Alberta’s response to Canada’s largest single outbreak of COVID-19 was a “catastrophic failure” that prioritized industry needs over workers’ lives, according to a new report.

Parkland Institute, a research centre at the University of Alberta, published a report on Monday examining how Alberta handled the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at the Cargill beef-packing plant in High River, south of Calgary. The centre says it is the first public, independent review of what became North America’s largest single-site outbreak during the pandemic.

More than 950 workers at the plant, which was nearly half of the work force, were infected with the virus in the spring of 2020. Eighteen workers had to be hospitalized and two died – 67-year-old Bui Thi Hiep and 51-year-old Benito Quesada.

“Both lost their lives to COVID-19 and, ultimately, to Alberta’s catastrophic failure to place worker safety above industry interests,” the report says.