THE spouses of the two farm workers killed last week in Simcoe, Canada, on Wednesday received $100,000 each from the Ministry of Labour to cover funeral expenses.

Desmond McNeill and William Bell were mowed down by a motor vehicle in Canada on September 27th, while a third farm worker, Frederick Smith, was injured. A car hit all three men off their bicycles.

“No one from any funeral home should contact you for any money,” Labour Minister Horace Dalley said, before presenting the cheques to Bernice McNeill and Linnette Bell at the ministry’s North Street offices in Kingston.

“All the funeral and transportation expenses will be borne by the ministry,” Dalley added.

Assistance to the spouses also includes a Canadian insurance benefit, in addition to the mandatory funeral grant for contributors to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

The widows, however, will not receive workmen’s compensation because the accident took place outside of work hours, and away from the Sung Dee Farm, where they were employed, ministry officials said.

“It is not a job-related accident or else workmen’s compensation would trip in,” permanent secretary in the ministry, Alvin McIntosh, explained.

Meanwhile, Dalley said legal representation would be made in Canada on behalf of the families and the Ministry of Labour to determine liability.

“Lawyers representing the Ministry of Labour in Canada will file against the owner, the driver and the insurance company of the vehicle,” said Dalley.

“If relatives wish to obtain the services of a lawyer to oversee the proceedings, it is at your cost,” McIntosh added.

But Dalley remarked that the ministry had mechanisms in place to protect the interests of all Jamaicans on the farm work programme.

“5,800 farm workers visited Canada last year, and there are six liaison officers. I believe they are well represented,” the minister emphasised.

Dalley added that there were farms in Canada where the programme was stopped because of the poor working and living conditions.

Meanwhile, a distraught Linnette Bell, who has eight children -one still in high school – said her husband was the breadwinner for the family. Desmond Bell, a farmer by profession, had been a part of the farm work programme since 1995. “We farmed together. Now he is not here, and I can’t do it alone,” she said.

McNeill, who died leaving two daughters, was a first timer on the programme. The ministry said counselling sessions would be arranged for both teens – Yanique, 15, and Onika, 17.

“We will have an ongoing counselling through the school guidance counsellor,” Marjorie Gordon-Rowe of the ministry’s Westmoreland office said.

The bodies of both men returned to the island on Wednesday.