Alberta PrimeTime did a piece on farmworker safety this
week. The interviews were fairly interesting. The discussion centred
on protecting paid child farm workers, rather than all children working on
farms. I would think the proportion of child farm workers getting paid is
pretty small—most children working on farms are going to be working on their
families’ farms for no wages.
The political attraction of protecting this (effectively
fictional) group is that farmers will buy in because it won’t affect them. But
it means that the majority of children working on farms won’t be protected.
Which can’t possibly be in the public interest.
The other interesting piece is when the Wildrose
Agricultural Producers' president recounted speaking to Dave Hancock (minister in
charge of occupational health and safety) two weeks ago who apparently indicated that it is
rural PC MLAs who are blocking efforts to extend basic safety rights to farm
workers. This jives with the electoral explanation that most analysts subscribe
to—but nice to see it confirmed by a lobbyist.
-- Bob Barnetson
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