Lorna Chandler holds a picture of her late husband when he was nine or 10-years-old. Chandler's husband Kevan was killed in a farm working related accident. photo by Lindsey Hanhart |
By Don Patterson
Staff Reporter
With the second anniversary of her husband’s death approaching, the widow of a man killed while working at a feedlot on Father’s Day 2006 doesn’t believe enough is being done to protect people working on farms and ranches.
“We still don’t protect our farm workers from either injuries or death,” said Black Diamond resident Lorna Chandler. “There has been nothing done in order to protect farm workers, their safety or their lives.”
Alberta is one of two Canadian provinces that do not have farm safety legislation.
Chandler’s husband Kevan was killed when he was buried alive in a grain silo while working at a feedlot near High River. Since the accident, she has been working to keep the issue in the public eye, in the media, with the Farmers Union of Alberta and through visits to the Legislature in Edmonton.
While the government argues it could be too costly for farmers to be under the umbrella of Alberta’s labour laws, Chandler said she has seen the ultimate cost.
“They should have farm workers covered with mandatory Workers Compensation Board and Occupational Health and Safety coverage. But for any of that to happen, the legislation would have to change first,” she added. “It’s been an uphill battle for me and the farmers union to accomplish that.”
Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld said agricultural producers have said they don’t want to have farm workers covered under the compensation board.
“They told us it, and since I’ve been (minister) we have asked them that,” he said.
However, Groeneveld said farm and ranch owners can choose to have their workers covered.
At a Foothills-Rocky View candidate forum during the provincial election campaign in Bragg Creek on Feb. 21, MLA Ted Morton recognized the highest rate of work-related accidents occur on farms and ranches.
“Because it is dangerous and more often than not, you are working alone,” he said.
However, he said extending Alberta’s labour laws to farms and ranches would place a burden on the mostly family-owned workplaces, where a percentage of those who work are friends or family members of their employers.
To reduce accidents, Morton said the provincial government has introduced a farm safety component in the curriculum of rural and small town schools.
With files from
Enrique Massot, Rocky View Weekly
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