Calling a judge’s sentence “manifestly unfit,” Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General has appealed a $200,000 fine against a construction company in the 2009 scaffold collapse that killed four workers and seriously injured a fifth employee.

The ministry is seeking a much higher penalty against Metron Construction, which pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death in the tragedy.

The workers plunged 14 storeys when their scaffold broke at a Kipling Ave. apartment building on Christmas Eve 2009.

Last month, Mr. Justice Robert Bigelow of the Ontario Court of Justice ruled Metron owner Joel Swartz must pay $200,000 on behalf of the firm plus a victim surcharge of $30,000.

Bigelow said the penalty against Metron and another $112,500 against Swartz for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act represented three times the net earnings of the firm in its last profitable year.

But the fine against the firm was far below the $1 million penalty that Crown prosecutor Ann Morgan had sought against the firm.

The ministry has filed an application for leave to appeal the sentence with the Court of Appeal so it can argue that the fine should be “increased substantially.”

“The sentence is manifestly unfit,” the ministry said in its brief notice of the appeal.

The ministry said Bigelow erred in his assessment of the appropriate sentencing range and the penalty “did not sufficiently reflect the high level of culpability.”

It also said the judge erred in his application of two sections of the Criminal Code regarding the ability of offenders to pay and the impact on a firm and continuing employment.

The Ontario Federation of Labour had called for an appeal after expressing outrage over the original sentence.

“The criminal conviction of Metron Construction was historic but the imposition of a trivial sentence for the death of four workers was a disgrace to the families of the survivors and set a shameful precedent,” said OFL president Sid Ryan, who has called for jail time for the firm’s owner.

“If a worker’s life is only worth $50,000, then bosses can simply chalk workplace fatalities up as the cost of doing business.”