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The companies responsible for building the Evergreen Line tunnel laid off a worker because he raised safety concerns that posed a “continuing source of grief” for them and then lied about the reason for his dismissal, WorkSafeBC has ruled.

David Britton, whose discriminatory action case was profiled in The Sun earlier this year, was hired by SNC-Lavalin and SELI Canada as a conveyor mechanic in May, 2014. He was the only person on the site trained and certified to maintain a rescue chamber, which is required by law once a tunnel reaches 500 metres in length.

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Between Sept. 5 and the end of October 2014, Britton identified numerous problems with the refuge chamber and would not certify it as operational until they were addressed. These included, among other things, approval from the chamber’s manufacturer of a modification Britton had made to an oxygen flow meter, adding Italian signs on the chamber because some of the workers did not speak English, and the need for a breakable lock that would indicate whether the chamber had been tampered with.