Horwath says province should make call on inquest

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says it should be the government's responsibility to call an inquest into the boating accident on Lake Wanapitae that killed three people last year.

Horwath joined the families of the deceased, and the Sudbury Professional Fire Fighters Association, in her call for an inquest.

But Dr. David Eden, Sudbury's regional supervising coroner, said in a press release he was satisfied with the 14 recommendations a working group – which included the Greater Sudbury Police Service, Greater Sudbury Emergency Services and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care – made regarding the emergency response to the fatal boating accident.

The recommendations included:

-That the City of Greater Sudbury emergency services agencies develop a local Joint Emergency Services Operational Group that would develop standardized, co-ordinated and integrated approaches to emergency situations.

-That municipalities adopt a command structure with “dynamic capabilities understood by all emergency services.”

-And that the City of Greater Sudbury, along with partners such as the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care develop and maintain a list of major lakes, parks, trails and assign staging areas for centralized responses.

“There was some confusion around some of the recommendations and what they meant in plain English,” Horwath said.

She added the Liberals made a mistake when they revoked ministers' powers to call for inquests under Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Those calls are now left to the chief coroner's office.

“We've seen all kinds of instances where trained professionals have made mistakes, or have used bad information,” Horwath said.