Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

[Pepper]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: RichD</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Pepper</div><div class="ubbcode-body">People are performing farm work in January in Canada? What are they harvesting?

Sad news. </div></div>

they were vaccinating chickens </div></div>

Thanks RichD.

[Peasie]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

Sad story

Not too long ago Milo posted on the plight of farm workers in Canada

There is an Agriculture Workers Alliance for Canada here Let's advocate for their fair treatment

[evanovitch]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

the van in question is banned in some Canadian provinces....this is yet another example of how poor the oversight is by the Ministry in Jamaica which ships off the citizens ala the slave ships of yesteryear....but y be surprised...they have never addressed the abhorrent facilities that farm workers have gone to for decades in the US....

n now di Ministry of Justice announce dem a reproduce n retrace Paul Bogle's race back in the days as a part of the 50th Independence celebration.....Y????? aint no justice in Ja and none wen dem own govament rent dem out abroad....FEH

[RichD]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

i think the van issue is a red herring. as far as i know the accident was not caused by anything to do with the van

[evanovitch]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: RichD</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i think the van issue is a red herring. as far as i know the accident was not caused by anything to do with the van </div></div>


it led the news i watched ...the van issue...

[RichD]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: RichD</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i think the van issue is a red herring. as far as i know the accident was not caused by anything to do with the van </div></div>


it led the news i watched ...the van issue... </div></div>

yes they are making a big thing of it on the news coverage here too.

[ackeepod]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

the van had a stop sign and the truck didnt ... no matter anyway 11 dear and three fighting for their lives .all peruvians and I think the Truck driver was Canadian..He died too. Those guys work 16 hrs per day and earn $5.00 per hour ..yet they are still able to help their families back home

[j-kid]

Re: Jamaicans killed in horrible accident abroad

Peru's Consul-General confirms identity of one Ontario crash victim
adrian morrow AND steven chase
Hampstead, Ont. and Ottawa— Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Feb. 07, 2012 9:21AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Feb. 07, 2012 10:04PM EST

One of the victims of a horrific van crash that killed 10 migrant workers from Peru has been identified as 48-year-old Enrique Arturo Arenaza León.

Peru’s Consul-General in Toronto, Aurelio Pinto-Bazurco Rittler, confirmed the death on Peruvian radio on Tuesday evening.

Mr. León’s wife, Patricia Aguilar, said he has been in Canada for two years and two months, legally.



Ms. Aguilar told a local radio station she practically lived off the earnings that Mr. León sent back to her and asked the consul-general to help to send her husband’s body back to Peru.

His Facebook page indicates that he was living in Kitchener, Ont.

Peru’s consulate in Toronto said 13 Peruvian farm workers were in the van that collided with a flatbed truck in a deadly southwestern Ontario accident Monday.

Consulate officials said 10 Peruvians are dead and three are in hospital with injuries as a result. The three injured workers are dispersed among three separate hospitals.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Early reports had suggested crash victims also included migrant workers from Jamaica.

Jamaica’s consulate in Toronto said, however, they were not aware of any Jamaicans killed or wounded in the accident.</span>

The horrific crash in southwestern Ontario killed 11 people in total, some of them “hard-working South American guys” in the country only a week, said the man who hired the migrant labourers for the day.

The crash happened shortly after the workers had wrapped up a day vaccinating chickens in a barn on a hill overlooking the intersection where the fatal collision occurred.

Shortly before sundown Monday, a flatbed truck slammed into the workers’ 15-seater passenger van on the rural road, in one of the worst crashes in Ontario’s history.

Two staff members from the Ontario Labour Ministry are at the scene of the accident investigating.

“I think we have more questions than answers right now,” Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey told reporters at Queen’s Park. “At the moment, all we know is it was a terrible accident.”

On Tuesday, police named the driver of the truck as Christopher Fulton, 38, a London resident. Remains of the other victims had been brought to the coroner’s office in Toronto, where identifications will be made.

The tragic incident will leave families overseas without a breadwinner and shine a spotlight on the tens of thousands of people who arrive in the country every year to work tough farm jobs for little pay.

Albert Burgers, who owns the farm the victims had departed, said they were employees of Brian’s Poultry Services in Mildmay, about an hour’s drive north. Brian’s, a business which hires out crews to perform tasks on area chicken farms, has refused to comment.

Mr. Burgers said 16 migrant workers – one woman and 15 men – arrived at his farm around 8 a.m. Monday, accompanied by a couple of other Brian’s employees. They worked until about 4:15 p.m., then departed in two vans.

The farmer had employed the services of the same crew about 8 weeks ago and planned to have them back next week to move chickens to a different barn. Five of the men had only been in the country a week or so, he said.

“I know them as hard-working South American guys. They’re happy. They seem to like what they do,” he said, standing outside his house. “I still can see all the faces.”

Mr. Burgers said he left shortly before the workers did. When he returned shortly after, he saw the truck overturned at the intersection.

“I’m really sad for the families,” he said.

By Tuesday morning, both vehicles and the debris from the crash had been cleaned up. All that remained to mark the scene were patches of torn up grass and several crushed trees against the side of the blue clap board farmhouse where the van had come to rest.
Source:

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In March, 2007, three migrant women died in a van accident near Abbotsford, B.C. They were among 16 women in the van heading to a Chilliwack greenhouse.

That same year, a van of 13 migrant workers and a driver smashed head-on into a truck loaded with farm equipment on storm-slicked highway north of Montreal.

After the incident in B.C., in which the workers were not wearing seatbelts, a coroner’s inquest made recommendations for preventing a similar collision.

Researchers said Monday’s crash appears to be the deadliest involving migrant workers in Canada.

Migrant workers come every year to Canadian farms – primarily in Ontario and British Columbia – for manual labour Canadians are unavailable or unwilling to do. Most are in Canada under Ottawa’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program, designed to bring in people from Mexico and the Caribbean for planting and harvesting work.

There are rules governing their treatment, wages and health care. But in the more than 40 years Canada has brought them in, numerous complaints have been brought forward about harsh or illegal working conditions that are never addressed by employees fearful of their precarious status.

“There’s a lack of legislative protection and a lack of enforcement,” warned Chris Ramsaroop, with the advocacy group Justicia for Migrant Workers.

In a telephone interview he stressed that it was too early to know what had happened in this case but said that long hours and substandard transportation are common concerns among migrant workers, who are often afraid to speak up.

Two research papers published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year found a lack of training and unsanitary, crowded living conditions was sickening some migrant workers, many of whom had no idea they were entitled to Canadian health care.

With reports from Karen Howlett, Anna Mehler Paperny and Oliver Moore in Toronto