIES
A former CTV and CBC reporter hired to serve as Manitoba’s trade envoy to the United States is taking home more than $480,000 Cdn a year in consulting fees, according to his contract with the province.
The teen who lit her classmate on fire at a Saskatoon high school returns to court on Monday to learn the judge's decision on her sentence.
On a July morning in 2024, Dwayne Cardinal was packing up his tent outside the Bissell Centre when a police cruiser pulled up and two officers got out.
The City of Revelstoke and the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District have passed motions formalizing their intention to push the provincial government to protect an old-growth forest.
The province will once again decide who will hold Niagara’s top municipal post after the sudden resignation last week of Bob Gale, but exactly when the next regional chair will be announced isn’t clear just yet.
A wind warning is in place for Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton on Monday with gusts as high as 90 km/h possible, according to Environment Canada.
Just a year after the Alberta government made a big splash unveiling its new border security team to the public with an announced $29-million investment, its latest budget shows the province only spent a third of the total it earmarked for the work over its first year.
Following several fatal collisions in northern Ontario this winter, a Sudbury, Ont., resident has created a website to track incidents across the region.
A Cambridge endometriosis advocate’s petition calling for change in how the disease is treated and recognized in Canada has received sponsorship by a member of Parliament.
While it may be expected to see crowded bars on a Friday or Saturday night, one Charlottetown pub is drawing in customers at a different time of day.
AI-generated Indigenous language dictionaries, elders’ teachings and history circulating online could be harming culture and language revitalization efforts, say experts.
Tumbler Ridge is representing B.C. as a regional finalist in the annual Hockeyville contest, which has been expanded for its 20th edition.
As Toronto prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of FIFA World Cup fans this summer, thousands of new homeowners could soon get some bad news, CBC Toronto has learned.