Its been almost a decade since a Black Diamond man was killed at a foothills feedlot and now his widow has hope that no one else will have to live through what she did.
However, the owner of the farm where Kevan Chandler died in 2006 said the government doesn’t need to legislate worker standard in the industry because measure are already in place.
The Provincial NDP government is currently meeting with farm and ranch owners and groups to discuss applying Occupational Health and Safety legislation, making WCB for farm operators mandatory and regulating child labour on the farm.
NDP Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier said they are currently meeting with stakeholder groups such as Alberta Beef Producers and United Farmworkers, and said it’s only a matter of time before reforms are put in place.
“We will make this right,” Carlier said.
Despite a long history of opposition from producers to changing legislation to include farmworkers, Carlier said he is not hearing a lot of complaints.
“I didn’t hear anybody reluctant to move on,” he said. “These regulations will make a good solid base for farmworker safety.”
Carlier is working with Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson, who will have to change the legislation to include farmworkers. The soonest that can happen is the fall sitting of the legislature. In the meantime, Carlier said he prays nobody else is hurt or injured while working at an Alberta farm.
“We all hope we don’t have any further tragedies, but the process has to be fair and just for everyone,” he said.
Peter Morrison owns Tongue Creek Feeders, where Kevin Chandler died. Morrison’s brother, Brian Morrison, died in 2008 when he fell off a silo. He wasn’t wearing a safety harness.
Morrison’s family has owned the feedlot and Roseburn Ranches since 1903. In that time Chandler and his brother were the only ones to die on the job at the two facilities, he said.
Tongue Creek Feeders was sued by Lorna Chandler and after six years the case was settled. The amount of the settlement has not been disclosed. Peter said his insurance paid Lorna and that he likes that Alberta farmers have the choice to choose insurance or WCB.
Safety standards on farm operations are in writing, Morrison said and he said only time will tell if applying OHS legislation to farmworkers will improve the situation.
“There is no silver bullet,” he said.
He added that his workers are protected because the company makes it mandatory for them to have life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment insurance and they pay half.
“When you go into farming you know there is a risk,” he said. “That is why we have mandatory AD&D and life insurance because we now if we didn’t we know they wouldn’t take it.”
In Lorna’s case, she sued because her children were not covered under the life insurance policy and they would be if they had WCB and that was part of the lawsuit.
Morrison said he has no ill will towards Lorna.
“I have a lot of respect for Lorna,” he said.
Morrison said he can’t comment on legislation that isn’t yet in place.
“They are coming up with an idea right now,” he said. “Then everyone puts their pieces in. It will take a while. I’ll have input when it gets to my level and see the impact.”
It’s a move that Lorna Chandler, a former Black Diamond woman who lost her husband in a farm accident in 2006, has been calling for.
Nine years ago Kevan Chandler was scraping at grain hanging in a silo that gave way and suffocated him at Tongue Creek Feeders southwest of Okotoks. It was father’s day, June 18, 2006 when Chandler left his two children fatherless and his wife Lorna a widow.
Farmworker’s Union of Alberta president Eric Musekamp has made it his life’s work to champion farm workers rights.
Two years before Chandler’s death Eric Musekamp was working on a farm near Taber when Terry Rash was stabbed to death at a nearby farm by his employer.
Musekamp said the murder got him interested in farmworker’s rights.
“I was a happy hired hand and loving every minute of it,” Musekamp recalled. “When that happened I looked into farmworkers rights. I felt like part of the reason (Terry’s murderer) got such a light sentence was because farm worker’s status was so diminutive.”
Musekamp started the Farmworkers Union of Alberta 11 years ago and has been lobbying for farmworkers to be included in legislation that protects workers.
“I would get courtesy from the PC government, but they would never make any hints or suggestions that they would change everything,” he said. “It would have taken something pretty dramatic to make a change.”
Over the past decade Musekamp has seen many people’s lives ruined when a farmworker is injured or killed.
“We are standing in fear of who is the latest to get creamed,” he said.
Musekamp said he feels assured the NDP government will make WCB mandatory for farmworkers and apply OHS legislation to farmworkers, but said he can’t relax until it is in writing.
“I’m pleased the potential is there, but I remain anxious because I now there are people are being injured, killed and left in financial ruin. I know there are children working on farms.”
