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From Manslaughter to Preventable Accident: Shaping Corporate Criminal Liability
Author(s) -
BITTLE STEVEN,
SNIDER LAUREEN
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.2006.00235.x
Subject(s) - legislation , criminal liability , liability , law , power (physics) , criminal code , political science , accident (philosophy) , criminology , corporate liability , criminal law , sociology , physics , quantum mechanics , philosophy , epistemology
This article looks at the assumptions, agendas, and relations of power that shaped Bill C‐45, revisions to the Criminal Code of Canada aimed at strengthening corporate criminal liability. The Bill, passed in fall 2003, originated in response to the deaths of twenty‐six workers at the Westray mine in 1993, a disaster caused by unsafe and illegal working conditions. Through an examination of Parliamentary Committee hearings, this article explores how conceptions of corporate criminal liability were shaped and modified, and links this to the implications and potential of Bill C‐45 to hold corporations to account. The authors argue that conservative conceptualizations of corporate liability limited the reform options that were considered by the Committee, and that the resulting legislation will do little to challenge the structural conditions that underlie culpable workplace injury and death.