The general contractor and one of the subcontractors on the new Dawson City hospital project owe a combined $30,000 to the Workers Compensation Health and Safety Board.
Court documents filed last week show that a slew of seven companies have outstanding payments to the WCB’s compensation fund.
Becky Striegler, a spokeswoman for the WCB, said the legal action is a standard settling of accounts as the year draws to a close.
“We’re just cleaning up year-end unpaid assessments. We gave them plenty of opportunity to pay before we got to this point,” Striegler said.
Dowland Contracting, the general contractor on the new hospital project, owes $4,436.24 to the compensation assessment fund. The massive construction company fell into receivership and collapsed under a mess of liens and lawsuits for unpaid work on the project. The Yukon Hospital Corp. had Dowland’s bonding company step in, which is now sorting out the unpaid debt on behalf of the bankrupt company.
Striegler said that the court filings against Dowland is part of a process to get the WCB added to the list of creditors with outstanding claims against the company.
That means the compensation board will join a long line of Whitehorse companies and organizations that want to get paid.
All told, Dowland owes a total of $3.3 million to Yukon companies in the wake of its collapse.
Alberta’s Nelson Drywall is owed $20,556.88. It has been in an on-going dispute with Dowland over unpaid work since 2012, with the company and the hospital corporation claiming the work was of insufficient quality. The company was one of many that placed a lien on the hospital and sued Dowland and the hospital corp.
The new hospital in Dawson City opened earlier this month, $3.2 million over budget and a year behind schedule.
The new building combines the hospital, which includes six in-patient rooms and an ER, along with the Dawson Medical Clinic, a retail pharmacy, and the Dawson City Community Health Centre.
Contact Jesse Winter at
jessew@yukon-news.com