In 1991, The Canadian Labour Congress declared April 28 as an annual date of mourning for all workers killed, injured or disabled on the job.
The following year Vancouver Council decided to erect a memorial plaque at City Hall in recognition of the employees killed or injured while working for the City. The granite plaque was installed next to the entrance on the north side in 1993.
"The City honours the Day Of Mourning every year by presenting a wreath under the plaque at City Hall, lowering flags to half mast and encouraging staff to observe a minute’s silence at 11 a.m.," a spokesperson tells V.I.A.
The day is not only commemorated in Vancouver but across the country by numerous other organizations. In B.C. WorkSafe, various labour unions and city councils, and even Vancouver Fire Rescue Services commemorate the solemn occasion.
The City wasn't able to tell V.I.A. how many employees have died while on the job since Vancouver was founded in 1886 but three city employees have passed away while at work since 2016.
The most recent was 64-year-old Gord Dolyniuk, a 32-year employee of the City and a truck driver in the Engineering Streets division who was involved in a fatal accident at the city’s National Yard location Friday, Jan. 7, 2022.
In 2019, Moreno Cerra was working with one of the city’s engineering street crews at Boundary Road and Second Avenue Saturday afternoon when a compressor that was being towed somehow broke loose and rolled down the hill. Cerra was struck by the compressor and tragically died at the scene.
And in 2016, 43-year-old arborist Jody Taylor died while cutting back a caltalpa tree in Connaught Park. Before Taylor's death, there hadn't been an on-the-job death since 1997, when an engineer was struck and killed by a passing vehicle upon exiting a maintenance truck.
The Second Narrows bridge collapse in 1958 is one of the highest-profile workplace tragedies in B.C. history in which 19 labourers died.
With files from Megan Stewart, Jessica Kerr, and Cameron Thompson.
