Four temporary foreign workers killed in highway crash near Edmonton

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EDMONTON — Four temporary foreign workers have been killed in a car crash south of Edmonton.

RCMP said the workers were riding in a car that hit a patch of ice and slid into the path of a semi truck on Highway 21 near Leduc on Saturday.

The four died on impact, and the driver of the truck was not hurt.

Cpl. Sharon Franks said the names of the four are not being released until their families can be notified.

Pastor Ron Yabut with the Edmonton Filipino Seventh Day Adventist Church said all four were from the Philippines.

“We are still trying to find out if there’s any family members in the area or not,” he said Monday.

“If they don’t have any family here in Canada, I’m sure as soon as the family back home in the Philippines hears this, this will be very, very sad. It’s very devastating news.”

Esmerelda Agbulos, consul general at the Philippines consulate in Edmonton, said the four dead included two men who worked in a fast food restaurant and two women who worked as caregivers.

She said news of the crash came as shock and brought back memories of a crash in central Alberta in 2012 that killed four foreign workers from the Philippines. They had been riding in car that was struck head-on by another vehicle going the wrong way on a divided highway. A fifth Filipino worker in the car survived.

None of them had family in Canada and sent earnings home to relatives in the Philippines.

The driver of the other vehicle later admitted in court to combining alcohol with prescribed medication the night of the crash and blacking out.

He was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.