The National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job was an appropriate day for Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris to showcase his private memberâs bill aimed at boosting safety for those working on the provinceâs roads.
Harris met with representatives of the Ontario 91²Ö¿â Management Association and the Emterra Group at their Elmira location Apr. 28 to highlight the his Slow Down, Move Over legislation.
The legislation proposes to increase fines and demerit points for drivers who donât make room and slow down for waste management, recycling and construction workers and vehicles on Ontarioâs roads.
Don Wickie is a waste management worker with Emterra in Elmira, and he has seen the horrors of workplace death firsthand. About 20 years ago, he lost a friend and coworker to a distracted driver.
âHe was 30 years old. I had trained him to drive the truck, He had just gotten his license and I had gotten him a job and everything. I still feel that guilt to this day. The driver was distracted and she wasnât looking. I heard a bang and I got out of the truck and half of him was in the back and the other half was on the ground. She hit him that hard and severed him right in half,â he said.
âWe need to drive the message home. We just need better awareness, more common sense and to get people to care. The biggest thing is that people donât care anymore. My family is the most important thing to me. I donât want my wife to have to find out that some idiot ran me over or hit me because he was being negligent. Everybody wants to get home to their families.â
Pauline Leung, the vice-president of corporate strategy and business development at Emterra, says waste management and recycling collection is a vital part of todayâs society.
Emterra is her familyâs business, and she says while they do what they can to keep workers out of harmâs way, Ontario needs to catch up with other provinces and states with legislation making it illegal to compromise employee safety.
âWe never want to make that call to a family member to give that news that will forever change their lives. Although Canada doesnât have statistics on this, when we looked at the United States, waste collection workers have the fifth most dangerous job,â she said. âI am sure it is not that much different here. It is important that we recognize this and make some serious changes so we donât lag behind. There are other jurisdiction in North America that already have these rules â Kentucky is the 13th state to legislate laws that require drivers to slow down around waste collection vehicles. Even in Canada here, British Columbia has legislation to make drivers slow down and move over. Our association thinks this is wrong and extremely outdated. We are here to advocate to make the working environment for our employees a lot safer.â
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