Thank you for the opportunity and privilege to attend here today.
I was raised on a farm and started working as a carpenter apprentice and in the logging industry as a faller. In 1982, I became a bonded contractor at 27 years of age, which allowed me the freedom to tender publicly funded projects—that is, until I was put out of business by the federal government.
In October 2008, I was invited to tender a project at Kent prison, replacing porcelain sinks and toilets in 160 cells with stainless steel fixtures. I was the low bidder and awarded the contract. That is when the problems began.
On the first day on site, after unloading the materials, I was told that we could not proceed with work because of a snag. I received no explanation and eventually learned that the snag was asbestos. I later learned that Kent had just been seriously contaminated with asbestos exposure by allowing a contractor to grind floor tile that contained asbestos with no abatement procedures. The guards discovered the release, and after serious exposures to them, the inmates, and also workers from that contractor, apparently the guards took job action.
We were restricted to installing sinks only. Public Works then suspended the toilet installation by five weeks. Toilet installation required rebuilding leaking valves, but unknown to me and my crew, those valves contained very high concentrations of asbestos. No one told me this. I found it out through my own inquiries. By this time I, my crew, and many others in the facility had already been exposed.
When I reported this serious matter, instead of their acknowledging the problem, I was treated as the problem. It seemed that every effort was made to deny what had happened and to punish me. I reported this to the oversight branch of Public Works, under the control of Barbara Glover. They conducted an investigation, with Margherita Finn from the special investigations department coming to interview me in B.C. Now there was a spark of hope. To my astonishment, their verdict was that there was no wrongdoing.
I've gone nowhere with other agencies, so PSIC was my last hope. I submitted a disclosure of wrongdoing; however, dealing with PSIC turned out to be a nightmare. For example, they obviously gave my case very low priority. It eventually took 24 months to complete their investigation. At one point, they told me they could not speak to me because I was from the private sector, even though I was the whistle-blower.
In all of the two years trying to communicate with PSIC, I probably had less than two hours of conversation with them. They kept me in the dark nearly all the time regarding the status of my case. Eventually a contractor investigator was assigned, who seemed to be very competent and thorough. She told me that based on the evidence it looked as if there was serious wrongdoing. She planned to come to B.C. to interview me and made a list of 29 questions she felt needed to be answered before that interview.
Everything went quiet. I found out after several months that her contract had been allowed to expire, rather than complete the investigation.
A new investigator, a member of the PSIC staff, was assigned, who wrapped up everything in a few days. He never spoke to me or key witnesses or attempted to have the 29 questions answered. The conclusion from the Integrity Commissioner, Mario Dion, was that there was no wrongdoing. It relied upon the assurances from the two departments that were implicated in the alleged wrongdoing: PWGSC and HRSDC.
His letter contained a reference to an asbestos-containing material or “ACM” survey done for Kent prison in 2004. Before receiving PSIC's decision of no wrongdoing, I did not know about the existence of that report on Kent, although PSIC did. This was new information to me. For over five years I'd been asking for information about asbestos in the Kent prison. Eventually, through ATIP, I received the ACM report. I have it here.
On page 3 of this report, the primary contact reference is shown as Michael Cuccione. He was the person who had invited me to tender and was also the project officer of my contract. Both Public Works and PSIC had hidden this document from me. This is a document that, had I been shown it at the start, would have saved me, my crew, and others from exposure to deadly asbestos. In fact, I did not need the whole document, but only the following two sentences:
...ACM gaskets are most likely installed on all mechanical systems (i.e. domestic water...) throughout the facility, however once these materials have been installed they are hidden from plain view and impossible to find without dismantling the system. Therefore, ACM abatement procedures should be exercised when this material is disturbed or removed during service work.
That's straight from the report.
I repeat, this is a document that Public Works and PSIC hid from me and from other witnesses while arriving at their conclusion that there was no wrongdoing. If I had known about this document, do you really think I would have exposed myself and my crew to asbestos? If I did, I would have been faced with huge fines from WorkSafeBC and most probably lawsuits from others.
Throughout the confusion of all this, I was supported by Allan Cutler and David Hutton. David offered to review the documentation I had assembled and wrote a 17-page report, which has been entered into the evidence for the committee. This report explains how PSIC concealed vital evidence from me and hobbled its own investigation.
Today, my circumstances have changed unimaginably. I have lost my bonding status and my business is bankrupt. My health may be at risk. I never know when I might receive the diagnosis of asbestos-related disease that is a death sentence. I'm now estranged from business associates, friends, and worst of all family, who believe that I must have done something wrong to cause all this.
Clients both public and private have quit calling me for work, an unofficial blacklist. This dispute with Public Works has overtaken my life and taken a serious toll. Many think I now have mental problems. In some respects they are correct, as I am on a path of becoming seriously affected by PTSD. I'm now the primary caregiver for our adopted daughter, a Romanian orphan with special needs who requires full-time attention. At times I feel I am scarcely hanging on to my sanity.
Yet the government is still not finished with me. I have launched a lawsuit against them, but I've been told that the Department of Justice will have a whole team of lawyers lined up that could run up my legal bills into additional tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Both my father and grandfather served overseas in past World Wars, and they believed they fought to preserve our Canadian values of freedom and common decency, and in their honour I'm doing the same in a slightly different way.
Where do I turn to now? Do any of you know of a way that I can finally get some help without further confrontation?
Thank you.