Contractor responsible for probing cyclist’s fatality, city says

Nov 16, 2023

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The City of Winnipeg says it is not responsible for conducting a workplace investigation into the death of an international student who was hit by a contract snowplow operator hired last December.

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The City of Winnipeg says it is not responsible for conducting a workplace investigation into the death of an international student who was hit by a contract snowplow operator hired last December.

Any probe into the circumstances of 22-year-old Javed Musharraf's death, as he rode an electrically assisted bicycle on a city street, is the responsibility of the independent contractor, not the government that employed the firm to conduct snow removal.

The city has refused to divulge the name of the contractor.

The city made the comments in response to a Free Press freedom-of-information request submitted in April, in which the newspaper sought access to records or reports related to workplace safety investigations into the fatality.

"The City of Winnipeg public works department and organizational safety services division conducted a search for records relating to (the) request. No records relating to a workplace safety investigation were returned," Chantel Fehr, city access and privacy co-ordinator, wrote on Monday.

"The safety services division explained that the contractor was responsible for conducting any workplace safety investigations as the employer involved in the case."

Musharraf was an automotive student at Red River College Polytechnic, who came to Winnipeg from Hyderabad, India, about two years prior to his death. On Dec. 15, 2022, he was struck and killed by a front-end loader as it plowed snow in St. Boniface.

He had been riding from one of his two jobs back to his apartment on Balmoral Street and Cumberland Avenue.

Two off-duty Winnipeg police officers came upon the collision near Mission and Plinguet streets at about 10:20 p.m. They gave first aid to Musharraf while two Winnipeg Transit employees re-routed traffic.

Musharraf was pronounced dead shortly after emergency personnel arrived. The driver of the front-end loader stayed at the scene, police said at the time.

On Tuesday, Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said the service's traffic division is still investigating the death. She said no charges have been laid to date.

The Free Press made the public records request in April to try to understand more about the circumstances of the death, after a City of Winnipeg public works department spokeswoman refused to provide details about a workplace safety investigation, calling such a probe a human resources matter.

In December, the spokeswoman, Julie Dooley, had said that generally speaking, the city investigates all incidents on job sites, working closely with both police and provincial Workplace Safety and Health officials, though she declined to comment on the specifics of the incident that caused Musharraf's death.

On Tuesday, another city spokesperson provided a nearly identical response and refused to answer almost all of the Free Press's questions.

"The contractor was responsible for conducting any workplace safety investigations as the employer in this case," spokeswoman Tamara Forlanski said, who added the city could not release the name of the contracting company as it is a human resources matter.

The newspaper asked multiple times whether that is an appropriate policy for fatalities, even if it follows the city's legal obligations, and whether any contractor workplace safety investigations are shared with city departments to inform city practices.

In response, the spokeswoman said the city had nothing to add.

Coun. Janice Lukes, who chairs council's public works committee, said the international student's death was "terrible" and "horrible," but she isn't prepared to comment on the city's decision to leave the workplace safety investigation in the hands of the contractor, as she did not have a fulsome understanding of the issue.

She said the matter is legally complex, involving different layers of contracts and insurance.

St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard said Tuesday he did not want to draw any conclusions about the fatality since so little information is available.

"The fact itself that there is so little information available speaks to the need for more information," he said. "We’re talking about somebody who died on the streets."

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He said he plans to move a motion at the next council meeting, which is expected to include an update about snow clearing, to seek information on road safety training for city workers and snow removal contractors.

"I’m going to keep looking for more information for pedestrian and cyclist safety, and really, all road users… there's tremendous opportunity to save lives and to make Winnipeggers’ quality of life better by addressing these issues, because a lot of these issues… can be addressed through engineering improvements," Allard said.

Allard said he has worked to improve road safety — and the public reporting of fatalities and injuries on city streets — during his time on council, as well as pushing for better road and bike lane engineering.

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Twitter: @erik_pindera

Erik PinderaReporter

Erik Pindera reports for the city desk, with a particular focus on crime and justice.

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Updated on Wednesday, June 7, 2023 7:22 AM CDT: Fixes punctuation