I'm giving voice today to an amazing plea for freedom from a young Canadian. This is the cry of the peasant, of the downtrodden. It's eloquent and poignant. At our farm, we've encountered the same regulatory arrogance created by a society jaundiced by fear and paranoia. We used to take apprentices as young as 16--that's the age a young person can legally sit behind 3,000 pounds of steel and hurtle it 70 miles an hour down a highway.
But all that changed in the name of worker safety and child protection: a cordless drill is a power tool, strictly forbidden to 16-year-olds. What a blight on the life of an enterprising 16-year-old. So read and weep. He sent this as an open letter to politicians in Ontario.
My name is Gideon Baer, I am 16 years old and live on a small farm near Glencoe, ON. I work for two other farmers who are our neighbours: a dairy farmer, and a pig farmer, in addition to working at home on our farm. I am someone who loves farm work, and aspires to have my own farm one day, but our laws and regulations do not make it easy to achieve that goal.
For instance, I began working at a pig barn when I was around 14-15 years old. The barn was two roads over from our house (about a 3 minute drive) but regardless of how close it was, I had to rely on my parents for transportation. I couldn't even ride my moped in between our farm and my work. In addition to our small farm my father runs a construction business, but the regulations do not allow anyone under 16 on a jobsite. How is he supposed to teach me skills and pass on knowledge if he can't bring me to work?
The Government of Ontario advertises plans to protect Ontario, but I ask, is investing in our young people not a worthy strategy to protect Ontario? Before my current dairy farm job, and before I was 16, I worked for another farmer. Was I able to operate tractors and perform field work? Yes, but I was not legally allowed to drive tractors down the road, so my employer could not utilize my skill and send me to one of his other farms to do tractor work alone. He had to get me and the tractor there legally, when I could have performed the whole operation safely and efficiently, if not for bureaucracy. The young people of Ontario are the future workforce, and if we are not trained, allowed, and encouraged to be involved in the workforce of Ontario, someone else (foreign workers?) will fill the need.
A young responsible individual who shows initiative should be enabled to be industrious, not discouraged. To me, as a young person with an entrepreneurial mindset, navigating the landscape of Ontario’s ag sector, and trades sector is quite discouraging. The roadblocks are numerous, but I would like to appeal to the people and leaders of Ontario, we need practical solutions, less shiny poster solutions, less million dollar investments. Solutions like lowering the legal driving age for tractors and farm machinery, and allowing earlier apprenticeship ages in the trades; changing local laws and regulations to allow the next generation to grow, and pursue valuable and meaningful employment. So as a fellow Ontarian, I bring this appeal forward. How can we work together to make a stronger Ontario?
Isn't that a fantastic letter? The laws in the U.S. are extremely similar, so don't think this is a uniquely Canadian problem. It's ubiquitous in first world countries. You know the historical cycle: bondage to freedom, freedom to prosperity, prosperity to arrogance, arrogance to ignorance, ignorance to tyranny, tyranny to bondage. There you have it; cyclical history in a nutshell.
Should a consenting guardian (assuming an underage person) and a consenting business person be able to hire anyone at any age for any work at any compensation without a government agency intervening?
