April 28 has been proclaimed National Day of Mourning in the City of Powell River.
At the April 20 city council meeting, councillors heard a presentation on National Day of Mourning from Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 798 health and safety committee chair Martha Higgins, after which mayor Ron Woznow read a proclamation for the day.
Higgins said April 28, the National Day of Mourning, honours workers who have been killed, hurt, disabled or made sick while on the job, or those who have lost their lives due to occupational disease.
“The National Day of Mourning is a very proud Canadian labour history, beginning with the Canadian Labour Congress convention in 1984,” said Higgins. “A resolution was federally adopted for the creation of a National Day of Mourning. The date, April 28, was chosen because it was on April 28, 1914, that the first comprehensive workers compensation act was passed in the legislature.
“After the 1984 convention, it took another six years of lobbying by Canadian unions and the New Democratic Party for the federal government to pass Bill C-223, the Workers Mourning Day Act.”
Now, decades later, the National Day of Mourning is observed around the world, added Higgins.
“The annual day of mourning is a day to honour those who have fought and suffered and gone before us so that we can enjoy going to work and coming home at the end from our shift in the same condition we arrived in,” she said. “A lot of the regulations we have today are written in their blood.
“We must never forget that and we must carry on the fight by continuously striving to make workplaces healthier and safer by ensuring we’re doing all we can to prevent deaths, and also to prevent injuries and illnesses, both mental and physical. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the physical safety side of things, but worker health, especially mental health, needs to be taken care of.”
Higgins said, sadly, there were 241 claims reported to WorkSafeBC by the end of February of this year for workers who had passed away in 2022 and only 181 of those claims were accepted. She added that the 241 claims were the highest in the last 10 years.
“These 181 accepted claims do not capture the full scope of the tragedies,” said Higgins. “I can tell you the effects of these injuries, these illnesses and these deaths have quite a significant and far-reaching impact, because not only is the individual affected, but their families, their friends, their workplaces and their communities are also affected and feel the effects immediately, and in the years following.”
Higgins said pre-COVID-19, CUPE 798 has hosted the National Day of Mourning service at the memorial at the cemetery, and will be doing that again this year on April 28. There will be an assembly shortly before 11 am, with the start of the service observing a moment of silence to honour all workers at 11 am. She invited city councillors and all members of the community to attend.
She also asked that April 28 be proclaimed National Day of Mourning and that the city’s flags be flown at half mast, and that the day of mourning flag also be flown.
