Alberta passes farm safety law

After three weeks of vociferous criticism from farmers, ranchers, industry groups and opposition parties, Alberta’s NDP Government has made an about turn on controversial Bill 6 – the Enhanced Protection of Farm Workers Act.

Notley said the amendments ‘”clarified” the government’s original intentions for the bill, to subject farms and ranches with paid workers to workplace safety rules for the first time. She said the bill allows farm workers to refuse unsafe work and ensure families of workers injured or killed on farms receive compensation. Operators will be expected to meet a general standard of care until safety rules specific to their operations are crafted over the coming year.

Rachel Notley’s government saw Bill 6 pass in the legislature on Thursday; it will become law on January 1, 2016.

“There is a heck of a lot of difference between a feedlot and a family farm”, said Eskeland.

“We have listened to farmers and ranchers about the need for greater clarity”, Alberta’s Minister of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour Lori Sigurdson said in a statement to the media last Tuesday. “They just want more consultation on the process”. “There’s not a farmer that gets seeding done by working a 40-hour work week or gets harvest done by shutting down on weekends…and I have yet to meet the cow that can plan her calving around weekends, after hours and statutory holidays”. “Anybody I have talked to, who have employees, are doing it privately”.

Progressive Conservative MLA Dr. Richard Starke, who represents Vermilion-Lloydminster, said Bill 6 is trying to treat farms like typical businesses, which they aren’t.

“A qualified OHS investigator would at least be able to go to that worksite and do an investigation to determine what happened and try to learn from it at least, ” he said.

“It completely ignores the reality of farming”, said Starke. “Thats part of the urgency behind the bill.”. “Its going to come forward for the producers to look at, but its going to be modeled on what everybody else around the world is done.”.

He expects protests to continue because there are still too many unanswered questions.

He says simply by how the bill was handled, it has caused distrust in the government.