I think I'd like to start by saying that voluntary is the way we would recommend. Regulation, I don't think, is necessarily going to answer the problem any faster than voluntary action would. As the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, which is now about 15 years old, we've been attempting to raise awareness as our primary method of operation. I work for the Farm Safety Association in Ontario, which is primarily funded through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Again, we would not recommend that we enforce that you must have the plans in place. But what we are attempting to do presently as a whole across the country and with our partners provincially is encourage producers to think of safety as a program. Having the program in place will have an economic benefit at the end of your annual year, at the end of your operation, at the end of your day when you go into your house or, as an employee, when you get in your car and you drive home.
So voluntary is definitely the way we go. Awareness is the issue. Complacency is probably our biggest enemy. Most injuries and incidents that occur on farms probably occur out of complacency, thinking that you've done it a hundred times that way. Our older farmer is the one who tends to be a huge risk. But it tends to be an unknown risk, because he's been doing it for 50 years.
The fear we have is that we have a large number of young workers. I would categorize a young worker as someone who has been on the job less than six months. We have a large number of offshore workers coming in and out of the farms program, primarily Mexicans and Jamaicans. Their education and awareness doesn't match that.
There are great benefits from projects like HACCP. HACCP did a wonderful job in some locations to raise awareness of food safety. And in generating the food safety issue, all of a sudden the cleaning of feed bins generated huge issues around why I have to have fall arrest, I have to change manholes, I have to change my washing procedures. Avian influenza and food issues that started from there raised huge issues around protective equipment on farms. So having an emergency preparedness plan as part of a business plan, as part of a safety plan, has actually had dramatic impacts on reducing our injuries in family and business farms across the country.
So we say voluntary but not regulatory. Does that answer the question?