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Rachel Notley says she accepts full responsibility for the furor over Bill 6 and won’t blame the opposition for whipping up a rural firestorm.

While several NDP MLAs, including the deputy Speaker and a cabinet minister, have accused the Wildrose of distorting the farm worker safety legislation, Alberta’s premier said the government made mistakes in explaining the content of its new bill and how it will apply to farmers and ranchers.

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“We have to take responsibility ourselves for the fact that we created a certain amount of confusion in how we originally communicated and we allowed families to be in a position where they were worrying about what the impact of these changes would be on their family farm,” Notley said in a year-end interview with the Herald.

But the premier said her ministers, who attended government consultations with farmers on Bill 6, have advised her that most farmers were mollified by amendments that clearly stated the legislation only applies to hired workers from outside the farm family.