OPP Charges Chief Engineer Who Inspected Elliot Lake Mall before Roof Collapse

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Ontario Provincial Police have formally laid multiple criminal charges against the engineer, 64-year-old Robert Wood, who was assigned to inspect the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake as recently as April, 2012, i.e. only few months before the roof collapse resulted in an incident causing two deaths. Mr. Wood will be facing two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Consequently, Mr. Wood is scheduled to appear in court in Elliot Lake on March 25. He has been previously found guilty of professional misconduct in 2010 at an unrelated site. Wood used to run now-defunct M.R. Wright and Associates, with his colleague Gregory Saunders, which inspected the mall. Police refused to comment when inquired if more charges would follow. An official investigation was begun by OPP in July 2012, soon after the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in June. The incident was triggered when portion of the roof used for parking fell down and trapped two women inside.

Officials launched a round-the-clock rescue effort involving heavy machinery and a specialized urban rescue team from Toronto who later managed to recover the bodies of 74-year-old Doloris Perizzolo and 37-year-old Lucie Aylwin. Meanwhile, a judicial inquiry was commission to figure out causes of the collapse, which heard from 125 witnesses over 117 days. The inquiry has so far heard of building fraught with problems including a roof that leaked frequently and was never properly fixed. Moreover, water and salt seepage, from the rooftop parking lot, led to rust in the building’s skeleton.

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1 Comment

  1. Put the ignorant judge in jail now. We ALL know that justice in Canada is the most pathetic on the planet. This engineer SHOULD go to jail 200 years ! 100 years per casualty. Welcome to Wimpland(Canada)!

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