By Katie Stobbart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 20, 2013
In 2007, three women were killed on their way to work when the van transporting them and more than a dozen other farm workers collided with another vehicle.
The van had only two seatbelts for its passengers, the tires were improperly inflated, it was overloaded and the driver was not properly licensed to operate the commercial vehicle in poor weather conditions.
When a third vehicle hit it from behind, the van flipped onto a concrete median near the Sumas exit on Highway 1.
Six years later, plans for a monument honouring the lives of Amarijit Kaur Bal, Sarabjit Kaur Sidhu and Sukhvinder Kaur Punia are being finalized.
The monument will be erected at Mill Lake; against the serene waterscape and overlooking the trail that winds around the lake. The figures of three women will rise from the trunk of a six metre -high tree, their arms spreading skyward as the tree’s branches.
The image calls to mind mythological dryads—the guardians of trees—but these guardians will symbolically watch over the future safety of farm workers.
“It honours and celebrates the women and it reminds us [that] the fight for safety and justice is not over,” explained Jim Sinclair, Federation of Labour president, when he spoke at a vigil on Sunday, March 10.
Two months after the accident, the Farm Workers’ Inter-Agency Compliance Committee was formed by the province to work toward the goal of enforcing worker safety, which includes agricultural workers. Since then, there have been quarterly reports on roadside and work site inspections.
For the 2007 incident, however, Sinclair noted at the vigil that criminal charges against the company were refused by the crown.
“While there has been little justice, the families and the Federation of Labour will continue to fight for change,” he promised.
The monument “represents our continued struggle to make farm workers safer,” said Jagjit Sidhu, husband of the late Sarabjit Sidhu, according to a release by the Federation of Labour. “We are proud to dedicate this monument to all farm workers in BC.”
The Golden Tree Monument is the first of its kind in Canada. The project was approved by a unanimous vote from Abbotsford City Council, and $100,000 will be contributed by the province and by the Worker’s Compensation Board toward the completion of the monument project.
Dean and Christina Lauzé of D’Arts, who also created a monument in Victoria and the Unity statue in Abbotsford, will begin to produce the full-scale monument later this year.
The artist’s rendering of the monument portrays the gold tree on a grassy knoll at Mill Lake, bathed in sunlight, its branches bearing bright red apples. This seems appropriate to echo the movement of a community toward change: rising up from roots in the past, reaching for light, and bearing fruit – the promise of future growth and learning from tragic events like the collision in 2007.
Charitable donations can be made to the project care of Abbotsford Community Services.
