VICTORIA, B.C. British Columbia's Labor & Citizens' Services Minister Olga Ilich joined with the De Patie and Crellin families earlier this month to announce that it is implementing a mandatory pre-payment system at gas stations in urban areas to help protect employees who work late at night from injury or death because of driveoffs.
I commend the dedication of the De Patie and Crellin families in ensuring something positive comes out of the senseless death of their son and grandson, gas station attendant Grant De Patie, said Ilich. This change [image-nocss] will help to protect gas station workers and give them a sense of added security.
De Patie was killed in March 2005 while trying to stop a fleeing motorist from stealing $12 worth of gasoline from a station in Maple Ridge, B.C., according to a CBC News report. He was struck and dragged to his death.
The regulation will make a pre-payment system mandatory in urban stations in the late night and early morning hours.
Government is also calling on WorkSafeBC to accelerate plans for regulations that specifically address the orientation and training needs of new workers, including those at gas stations. This will ensure that every new worker and returning worker is given health and safety orientation and training specific to their workplace.
Ilich is asking WorkSafeBC to hold public hearings next month to help determine the exact hours when pay before you pump rules should be put into effect and to outline the areas of the province where they are needed, added a report by The Vancouver Sun.
She said the regulations, which can be implemented without a change in labor law, may involve fuelling restrictions as early as 10 p.m., as some oil companies have suggested.
The government anticipates the new regulations will be in place by February or March 2007, said the report.
Some have asked why the government took so long to introduce the changes, and NDP labor critic Chuck Puchmayr wondered why a public hearing is needed when there is widespread consensus about what needs to be done. I'm very puzzled why there is this desire to go through another layer of bureaucracy to get something that we were all assured was going to be done a year ago, said Puchmayr.
He also criticized the plan to limit the new rules to urban areas, said the report. There is concern in some of the rural areas in British Columbia, too, he said. There are places on the highways where there is a gas station in the middle of nowhere. To have a young person there open to hazard and risk is I don't think a fair approach to this.
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