Alberta’s governing United Conservatives — who made repeal and replacement of Bill 6 a core plank of their platform before unseating the NDP government back in April — published an online survey Friday on topics covered in the legislation, including:

• occupational health and safety (OHS) standards for farms and ranches;
• establishing private insurance plans for farms and ranches;
• labour relations provisions, including farm and ranch workers’ eligibility to unionize and bargain collectively;
• employment standards relating to waged, non-family workers, and to waged, non-family youth working on farms; and
• vacations, vacation pay and working on any of Alberta’s nine general holidays.

Along with the online survey, which will be open to the general public until Aug. 31, Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen said Friday he will take a “consultation tour” this summer, “meeting with farmers, ranchers and organizations across the province.”

Dreeshen, the province said Friday, has already met with “key industry leaders” and will be at events across the province this summer, “seeking input from Alberta’s farmers and ranchers.”

He and other MLAs are also expecting to “participate in grassroots conversations with Albertans” over the summer about the UCP’s proposed replacement, which it plans to call the Farm Freedom and Safety Act.

Bill 6, the NDP’s Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act, was passed in late 2015 with what the current government described Friday as “limited public input and in the face of strong opposition from farmers.”

Bill 6 had sought to set up new workers’ compensation requirements for farms, lift OHS exemptions for farm workplaces and revamp rules on labour relations and employment standards for ag workers.

The UCP, in its pre-election platform this spring, had said a replacement bill would “ensure basic safety standards” but would also “recognize that operating a farm is unlike operating a conventional business and that farmers and ranchers require much greater flexibility in meeting employment standards.”

A new bill, the UCP said at the time, will require employers to maintain workplace insurance for farm workers, but will allow employers to choose whether to buy insurance “from the market” or from Alberta’s Workers’ Compensation Board — “as long as basic standards of coverage are met for such things as medical and return-to-work support services, and protection against loss of income.”

The party also said at the time it will “exempt small farms from employment legislation, following the example of New Brunswick that exempts farms that ’employ three or fewer employees over a substantial period of the year (not including family members)’.”

Those proposals remained intact Friday in the online survey — but the survey also offers members of the public several multiple-choice options for what they’d prefer to see in such a bill.

For example, the survey asks if “small farms,” for the purpose of exemptions from employment legislation, should consist of “three or fewer waged, non-family workers” as in New Brunswick’s case. Otherwise, the survey offers the respondent the chance to suggest a number other than three.

Allison Ammeter, a farmer at Sylvan Lake, west of Red Deer, and current chair of Pulse Canada’s board of directors, said in Friday’s provincial release she “appreciate(s) that Minister Dreeshen is seeking feedback from the farm and ranch community in advance of tabling new farm safety legislation.

“We all value farm safety and employee protection, but recognize we are a unique work environment with unique requirements,” she said. “I appreciate our collective voice will be heard by the government while crafting this bill.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Consultations begin online for replacing Alberta’s Bill 6 appeared first on Farmtario.

Oneil Carlier, the provincial NDP government’s minister of agriculture and forestry since May 2015 and deputy government house leader since February 2016, was unseated in his riding of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland by UCP challenger Shane Getson, an energy project consultant and civil engineering technologist.

With 90 of 92 polls reporting, Getson was well ahead in the vote count, drawing 13,684 votes to Carlier’s 4,883.

With 7,148 of 7,328 polls reporting so far provincewide, the UCP was elected or leading in 63 of 87 ridings with 55.1 per cent of the popular vote, followed by the NDP in 24 ridings with 32.2 per cent of the popular vote.

Kenney, uniting the province’s Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose Party under the UCP banner, took the party to a decisive majority government, up from a combined 31 seats in 2015. The provincial Liberals lost their lone riding, Calgary Mountain View, to the NDP.

The UCP on Tuesday night was also the clear winner in the province’s rural ridings, elected or leading in all constituencies outside major cities.

With no shortage of rural MLAs, the UCP has several possible candidates to take over from Carlier on the agriculture file — even without former UCP agriculture critic Rick Strankman, who left the party in January to sit as an independent after he was denied the UCP nomination as its 2019 candidate for Drumheller-Stettler.

Strankman ran in that riding as an independent on Tuesday but placed a distant second behind the UCP’s chosen candidate, rancher Nate Horner, by a spread of over 14,000 votes with 99 of 102 polls reporting.

Other high-profile possibilities for the ag portfolio could include:

• rancher and former Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Travis Toews, who won the riding of Grande Prairie-Wapiti over NDP challenger Shannon Dunfield;
• UCP finance critic Drew Barnes, who held his riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat over NDP challenger Peter Mueller; and
• infrastructure critic Glenn van Dijken, a grain grower, who held his riding of Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock over NDP challenger Therese Taschuk.

On the agriculture file, the UCP’s platform includes a pledge to introduce what it calls the Farm Freedom and Safety Act, to repeal and replace the NDP’s Bill 6, its Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act.

The UCP, in its platform, pledges to “immediately launch comprehensive consultations with farmers, ranchers, agriculture workers and others on how best to balance the unique economic pressures of farming with the need for a common-sense, flexible farm safety regime,” but also to “ensure basic safety standards.”

It would require employers to maintain workplace insurance for farm workers, but allow employers to choose whether to buy insurance from the market or from the Workers’ Compensation Board, “as long as basic standards of coverage are met for such things as medical and return-to-work support services, and protection against loss of income.”

The UCP said it would also exempt small farms from employment legislation, defining “small” as farms with three or fewer employees over a “substantial period” of the year, not including family members.

On other ag-related files, the UCP said it will “streamline” the province’s crop insurance and farm lending agency, the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC), to “improve services and responsiveness to farmers.”

It also pledged to “ensure that farmers, not government, set key agriculture research priorities” and to consult on future land sales “in order to replace good agricultural land lost to urban expansion.” –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Alberta ag minister Carlier downed in UCP win appeared first on Farmtario.

Bill 6, the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act, passed third reading 44-29 Thursday. It received royal assent Friday, after the legislature adjourned until Feburary.

But the bill, as passed, included amendments meant to “confirm the government’s intent” to exclude farm and ranch owners and their families from the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) rules and mandatory Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) coverage.

Those provisions for family members and “non-waged individuals” in Bill 6 were meant to be set out later, in accompanying regulations, the province said in a release Monday.

However, the province said, “public concerns about whether OHS rules and WCB coverage applied to family operations required that they be stated within (Bill 6) itself, for greater clarity and certainty.”

“We are also introducing amendments to assure Albertans that neighbours can still volunteer to help each other out, without being subject to the new rules,” Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson said in the same release.

The amendments to the bill “explicitly exclude the application of WCB and OHS to owners of a farm or ranch operation, family members of the owners, and friends and neighbours who volunteer their time on the farm or ranch,” the province said.

“Only where non-owner or non-family waged individuals are involved in a farm or ranch operation will WCB and OHS apply to the operation, and only to those non-owner and non-family waged individuals.”

Also, if “waged individuals” are owners or family members of owners, the application of WCB and OHS will be “excluded as it pertains to those individuals,” the province said.

In all cases, however, farm and ranch families may elect to choose WCB coverage for waged owners, waged family members and unwaged neighbours and friends, the province said.

The bill, widely criticized at public consultations on its accompanying regulations, also came under fire Thursday in the legislature, where Wildrose leader Brian Jean criticized it as a “fundamentally flawed” law that “will cause anger throughout Alberta for many, many years.”

Calling Thursday for a six-month delay on Bill 6, Jean said it should have gone to committee before its passage, “for discussion, for input, for expert opinion and advice.”

“After saying that it’s a perfect bill and presenting it, they had to come forward with amendments to fix the problems so that they would make people partially happy,” he said, before his motion for delay was voted down.

The bill’s protections for smaller family farms, he added, “are just not good enough. Forcing farms to give up on good insurance, better insurance, and replace it with inadequate WCB coverage is a huge mistake.”

After the bill’s passage Thursday, the province’s crop commissions reiterated their disappointment with what they described as a lack of consultation and communication around the bill’s development and implementation.

“This really drives home the message that agriculture stakeholders must be properly consulted prior to the development of regulations and technical standards to ensure they protect farm workers while reflecting the unique nature of the farm sector,”  Alberta Wheat Commission chair Kent Erickson said in a release.

The commissions said the bill, as amended, is now “less focused on farm safety and more about farm labour, causing even more confusion among farmers about how it will impact their operations.”

Lee Markert, chair of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, said in the groups’  joint release Thursday their next step will be “to compile the information and use clear language to try to explain how each pillar of this bill will affect those who work on farms across Alberta.” –– AGCanada.com Network

The post Alberta’s farm worker bill passes, with tweaks appeared first on Farmtario.

While not mentioning recent vocal protests over the bill, provincial Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson announced Tuesday the bill will be amended to “make clear what was our intention all along — that farm families would be exempt from those laws, which were designed to protect paid employees.”

“To be clear, Bill 6 is not in any way going to affect children doing their chores, participating in 4-H, or learning the family business,” Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier said in the same release.

“It does not prevent neighbours, relatives and friends from helping each other out during busy times. It does not apply to recreational activities such as riding horses or hunting on farmland.”

Bill 6, he said, is meant to “bring Alberta farm and ranch safety standards in line with other provinces, and ensure that if a wage-earning employee is injured or killed on the job, that person and their family have the same access to financial supports as employees in other sectors.”

The basic bill — so far mostly a handful of amendments and repeals for parts of existing labour and workplace safety legislation — passed first reading in the provincial legislature Nov. 17. Debate on second reading was adjourned Nov. 25, as the public consultation sessions got underway.

The bill is expected to lift the Occupation Health and Safety Act’s current exemptions for farm workers, effective Jan. 1, 2016, with OHS code technical requirements to take effect in 2017.

New workers’ compensation requirements for farm workers would also take effect Jan. 1, 2016, while the bill’s aspects relating to labour relations and employment standards code would take effect in spring 2016.

“It has never been our government’s intention to interfere with what family members, friends and neighbours have always done on the family farm,” Sigurdson said Tuesday.

The new amendments to Bill 6 announced Tuesday are expected to make clear that workers’ compensation coverage “would be required only for paid employees, with an option for farmers to extend coverage to unpaid workers like family members, neighbours and friends.”

The changes proposed Tuesday are also to make clear that OHS standards would apply “when a farm employs one or more paid employees at any time of the year.”

The consultation sessions now underway are expected to help form the basis of regulations to be developed by 2017 “to ensure the unique workplace characteristics of farms and ranches are recognized,” the province said Tuesday.

Registrations for all but one of the consultation sessions were full up late last week, but the province said Tuesday it’s “working with venues to increase capacity at each session to ensure more farmers and ranchers are able to attend and have their voices heard.”

As of Tuesday evening, seats were available for the consultation sessions in Medicine Hat (Friday), Vegreville (Dec. 8) and Olds (Dec. 9), all of which were previously booked solid. Sessions at Okotoks, Lethbridge and Leduc are full, while the final session in Athabasca (Dec. 14) also still has seats available.

An FAQ page on Bill 6, posted previously on the provincial Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour ministry website — in which the ministry had said Bill 6 would see the OHS Act apply to farm workers “regardless of whether or not the worker is paid… and regardless of the worker’s age” — has since been replaced with a “page not found” message.

The now-unavailable FAQ page had also said Bill 6’s planned OHS amendments would cover “children of farmers and ranchers who are helping out on the commercial operations of the farm.”

The ministry’s main page on Bill 6 gave information on the consultation sessions, but was also changed Tuesday evening to say there’s a “website update in progress.”

“Be heard”

Alberta’s wheat, barley, canola and pulse grower commissions on Monday put out a joint statement urging the province to delay its scheduled implementation of Bill 6 “in order to extend the consultation process.”

That said, the commissions on Monday also urged growers members to “speak out and be heard” at the upcoming consultation sessions and “continue to work actively with the government on the shaping of Bill 6.”

Alberta Barley chair Mike Ammeter on Monday noted the commissions said in September they “were ready to provide input before the specifics of Bill 6 were announced, to ensure farmers’ best interests were being represented; unfortunately, that process was never initiated.”

“The current government process is causing fear and uncertainty to grasp the industry,” Alberta Pulse Growers chair Allison Ammeter said in the same release. “Farmers can provide good input and are the subject matter experts on what will be most effective for their farm.”

Another group, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, on Monday urged the provincial government to send Bill 6 back to committee for “study and real consultation with Alberta farmers.”

“It’s abundantly clear from these hastily-planned government town halls, producers have too many unanswered questions on the significant implications of Bill 6,” WCWG secretary-treasurer Matt Sawyer, a farmer at Acme, Alta., said Monday.

However, parts of Bill 6 written to come into force Jan. 1 suggests the government “is not prepared to have the bill studied in committee,” WCWG vice-president Stephen Vandervalk of Fort Macleod said in the same release. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Alta. to tweak farm worker bill for ‘clarity’ appeared first on Farmtario.

The province’s labour minister has said as much after stormy early going in the government’s consultations on Bill 6, the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act.

“I want to assure those families that Bill 6 does nothing more than bring Alberta’s safety standards on farm and ranching operations in line with every other province in Canada,” Lori Sigurdson said in a statement late Friday.

Neighbours and relatives will continue to pitch in on farms when needs be, she said Friday, describing their role as one of the “customary parts of farm life (which) will go on as before.”

Sigurdson’s statement runs up against statements from her ministry on its website, which say changes to the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act would apply “regardless of whether or not the worker is paid (for example, neighbours who volunteer their help) and regardless of the worker’s age.”

The provincial OHS Code in other covered sectors already includes work by “volunteers and other unpaid persons.”

Bill 6’s planned OHS amendments, while still subject to “ongoing consultation around technical standards for the OHS Code,” would also cover “children of farmers and ranchers who are helping out on the commercial operations of the farm,” the ministry said.

Bill 6 passed first reading in the provincial legislature Nov. 17. The government moved Wednesday to adjourn debate on the bill, rather than vote on second reading.

The bill would have current OHS Act exemptions for farm workers lifted effective Jan. 1, 2016, with occupational health and safety code technical requirements to take effect in 2017.

Workers’ compensation requirements for farm workers would also take effect Jan. 1, 2016, while aspects relating to labour relations and employment standards code would take effect in spring 2016.

The regulations of the safety codes “will be developed while working with farmers,” Sigurdson said in the legislature Thursday — the same day as the province’s first public meeting on Bill 6, in Grande Prairie.

For example, the ministry said on its website, Alberta farms today are exempt from employment standards for employment of youth, such as those for parental consent, supervision, limited approved occupations and restricted work hours. The consultations are expected to look at “how we can best meet international labour standards and ensure youth workers on farms and ranches are adequately protected.”

The Alberta Wheat Commission on Thursday urged the province to make sure to provide the farm sector with more chances for dialogue before the detailed regulations are set.

The fact that some of the province’s town hall meetings are “already fully subscribed” suggests more dialogue is needed, AWC chairman Kent Erickson said in a release. “It is critical that we have input into the regulations and how they are applied.”

Eight more meetings are scheduled between Dec. 1 and 14, but available seats remain only for the Dec. 14 meeting in Athabasca.

Shaye Anderson, the NDP MLA for Leduc-Beaumont, said in the legislature Thursday that his constituents agree farm and ranch workers’ safety needs to be protected, but “are deeply concerned that changes could hurt their family farm and affect their way of life.”

Anderson said he’d also heard criticisms that the government “is moving forward too quickly and… there is a lot of misinformation that is fuelling this opinion.”

The most frequently-heard concern with Bill 6, Sigurdson said in Friday’s statement, relates to “what the legislation means for family, friends and neighbours who pitch in on the farm.”

Farm youth, she said, “will continue to make their communities proud in their local 4-H program, just as they do in every other province” and farmers’ neighbours and relatives “will continue to help each other out in times of need, just as they do in every other province.

“These customary parts of farm life will go on as before, while enhancing protections for employees.”

Bill 6, she said, gives the province the “flexibility” to set up “common-sense regulations to achieve this goal.”

In the meantime, Sigurdson said, under the legislation, “a paid farmworker who is directed to do something dangerous can say no, just like other workers in Alberta and Canada. And if they are hurt or killed at work, they or their family can be compensated, just like other workers in Alberta and Canada.”

The workers’ compensation component, she said, would also protect farm operators. In previous cases when a farm worker has died on the job, “the worker’s family has no recourse but to sue that farmer, and then that farmer often will lose their farm.”

Legal protections of farm and ranch employees and preservation of family farm traditions are “complementary goals” in Bill 6, she said.

Bill 6, she said, doesn’t call for “one-size-fits-all legislation that would force farms and ranches to follow rules meant for a vastly different industry” — hence the current consultations, which she said are a “key component of how changes will happen if the bill passes.” — AGCanada.com Network

The post Alta. farm bill applies to paid workers only, minister says appeared first on Farmtario.