Organizers of a farm equipment convoy that travelled across Mountain View County in opposition to the provincial government's controversial Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act (Bill 6) on Dec. 9 say they plan to continue their protests.
A second convoy was planned for Dec. 12 (after press time), also in Mountain View County, this time starting in Olds.
Jim Thain, a Carstairs farmer and member of the convoy organizing group, said, “We intend to continue to do this until the government revokes this law or we decide we have lost.”
The group successfully convoyed 85 pieces of farm equipment – grain trucks, tractors, combines, pickups and family SUVs – that drove from the Viterra grain terminals at Crossfield, up Highway 2 to the Olds Cow Palace for the government information meeting on the farm safety omnibus bill held Dec. 9.
The farmers and their families joined a crowd of 1,000 at the Cow Palace to demonstrate their opposition to the new law which will allow farm workers to unionize, require farm operators to pay for workers' compensation and enforce new Occupational Health and Safety farm standards.
“I know the rural community did not vote NDP (in the spring provincial general election), however a lot of Albertans did because they wanted change, but they did not expect this,” he said. “I see that Ms. Notley's popularity as premier is fading. She took on a battle that she should not have.
“Past generations of farm families – in my family beginning with my great- grandfather – tamed this province. We remember what they did. They were passionate for their families.
“You can't put a measure on their love. Farm families do not do anything that endangers life and limb or puts their children in danger. Teaching them to be safe is not the same as workers' compensation. Farming is a compassionate occupation; we are compassionate employers; I have half a dozen employees and I treat them like family.”
This, he said, is what the government thinks it needs to unionize.
Thain would say to Premier Notley, “How dare you insult us to other Albertans; I am disgusted.”
Thain said he appreciated that Albertans were tired of the “same old, same old” after 40 years, and he remembers the defeat of the Social Credit government by the Progressive Conservatives in 1971. “But (Premier) Peter Lougheed did not act like this when he began to govern.
“We love to live in a province where we have the right to elect our government and we are offended that we have been called ‘dummies' by people who don't know what we do.”
Bill 6 passed third reading in the legislature on Dec. 10.
