Between 1999 and 2016, three temp agency workers died at Fiera Foods or its affiliated plants, including 23-year-old refugee Amina Diaby. After Fiera pleaded guilty to Ministry of Labour charges related to her death in 2017, the ministry launched a series of proactive inspections into the North York industrial bakery and other companies who rely on temp agencies.The inspections that took place in early 2018 focused on Fiera’s main facility but not its three affiliated factories, according to ministry investigation records obtained by the Star. Fewer than half of the 30 temp agencies that listed Fiera or its affiliates as their client last year were inspected.The inspections did not include any visits to Upper Crust, one of Fiera’s affiliate factories, where a 52-year-old temp worker died in October — four months after the ministry’s probe wound down.Ministry of Labour spokesperson Janet Deline said the fatality investigation in response to the October death is ongoing and charges have not been laid.Upper Crust was not included in the ministry’s inspections of Fiera months before the death, because “affiliated companies did not fall within the scope of the initiative,” Deline said.Of the three other deaths, one occurred at a Fiera Foods plant on Norelco Dr. — not far from 50 Marmora St., Fiera’s main facility. Also at that address is Marmora Freezing Corporation, where another temp was killed in 2011. In 2016, Diaby died at 50 Marmora St while working as a temp at Fiera Foods.Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers Action Centre said it was “shocking” the ministry conducted “such a shallow” investigation last year.READ MORE:Undercover in Temp Nation“A proactive inspection is about not just following up on an individual (complaint), it’s actually looking at systematically how the company is operating.”Fiera Foods was founded by Boris Serebryany and Alex Garber in 1987 a ...
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