Recently I came home from work to find my Western Producer in my mailbox.
As I do every week, I sat down to relax and enjoy browsing through my favorite paper.
When I came to page 55 of the May 11 issue, I was very disturbed by a picture, which in my opinion should never have been printed.
The picture shows a young man replacing cultivator shovels under the raised wing of a cultivator.
I may be mistaken, but there is no evidence of any jacks or blocks holding the wing of the implement.
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In the picture shown, if an old or damaged hydraulic hose were to blow, the wing of this implement would drop in less than one second, with a force of well over 1,000 pounds, depending on the size of the implement. The chances of escaping without injury are slim to none.
It’s hard enough to stand up through a cultivator frame on your own free will and not scrape your skull.
I am the service manager of an ag implement dealership, and involved in my family farm. Every day I promote safety of operation and repair of farm machinery.
All the manufacturers and suppliers support farm safety and even sponsor contests to educate our children on the hazards of working with machinery.
Every year, many men, women and children are killed or injured in farm accidents that are preventable.
By taking a few extra minutes each day, many of these accident would never have happened.
I am very concerned that a publication like yours would print such a picture and, if inadvertently or not, condone such a dangerous practice.
I would think a series on safety around machinery would be much more in order.
– Kevin Hadley,
North Battleford, Sask.
Machinery grants
To the Editor:
This letter is in response to a June 1 article, “Machinery Manufacturing: should government help?”
The answer from our point of view is a resounding no!
We are an Eastern Canadian farm equipment distributor who purchases Western Canadian products from a number of suppliers for resale in the east.
Recently we have been frustrated in attempts to sell one Saskatchewan product in particular which historically enjoyed a competitive position.
Today it is completely uncompetitive relative to a similar product being marketed in Eastern Canada at cut-rate prices by another Saskatchewan manufacturer. To no one’s surprise the company marketing the now low-cost product received massive taxpayer support, while our now-uncompetitive supplier did not.
It makes no difference if government monies are earmarked for expansion, R&D or training. These are normal costs of doing business that should be borne by the manufacturer.
A reduction in these overhead costs results in a lower-priced product.
The end result of using taxpayers’ money to subsidize one manufacturer is to shift market share from one company to another.
There is absolutely no net gain in sales, jobs or return to the taxpayer and in fact government may be unwittingly helping one Saskatchewan manufacturer at the expense of another.
– Bob Trimble,
marketing manager
Harco Ag Equipment,
Harriston, Ont.
Sex education
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the article “Sex education is local decision” (May 18).
Pat Atkinson said government is not forcing schools to teach the health curriculum and has no plans to do so …
Health is a core curriculum subject, therefore compulsory.
The recommendations put forward by the Health Advisory Committee on Family Planning included the recommendations to have comprehensive mandatory sexuality education in all Saskatchewan schools (page 23 of their report) and also to enact legislation to mandate sexual and reproductive health components of Saskatchewan Health Education Curriculum education in all Saskatchewan schools from K-12 by no later than September 1995 (page 40 of their report).
The “Wellness 10” program is a combined phys-ed and health course and is designed so that one can’t be taught without the other. It is compulsory in order to pass Grade 10 and contains sexuality education throughout the course, besides specific modules on sex, AIDS and STDs.
Statements made by assistants in Pat Atkinson’s office were that the wording of the policy isn’t done yet, but, yes, they are looking at mandatory sex ed K-12 with the info watered down for younger grades. …
With sexuality hidden in other core subjects, it may not be necessary to have a specifically mandated “sex education or family life” compulsory unit.
Family life units and sexuality are already taught K-12, some material found outside the non-compulsory units. …
With explicit sex and topics like masturbation already presented in the grade 7, 8 and 9 non-optional units, sexual material is already being taught with or without parental knowledge or consent.
As stated in the legislature by Don Toth on May 17, a school board member told him that school boards have the opportunity, and parents can through the school board say no, we don’t want that part of the sex education program taught in our schools.
This parent said to me that their board had a directive from the department of education that while they had the opportunity to choose, they would prefer that they left that course in, made sure it was available in their school.
Parents are often not informed that sex education or sexuality is being taught, and even if they are informed, the wording is often deliberately vague and they know nothing of specific topics that will be covered.
If parents do opt to pull their children from the classes, they sometimes receive negative reactions. Many of their children face the same thing.
There is usually no support given to parents or students to deal with this situation.
Very often things just aren’t what they seem.
– Vicky Dillen,
Weyburn, Sask.
