Alberta farmers warming to new workplace rules

EDMONTON •WhenAlberta elected Rachel Notley’s New Democrats in 2015, the new government moved quickly to change provincial farm safety regulations that some believed were, in the words of former provincial Liberal leader David Swann, enough to make “Charles Dickens blush.” But the introduction of Bill 6 provoked a firestorm, leading then-Alberta Progressive Conservative leader Ric McIver to fume that the reforms were part of a plan to turn Alberta into a “socialist Disneyland,” and, at the margins, to social media posts in which people mused openly about assassinating Notley and other New Democrats.

At the time, Alberta was the only province that exempted farms and ranches from workplace health and safety rules. Bill 6 sought to change that, bringing workers under workers’ compensation rules and setting out workplace safety regulations. Since January 2016, farm employees have been under workers’ compensation; after two years of consultations, the NDP announced specific workplace safety regulations in June 2018 — they come into effect this December.

The bill flat-out scared Alberta’s farmers, said Andre Harpe. “The farming community in the rural areas were talked at, we were told what we were, what was wrong with us,” said Harpe, who grows grain and oilseed near the hamlet of Valhalla Centre, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

The legislation was seen as a symbol of the distance between Notley’s government and rural Alberta, a policy designed by city slickers with no understanding of life outside the city. And yet, after two years of consultations, major industry players represented by AgCoalition ended up backing the regulations. “We landed in a good place,” said AgCoalition chairman Albert Kamps. “No law is perfect, but a major step was needed to enhance a culture of safety in agriculture,” read a July 12 editorial in The Western Producer.

It seems a remarkably peaceful outcome, considering how controversial farm safety was just three years ago. But the drama isn’t quite over, nor is it likely to be when the regulations come into effect on Dec. 1 — or even after what promises to be a raucous provincial election in 2019.

Farms and ranches are, by any standard, dangerous places. An average of 17 people died on Alberta farms annually between 1985 and 2014; about 100 die annually countrywide. Since 2016, when employees came under workers’ compensation, more than 800 claims have been accepted per year; in 2015, there were 339. “In terms of absolute numbers of fatalities, there is no more dangerous occupation,” said Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting’s 2016 report.

So it made sense to the New Democrats to strive to protect those injured by bringing waged, non-family farm workers under workers’ compensation and putting in place regulations that make farm work safer for employees (exempting, for example, neighbours who volunteer to help each other out).

However, the political hangover from the farm safety reforms continues.

In tandem with the carbon tax, Bill 6 could still help sink the NDP’s chances to hold on to the few seats they have outside Alberta’s cities. “The NDP will not hold a single seat in rural Alberta after the next election,” predicts independent MLA Richard Starke. “Once you’ve damaged a sense of trust with government, it is a very, very difficult process in rebuilding it.”