Farm workers shouldn't be treated like animals, families says
By Ethan Baron, The Province

Victims' families were angry already when the inquest into the van-crash deaths of three greenhouse workers started Monday. By the time it ended Thursday, they were furious.

Before the coroner's inquest into the March 2007 triple-fatal accident on Hwy. 1 in Abbotsford, family members knew that the improperly licensed, untrained driver of the overloaded, unsafely equipped van had received only a $2,000 fine, a one-year driving ban and four traffic tickets.

During the inquest, they learned that RCMP had recommended 33 criminal charges against driver Harwinder Gill and her husband, Ranjit Gill, with whom she operated a labour-supply and worker-transport company. The most serious of the recommended charges — three counts for Ranjit Gill of criminal negligence causing death — carries a potential life jail sentence.

Crown counsel laid no criminal charges, in spite of the fact that Gill was carrying 17 people in a 15-person van, had no seatbelts for 15 of the passengers — including four people on a makeshift lumber rear seat — had improper pressure in mismatched tires that included an illegal retread, and was neither licensed nor trained to drive a transport van.

"There's no justice," said Jagjeet Sidhu, husband of Sarabjit Sidhu, 31, who died at the wreck scene from a head injury. "I want these people who were responsible for that accident to go to jail."

Crown spokesman Neil MacKenzie said Thursday the accident was caused by a "momentary lapse" in Gill's driving, which wasn't sufficient for a criminal charge.

Regarding the van's condition, McKenzie noted the van had passed an inspection slightly more than a week before the accident. RCMP Const. Vince Chand testified at the inquest that that inspection was "bogus," but MacKenzie said Crown could not establish Gill knew the van was mechanically defective.

Gill's lack of training and a proper licence for transporting people were not offences that warranted a charge beyond the Motor Vehicle Act, MacKenzie said.

The inquest also revealed that, although the Gills' company, RHA Enterprises, was fined $69,801 by WorkSafe B.C., they have never paid the fine, and WorkSafe does not expect to receive the money because the company was shut down.

During Harwinder Gill's testimony, she attempted to dodge all responsibility for the accident, casting blame on everyone from ICBC to her mechanic.

"They never said 'sorry' and even now they are making lame excuses," said Harsharan Bal, son of Amarjit Bal, 52, who died at the crash scene from lacerations to her heart and aorta from impact to her chest.

"Labour workers should be treated like other human beings, not like animals."

The third victim, Sukhvinder Punia, 46, also died at the scene from severe chest trauma. Her husband, Darshan Punia, also attended the inquest.

The inquest jury's 18 recommendations included:

• Police should target 15-person vans with random checks to ensure proper licensing, seatbelt compliance and vehicle safety.

• WorkSafe B.C. should conduct random inspections of all vehicles used by labour-supply contractors.

• The transportation minister should study replacing concrete barriers with flexible steel-rope barriers (as are used in the U.S.), consider restricting large trucks to the slow lane on sections of B.C. highways, and implement annual mandatory government inspections of all 15-person vans.