CORNWALL, Ontario – The Cornwall & District Labour Council, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress sponsored this year’s ceremony marking the National Day of Mourning for workers who have been killed or who have suffered work-related injuries or disease.
The ceremony was held in Lamoureux Park at the memorial for workers who have died on the job on Friday, April 27, 2018 just before noon.
“I a very real sense, we in Cornwall own this day,” said Cornwall City Councillor Elaine MacDonald. “The fight in workers rights started here.”
She explained that it was Darby Bergin, MP for Cornwall-Stormont in the late nineteenth century and Canada’s first Surgeon General, who advocated for safer workplaces, especially for women and children.
MacDonald explained that eventually Bergin did pass legislation aimed at making the workplace safer, but it did so by creating hurdles for allowing women and children to go to work.
“It is one thing to get the legislation in place, but it is another to get it to take effect,” she remarked.
This year’s theme for the event was “Violence and Harassment: Not part of the job”.
After the ceremony, which closed with a singing of the workers song Solidarity and a playing of The Last Post guests were invited to the RCAF Wing 424 to see projects dedicated to workplace safety made by St. Lawrence Intermediate School students.
