Police weigh criminal charges in highrise deaths

Police will determine whether criminal charges should be laid in a Toronto construction accident that killed four workers on Christmas Eve, an Ontario Labour Ministry spokesman says.

The ministry, for its part, is investigating whether the province's Occupational Health and Safety Act was violated, and can institute its own proceedings leading to fines of $500,000 against a company or jail time for its staff.

Spokesman Matt Blajer said Wednesday that the accident, in which four workers repairing balconies on a highrise plummeted 13 storeys to their deaths and a fifth was seriously injured, was a complex one. For that reason the Labour Ministry is assisting Toronto police in their criminal probe, he said.

On Tuesday, Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan called on the province's attorney general to look into whether negligence was a factor in the men's deaths.

The workers fell when the platform they were perched on snapped. The ministry and police have not released the men's names, saying only that they had "European backgrounds." Other Toronto media have said three of the workers were from Ukraine, Israel and Uzbekistan.

Investigators have also not said whether the men were wearing safety harnesses, and if so, whether they were clipped in. The building is located on Kipling Avenue near Steeles Avenue, in Toronto's northwest.