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Convicted: Crystal Fountains Inc., 60 Snow Boulevard, Concord, Ontario, a company that designs and fabricates custom fountains.

Location of Workplace: The company’s facility at 60 Snow Blvd. in Concord, Ontario.

Description of Offence: A worker was injured while setting up a milling machine to manufacture fountain nozzles. Crystal Fountains Inc. failed to ensure that the interlocks on the safety doors of the milling machine were maintained in good condition, contrary to section 25(1)(b) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Date of Offence: March 14, 2022

Date of Conviction: February 16, 2024

Penalty Imposed:

• Following a guilty plea in Provincial Offences Court in Newmarket, Crystal Fountains Inc. was fined $60,000 by Justice of the Peace Henry Tso. Crown Counsel was Steven Succi.
• The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

Background:

• On March 14, 2022, a worker was setting up a CNC milling machine to manufacture fountain nozzles.
• The machine should have had interlocks in place to prevent it from operating when its safety doors were open, but the interlocks had been removed.
• The worker inserted a drilling jig into the machine’s chuck and a cutting tool into the machine’s cutting head, then entered a code into the machine’s control panel to initiate an automated “warm up” of the cutting head.
• However, the worker entered the wrong code, which activated the chuck instead of the cutting head. This caused the chuck to spin and eject the jig, which injured the worker.
• Had the interlocks still been in place, this injury could have been avoided.
• By failing to ensure the interlocks on the safety doors of the machine were maintained in good condition, Crystal Fountains Inc. contravened section 25(1)(b) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

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