Alberta should require mandatory farm safety training, says judge

Alberta should require farm safety training in agricultural schools and mandatory farm equipment checks following the death of a worker who was pulled into a grain machine, a report says.

Provincial court Judge Anne Brown madethe recommendations in her fatality inquiry report into the 2014 death of Stephen Gibson, 46, a man known as a cowboy who had worked on farms and ranches for much of his life.

Gibson was on a farm owned by Robert Hamilton, northwest of Calgary, moving grain from a silo to a cattle feed area using an auger and a drive shaft machine called a power take off.

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"Before Mr. Hamilton's horrified gaze, part of Mr. Gibson's clothing caught on the unshielded PTO and drew Mr. Gibson into the machinery, killing him instantly," reads the report released Thursday.

Before Mr. Hamilton's horrified gaze, part of Mr. Gibson's clothing caught on the unshielded PTO and drew Mr. Gibson into the machinery, killing him instantly.- Provincial Court Judge Anne Brown

Brown said farm safety training should be a compulsory part of post-secondary agriculture education, ideally in every year of the program.

She also recommends compulsory safety checks of farm equipment every year.

Brown noted farming is hazardous work. She cited a federal report that said 92 per cent of farm deaths are work-related while 70 per cent of those deaths involved machinery.

She cited other reports that said PTOs are particularly dangerous, accounting for three-out-of-every-10 farm machinery entanglement deaths between 1990 and 2008.

"Alberta Agriculture has considerable educational and training resources for promoting safety on farms and ranches, but use of such resources is still largely elective," her report says.

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Last year, Alberta passed a law to improve safety for farm and ranch workers, but some details of the new legislation that went into effect in January are still being worked on.

Labour Minister Christina Gray said her department and the ministries of Agriculture and Advanced Education will review the recommendations over the coming months.

"Our government is committed to working with the farm and ranch community to make improvements to the safety of agriculture operations, and we'll continue that work in the light of this inquiry," she said.

"One of the ways that we'll do this is by listening to the technical working groups, which include representatives from the agricultural sector, labour groups, and technical experts, on ways to apply occupational health and safety standards to Alberta's farms and ranches."

Keeping track of fatality findings

Fatality inquiries do not assign blame but make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Brown's recommendations are to be tracked under a new system developed after judges noted in previous reports the province was not following up on all fatality inquiry findings.

Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley suggested the tracking system is overdue. Alberta's first fatality inquiry report was released in 1975.

"Albertans who lose loved ones deserve to know that we are doing all we can to prevent similar deaths in the future," she said in a release.

"We are proud to be the first government to bring in this new tracking system which will increase transparency and accountability in the process."