British Columbia Federation of Labour

Families also demand public inquiry into the dropping of 33 criminal charges of the company owners.

A delegation representing the families of three farmworkers killed while travelling to work in an unsafe van today, urged Labour Minister Murray Coell and Agriculture Minister Steve Thompson to implement all the Coroner's recommendations to ensure that other farmworkers are not killed travelling to work in unsafe vans.

"We want to see real change so other families do not suffer the loss of their loved ones because the system failed to protect them," said Jageet Sidhu, husband of Sarabjit Sidhu, one of three workers killed. "We also told the Minister we want a public inquiry into the reasons 33 criminal charges recommended by the RCMP were all dropped. There has been no justice here and we want justice."

The Crown Prosecutor dropped all criminal charges and instead, the driver was charged under the Motor Vehicle Branch and received a $2,000 fine. The same lesser charges against the company were dropped completely because the owner simply shut down the company. After an extensive investigation, the RCMP had recommended 33 charges be laid.

A Coroner's inquest in December made 18 recommendations following testimony that revealed the farmworkers were in a van that had poor tires, an improperly licensed driver, a fraudulent inspection certificate, no seatbelts and was overloaded. The recommendations included a once a year public inspection of all vans, bonds on contractors to ensure fines are paid (in this case a $70,000 WCB fine was never paid) and making growers responsible for the safety of vans carrying their workers to the job.

B.C. Federation of Labour President, Jim Sinclair, attended the meetings with the family and echoed the call for the government to implement all the recommendations.

"British Columbians want to know that workers putting food on our tables are treated fairly and are safe. These tragedies have gone on long enough and it's time to put a stop to the maiming and killing of farmworkers in unsafe vans," he said. "There's no excuse for the government not to act, the recommendations are there, they make sense and people want the deaths and injuries to stop."

Coell told the delegation he expected the government would respond to the recommendations within the next two weeks. Also attending the meeting was NDP Labour Critic, Raj Chouhan, the former President of the Canadian Farmworkers Union.

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For more information: Sheila Moir, Director of Occupational Health & Safety 604-430-1421.