A member of a working group tasked with recommending workplace regulations for the ranching and farming community in Alberta is highly skeptical of many of the proposed best practice guidelines.
Greg Harris, a member of the Agriculture Technical Working Group Committee, spoke to the Agricultural Service Board at the Mountain View County office on Monday, Aug. 15.
“This is a very superficial look at a very complex industry,” Harris said in regards to the proposed guidelines. “I just haven't seen a lot of common sense so far.”
Harris is a member of one of six working groups that will develop recommendations on how employment standards, occupational health and safety, and labour relations requirements should be applied under Bill 6 - given the unique needs of employers and employees in the agriculture sector.
Bill 6, the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act, was passed in Alberta's Legislature on Dec. 10, 2015. While changes from the bill began to come into effect on Jan. 1 many aspects of it are still to be determined.
Harris' working group is assisting with the review of current best practices related to healthy and safe operations on farms and ranches and will provide advice, suggestions, and recommendations to the provincial government on the best practices prevalent in the agricultural sector.
“We have a very broad membership,” Harris said. “There are people from every type of producer.”
All of these groups are operating with little or no communication between each other, he said. Harris' working group has only met two times, and their last meeting got cut short by half a day.
He said he is not pleased with some of the recommendations Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) has given. For example, he said children who are killed in ATV accidents on farms would no longer be considered farming accidents.
“They've muddied the waters between farm safety and farming safety.”
In the past, he said Alberta Agricultural and Forestry counted these as farm accidents to justify educating children on farms.
“They took the view that if it happened on a farm, it's farm related,” Harris said. “You can't take away from the fact that people live where they work.”
Harris said he and his colleagues are worried that, if OHS has its way, educational programs designed to teach children how to use farming equipment and vehicles will be scrapped.
In 2009, the national average of farming deaths was 5.1 per 100,000. Alberta's was 4.1, while British Columbia's had almost double the amount at 8.1.
Harris said that when he asked OHS why they are so focused on making legislation when such an approach didn't work in British Columbia, the answer they gave him was “B.C. has more hills.”
“They've clearly not hayed or worked fields west of the number two highway,” Harris said.
While British Columbia did have a drop in the number of farming deaths, Harris said this was just because they aren't counting certain types of deaths anyone.
Another concern was some of the wording in FarmSafe Alberta, a guide designed to help farmers and farm managers to develop proper health and safety systems.
Harris said the guidelines the book gives have very little application to farming and weren't reflective of the agricultural industry.
The county's Agricultural Service Board raised concerns that OHS hasn't been working or talking with local governments regarding these changes to best practices.
“Just because we didn't vote for them doesn't make us idiots,” said Brian Rodger, the vice-chair of the Agricultural Service Board.
Board member and county councillor Duncan Milne said the people at OHS are just “justifying their job” by trying to implement whatever ideas come into their head.
Harris said he doesn't think OHS is being difficult out of maliciousness.
“I've never really met anyone in the years I've been around that's actually against safety,” Harris said. “They just have ideas that are locked in.”
