Legislative Assembly

passed that we would not have an accident in Prince Edward Island in 1967. How- ever, it is not that easy. But by each and every one of us trying to help and par- ticipate to the fullest in any of our community activities regarding safety, we will all add to th* prevention of accidents.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would move the adjournment of the debate. J. Sinclair Cutcliffe:

Mr. Speaker, I should probably start all over again seeing that we have a new Speaker this evening and to you, Sir, as being Deputy Speaker of the House and filling the Speaker’s chair this evening, I am sure it is an honour for all of us on this side of the House to have you there, and do hope our other Speaker return and until then, the House, I am sure is in very proper and good hands. (Applause)

When I adjourned the debate this afternoon speaking on safety and on farm safety, there is just a couple of things I would like to go over pertaining to the farm. Our Minister of Agriculture is sitting here now and I think I can drive home a few points that I would like to see, probably his Department could par- ticipate in and maybe take the lead in. I know every individual is in accord with all safety rules and so on, however, when we think of safety on the farm once again, I think it comes down to the management of the farm, it boils down to the individual, the man that is operating the tractor or whatever type of machine, combine and so on.

One of the big causes is carelessness again, and I think, through some form of education, either through our Department assisting in it, or the promotion of some literature on farm safety. But then it comes back to an individual problem and here is where I think Junior Farmer, 4-H clubs, the farmers, the Federation of Agriculture, and organization dealing with it and I do know that all machinery outlets and so on have films available on the proper and safe way of handling farm equipment. I think the removal of a shield from a tractor is probably one of the biggest offenders that we have. It is very easy in the busy time of season, I know, to remove it and make some minor adjustment, or greasing, or repairing, it is very easy to say, “I only have an hour's work left, I will do it tomorrow. It won’t happen to me, it’s some other guy.” This does not always hold true and very often, if you are careless like this, and delay or put anything off pertaining to safety this is where we run into trouble. Every year we run across at least two and one year about three years ago, we had as high as eight persons, very seriously injured by being wrapped around power take-offs and so on. So any of these things in the form of education either by guidance or leadership on the part of Govern- ment through the Department of Agriculture pertaining to the farm, with the co- operation of all machine dealers and so on and all organizations directing part of their efforts towards safety, they would make more money than they will on a year in potatoes. I can guarantee this by actually showing you figures which I will mention later on in Workmen’s Compensation and as I said before, it costs the same whether you break your leg with the tractor or whether you break it in industry. So with farming, I think something along these lines, and encouragement from the government and I know that my good friend, The Minister of Agriculture, will back me up in that 100%. I would like to see something instituted in the line of safety toward the farmers. Just before I leave that, I hope this will never come about, but I can see it happening, and that is the poisoning of streams. Have any of you ever thought what would happen if this got into a well and the family, and children and everybody there were drinking the water? The same thing for instance would happen to them as happened to the cattle and the fish in those streams that are poisoned. You can’t be too careful when you are using these toxic sprays that are now used as top killers and so on. This is only a pre- ventative measure preventing poisoning, and this can very easily happen to humans by being secreted down into wells, particularly shallow wells or maybe into open wells, that are the source of water supply to a whole family. So enforcement, here, will help. I know it is being done, last year as the cases have grown more numerous, then they tightened up on it. But here once again, you can’t police every stream, you can’t police every potato field and the onus once again falls back on the individual, the farmer limself. So I would hope that some of these law's would not only be enforced but adhered to by the general population.

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