Bill 6 opposition continues in southern Alberta

Alberta's farm safety legislation Bill 6 was given another thumbs down by hundreds who showed up to a town hall organized by the opposition Wildrose party in Bassano Saturday.

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Organizer Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt rallied the troops in opposing the bill which would extend workers compensation and occupational health and safety legislation to paid workers on farms and ranches in the province, aligning Alberta with the rest of Canada.

"We are all angry," Fildebrandt told the crowd.

"You are angry, most of you are probably. We are very upset about the way this has happened."

The provincial government has come under fire for Bill 6 which critics say was imposed on them without proper consultation.

Thousands of farmers and their supporters have rallied in communities across the province in recent days telling the province to kill the bill.

On Tuesday Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson said the bill will be amended to remove family members from the legislation, something some farmers have said would kill their way of life.

Fildebrandt said he didn't think Oneil Carlier, agriculture and forestry minister, would accept his invitation to Saturday's town hall.

Carlier said the bill is still open for discussion.

"It's not too late," Carlier said after the meeting.

"We have the framework, we have the skeleton of the legislation that is going to be passed and then going forward we will work out the very infinite regulations that need to be worked out with this industry."

Lots of questions were directed at Carlier in the meeting, some he couldn't answer, saying he lacked his technical team due to the format of the opposition-organized meeting.

Fildebrandt says Bill 6 is the wrong approach at the wrong time.

"Improvements can be made to legislation around farm safety," he said.

"This bill doesn't do it."

Carlier disagrees.

"This has been worked on since the early 1970s," Carlier said.

"No province in Canada is looking at Alberta as a model for exempting labour legislation for farm workers. It's time that Alberta joins the rest of Canada in removing these exemptions."

That was a tough sell to the Bassano crowd.

When a speaker asked for a show of hands of people who wanted Bill 6 killed, hundreds of hands went up.

The government has said it plans to introduce amendments when the bill moves into committee of the whole.