NDP wants an inquiry into the Hampstead crash
Posted Feb 6, 2013 03:14:35 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario’s New Democrats are questioning the chief coroner’s decision not to hold an inquest into last years horrific crash in Hampstead.
10 migrant workers and a truck driver were killed in the crash.
The NDP’s labour critic says he doesn’t buy interim chief coroner Dan Cass’s argument that an inquest likely wouldn’t generate recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.
Taras Natyshak tells 570’s Jeff Allan show, he’s urging Cass to reconsider his decision, saying lack of regulations on the transportation of farm workers is a serious problem, “It’s an opportunity for us to take a tragedy and learn from it. I think it will benefit, not only migrant workers, but all workers in the province, to understand the pressures of hard labour and the stresses of that type of industry might lead to other tragedies down the road.”
Natyshak adds, “When you see even their transportation being compromised, the fact that there’s not enough seatbelts for the people that they’re transporting, then you really have to start asking the tough questions and that’s what we’re asking the coroner to do.”
“If we had an incident in another country, where Ontario workers were dying, without any real response, I think we’d be demanding the same thing. We’re able to do it, we have the ability to do it, we’re a modernized society and province, and I think it’s our responsibility to do it.”
The deaths were determined to be the result of driver error, and Cass said the circumstances of the crash mean it’s not the right case to hold an inquest to address those issues.
