More than 13 years after one pipe layer was killed and another injured while replacing a Burnaby storm sewer, their employer is in court for a sentencing hearing.
On Oct. 11, 2012, pipe layers Thomas Richer and Jeff Caron were working in a newly excavated trench when a nearby retaining wall collapsed into the ditch. The falling rubble crushed Caron to death and seriously injured Richer.
On Dec. 11, 2025, the B.C. Supreme Court found Langley-based construction company J. Cote & Son Excavating guilty of one count each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing death.
The maximum penalty for the corporation is a fine up to the court’s discretion.
Company president Jamie Cote returned to court Thursday for sentencing. He told the court the accident has already cost him and his company significantly, and that he has overhauled safety procedures since the wall collapse.
Crown prosecutors are calling for the court to impose a $1-million penalty — approximately equal to two years’ net earnings for the company.
They also asked for the company to pay approximately $10,000 to cover the cost of Caron’s funeral and $6,000 to cover Richer’s hospital bills.
Defence counsel Bill Smart submitted that a fine of $345,000, plus the costs to Richer’s and Caron’s families, would be appropriate.
Justice Michael Brundrett is expected to return to court on April 15 with his sentencing decision.
Over the course of the two-day hearing, the court heard impact statements from Richer, Caron’s best friend, and his older sister Cheyanna Kamahkoostayo. Kamahkoostayo told the court that in the years since the incident, she’s been waiting for the company to be held accountable.
“Our parents were alive in 2012,” she said in her impact statement. “They did not live to know whether anyone would take Jeff’s death seriously.”
University of Regina occupational safety professor Sean Tucker said the case is a rare example of a company facing criminal charges for a workplace death in Canada. He said the case also demonstrates the cost of relaxing health and safety procedures.
Shafik Bhalloo, a labour lawyer who was not involved in the case, said in an email the case would deter other companies from letting workplace safety measures slip.
“It sends a clear message that workplace deaths can lead to criminal consequences for employers, not just regulatory penalties,” he said. “The decision signals that preventable workplace deaths are taken seriously and that workers are entitled to a genuinely safe work environment.”
The maximum penalty for an individual convicted of criminal negligence causing death is life imprisonment. But for a corporation, the maximum penalty is a fine up to the court’s discretion.
Criminal negligence penalties have ranged from modest amounts up to multimillion-dollar packages.
In 2016, a B.C. court charged Stave Lake Quarries with criminal negligence causing death and fined the employer $100,000, after employee Kelsey Anne Kristian died on her second day on the job.
A year later, northern Ontario mining company Detour Gold was fined $1.4 million, after it admitted millwright Denis Millette’s cyanide poisoning death was linked to criminal negligence at the mine.
On the first day of the sentencing hearing, Crown counsel Emmanuelle Rouleau told the court prosecutors wanted a fine of $1 million — approximately equal to two years’ net earnings for J. Cote & Son Excavating.
She added it needed to be significant enough to deter other construction companies from allowing a culture of negligent safety standards and training.
“Fines are supposed to hurt,” Rouleau told the court. “Because employers do not experience stigma the same way individuals do, the fine itself must be meaningful.”
Rouleau argued that ability to pay should not factor into consideration, and that penalties may require the company to get financing or go into bankruptcy.
Caron’s older sister, Kamahkoostayo, told the court in her victim impact statement that she grew up with Caron until she and her siblings were separated during childhood and put in foster care. Caron was seven. She was 13.
More than 20 years later, she said she and her siblings were just starting to reconnect when Caron died.
“Instead of reuniting with love and hugs, we were reunited by him coming home in a casket,” Kamahkoostayo told the court. “I was devastated.”
Crown prosecutor Louisa Winn also read an impact statement made by Richer, the pipe layer injured in the wall collapse.
Richer was in the trench when the wall collapsed. The accident fractured his ribs and gave Richer several soft tissue injuries, which eventually turned to chronic back and leg pain. He added he was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from the event.
“Jamie Cote and (foreman) David Green never apologized,” he said in the impact statement.
The defence started their arguments Thursday afternoon. Defence counsel Nicole Gilewicz told the court that by the time the accident happened in 2012, Cote had fully assumed ownership of the excavating company founded by his father.
Gilewicz said finishing the Burnaby storm sewer project cost the company about $1 million. The accident strained the company’s relationships with clients, and J. Cote & Son Excavating was forced to underbid its competitors to stay afloat.
Two years after the accident, to stay in business, the company sold off its headquarters and moved into Cote’s basement.
Cote took the stand on Friday. He testified that immediately after the accident, he borrowed half a million dollars from a friend to put into the company. Over the past decade, he said he also took a $2.2-million mortgage on his house and a $500,000 line of credit, and borrowed another $500,000 from his parents to inject into the company.
The business started losing money every year until 2018. The first year J. Cote & Son Excavating turned a profit was 2021.
The company paid for a safety consultant to overhaul its safety procedures and implement proper training for supervisors. In 2020, the company brought on a full-time employee to maintain safety procedures.
He added that after these changes, the company got a WorkSafeBC certificate of recognition, which the agency issues to employers that, after an independent audit, it finds to implement safety measures and training beyond the legal requirements.
When charges were first laid in 2023, Cote said he once again started to hear concerns from clients.
“It’s just the way the industry is now,” Cote told the court. “Safety is above all other.”
He added that by that point, he had almost secured a $3-million loan from the Business Development Bank of Canada. But Cote said a representative of the bank called him to say it could not finalize the deal due to the court proceedings.
During cross-examination, Rouleau noted the trial had hinged on how company representatives interpreted a vague engineer’s certificate that the project was safe.
She asked Cote which part of the company’s new safety protocols addressed interpreting engineers’ certificates. He did not answer.
In closing, Smart asked the court to consider collateral costs of the incident to the company, Cote’s belief he was not breaking from the normal safety procedures and the stigma the conviction would put on the company.
But Crown prosecutor Winn told the court that would put the penalty for criminal negligence in the hands of the market. She added the fine would need to be large enough to send a message to other companies.
“If financial discomfort was a bar to large fines, deterrence would collapse,” she said.
The company currently has up to 80 employees. According to Crown prosecutors, it earns approximately $500,000 per year.
Since charges have been laid, Gilewicz said, Cote has had trouble attracting new clients.
Outside the courtroom, the University of Regina’s Tucker told The Tyee the cost of the accident to the company was “tremendous.”
“The case demonstrates that it’s in your own self-interest to invest in health and safety procedures,” he said.
Tucker added that while the WorkSafeBC safety certificate was a significant sign the company had improved its safety procedures, it still wasn’t clear whether that added up to a meaningful change at J. Cote & Son Excavating.
“Paper policies don’t mean a change in workplace culture,” Tucker said. “Policies on their own don’t keep workers safe.”
