Protester re-occupies Burnaby tree after Trans Mountain suspends project … Trans Mountain suspended all work in Burnaby and across the entire pipeline route starting Friday, Dec. 18 until Jan. 4, 2021.

The move came after a worker with a contractor at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby was seriously injured on Tuesday. Another work in Edmonton died after an accident.

In a statement, the company admitted it needs to “improve” safety on the project.

“Trans Mountain is proactively taking the step to temporarily stand down construction on the Expansion Project to review, reset and refocus our efforts, and those of our contractors and their workers,” said Ian Anderson, president and CEO of Trans Mountain, in a statement. “We are committed to a strong culture of safety above all else and insist that our project contractors and subcontractors are equally committed. The critical success of any organization is its ability to self-reflect – to honestly and courageously ask the question, ‘where can we improve?’. This is non-negotiable, we must improve the safety culture and performance on our project.”

The injury was reported to the Canada Energy Regulator late Tuesday and its safety specialists were on-site Wednesday. All work in Burnaby had been shut down, but now the work will halt across the entire project.