Volunteer groups shouldn’t be on hook for liability insurance
By Lethbridge Herald on September 28, 2024.
Editor:
Should volunteer organizations working to beautify government property be required to purchase liability insurance?
Agriculture and Agri-Food’s Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, formally known as the Lethbridge Research Centre, was established in 1906 as the Dominion Experimental Farm.
At that time, a garden was established on the centre grounds around the house of Dr. W.H. Fairfield, the first Superintendent. The house is long gone, however, the gardens are still present and have been named the “Fairfield Gardens.”
Initially, the park was used to evaluate the hardiness of plant varieties under Lethbridge conditions. It is a favoured site for many public activities such as school picnics, church socials, wedding celebrations, and family reunions.
It was recognized by the Heritage Tree Foundation of Alberta in 2008 as a unique site on the prairies for the number, age, size and variety of trees present. One of these is the 100+ year old Fairfield Poplar, among the oldest and largest of its kind in Canada.
The gardens started to decline in the 1990s due to major cuts to the Research Centre’s operating budgets.
In 2005, the charitable organization, Friends of the Fairfield Gardens Society, was formed to maintain the Gardens by volunteers for the benefit of the public.
The society has since collaborated with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to develop and maintain the ornamental garden in the public area of the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre.
Its volunteers prepare and plant the flower beds, water and weed them and clean out the beds in autumn; new trees are planted to replace those that have died. The activities of the society depend on the contributions of members and volunteers. All the labour required to develop and maintain the flowerbeds is provided by members who enjoy gardening and sharing the results of their efforts with the community.
Unfortunately, this year Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada has required the society to carry $2 million in insurance, to cover possible fire, environmental and liability damage.
The cost of this insurance is $750, which is about 50 per cent of the society’s revenue.
The society also needs to keep $3,500 in reserve to cover the deductibles, if something was to happen.
Instead of using their funds to maintain this wonderful garden on government property for public use, the society needs to fundraise to protect the federal government from a very rare possibility of damage.
The Friends of the Summerland Ornamental Gardens and the Friends of the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa are also currently required to carry liability insurance. Certainly, the federal government should be covering the liability of these charitable organizations and their volunteers working to beautify federal lands for public use rather than the other way around. Shame! This is due diligence gone mad!
The Minister of Agriculture replied to my letter of complaint as follows: “In accordance with the Treasury Board’s Directive on the Management of Real Property, AAFC cannot invest in areas that do not directly support our scientific mandate and operational needs.
“As a result, the Department is unable to provide insurance coverage to volunteers working on our sites. AAFC’s focus must remain aligned with its core responsibilities.”
Isn’t one of its responsibilities to keep its “Real Property” presentable and weed-free? This is a slap in the face of the many volunteers striving to keep this property presentable and useable to the public! If you agree, email Minister Laurence MacAulay at aafc.minister-ministre.aac@agr.gc.ca
Mark Goettel
Lethbridge
21-20
I think that the history on this topic, goes back to the reign of Canada’s nastiest Prime Minister-Stephen Harper. Remember the cutbacks, the firings,the closing of the station’s library and the burning of collected scientific documents. His plan was to get big business to sponsor agricultural research.
Now we have empty parking lots and a dishiveled “Fairfield Gardens. And meanwhile Harper is hawking military equipment to the middle east and meets with the likes of Viktor Orban. Check it out, not fake news.
There was actually more generous buyouts than firings, And with the internet the physical library couldn’t justify it’s expense any more. Pretty responsible with taxpayers money really.
However, Harper and the like “hawking military equipment” is very true and very disturbing. But either directly or indirectly too much military equipment and or supplies are still making it through to the apartheid, genocidal “State” of Israel, from Canada. But eh, how many MPs are dual Israeli citizens and members of the IDF(Israeli defense force)? Where they join the reserve there for a couple of weeks and take their turn to shot a few Palestinian kids and grandmothers in the head.
The other political parties have too many dual citizens as well. How much is the evil Israeli lobby donating to these MPs campaigns?
If the evangelical Christians who buy into this Nazi mindset only knew how badly Christians in the old city of Jerusalem are treated by Zionists there (they spit when they pass them on the street) perhaps they wouldn’t give them soo much blind support? But eh they both( evan. Cs and Zionists) use the Bible as their authority on the subject. Who can argue that the Bible is not a modern day real estate guide? And that NON- Nazis, non- Zionists and some Evangelicals are not crazy when they DONOT condemn the resistance of the people that have been oppressed and killed and subjected to genocide for 75 years”?
Long live “Fairfield Gardens”.
How the hell does a letter concerning a volunteer group suddenly needing liability insurance under the Trudeau government, which has been in power almost 10 years get comments regarding Harper and Israel. Honestly wtf. It’s really about bureaucrats being bureaucrats and if someone can solve that problem the world would truly become a better place.