Farm safety rules to be in place before election: NDP

More than two years after Alberta passed legislation with new safety rules for farms, Labour Minister Christina Gray says the province is still consulting and has no specific timeline to enact the regulations.

“We want to work with the communities to get this right,” Gray said Tuesday. “We’re also very interested in making sure we bring this to a conclusion.”

Gray wouldn’t commit to having regulations in place by the end of the year, but said they’ll be enacted before the provincial election in March, April or May of 2019.

“We will be putting forward and updating the regulations in collaboration with the (stakeholder) communities.”

Farm safety rules have followed a long, twisting and controversial path since Premier Rachel Notley’s government passed the legislation in December 2015.

It provides for workers’ compensation protection for paid farm labourers, and mandates health and safety rules for farming operations. Farm operators are currently held to a basic standard of care while the regulations are developed.

The changes were met with protests on the steps of the legislature. Opposition members and rural families feared the new rules would strangle producers in costly red tape and end the farming way of life.

The government promised in 2015 that farm-specific occupational health and safety regulations would be developed no later than 2017.

In spring 2016, it created multiple committees to consult and make recommendations on what the new safety rules should be. Those committees reported last March.

The government studied the recommendations for seven months before releasing them for public consultation in late October. The deadline for feedback was set for Jan. 15.

Gray has extended the deadline to Feb. 26 at the request of stakeholder groups.

There are more than 140 recommendations on topics that include protective gear, equipment, chemical hazards, welding, physical barriers and safeguards.

By and large, they attempt to strike a balance between safety and the reality of farm life, proposing workarounds and alternative solutions where occupational health and safety rules would prove an onerous burden to farm and ranch operations.

Kent Erickson with AgSafe Alberta, a coalition of producers aiding and advising the province on implementing farm safety changes, said the government is right for not taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

Erickson said tailoring the rules takes time. He also said the changes will require a cultural shift on the part of farmers and ranchers who have traditionally taken care of business on their own.

“We’re very innovative, but we’re very independent.”

Too many rules, or rules deemed too restrictive or onerous, run the risk of being ignored, he said.

“The point is to create farm safety. We want to save lives.”