Guest column: Canada’s migrant worker program a model for the world | Windsor Star
2015/08/21 1 Comment
Ken Enns, owner of Enns Plant Farm, on the need for Temporary Foreign Workers in the agriculture sector:
Our workers are here on eight-month contracts, can leave and go home at any time they want, must be paid minimum wage plus whatever bonus is negotiated, full health care coverage when they step off the plane, full workman’s compensation, free weekly transport to town for shopping and supplied living accommodations.
They go home after eight months with a very large amount of money to put their children through university, they support their families, send home generators, tools to start machine shops, home appliances and all the things they cannot get at home.
We have many workers who have applied to return now for 25 and 30 years in a row. They continually ask if they can bring more of their family members for the next year — hardly the request from a person who is a “slave,” as described in the article.
We have the finest labour program in the world and we should be holding it up as a model for the world to follow. This is how you treat and protect your migrant workers.
Instead of trashing the program, we should be increasing it. Instead of giving foreign aid to impoverished nations, we should have their people come here and we could get some benefit for all that aid.
Our industry is one of a very few that can compete with and do better than the Americans. Our labour program is one of the reasons.
Guest column: Canada’s migrant worker program a model for the world | Windsor Star.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
Thanks very much for sharing Mr. Enns’ comments on the workers employed on his farms. That is exactly what I have been seeing in Norfolk County for many years. Not only do we have businesses who benefit economically from having them here every year, but our community gets to enjoy the cultural features they share.
It would indeed be a great loss to Canada should the TFW program be trashed: what would happen to “Foodland Ontario”, for instance? It is unrealistic to think that we could harvest without these workers. I would like to see the Federal government do more to promote our Canadian farmers and their employees, instead of looking towards imports from other countries.
Last year, the Government of Jamaica awarded a Norfolk farmer, Gary Cooper of Strawberry Tymes near Simcoe, with the Jamaican Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service (comparable to the Order of Canada) for working to have thousands of Jamaicans come to work here for over 40 years. Surely this shows that the TFW program develops excellent relationships for Canada with other countries. As Mr. Enns pointed out, this is a much better way to provide foreign aid than just sending millions of dollars away.