Canada’s migrant farm workers need better protection. A new program could help — if grocery chains and consumers buy in

2024/09/06 Leave a comment

Private certification programs certainly can have a role. Ironically, industry concentration can help their effectiveness if they become accepted:

The proposed fair farmwork certification is designed to complement authorities’ enforcement of employment standards, a stick that’s imperfect at best. The certification is meant to be the carrot, rewarding operators who treat their employees well and helping them attract and retain workers in an industry with chronic labour shortages.

Although such voluntary programs by non-governmental organizations already exist in other jurisdictions, they need buy-in from grocery retailers and even consumers. Advocates and experts say this initiative can help address issues of food security, food processing quality standards and labour exploitation.

“What we eat matters. There are so many other human beings involved who do not have the same rights as we do, and they deserve to have better conditions,” said University of Windsor Prof. Tanya Basok. Basok led the project with Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“A lot of businesses nowadays have social responsibility statements and that’s how they buy their customer loyalty.” 

The launch comes just as Ottawa is about to give these workers the freedom to change employers within the agricultural sector.

Researchers examined current social certification projects for food production and explored how best to introduce such a program in Canada. This month, the Fair Farmwork Toolkit will be released as a step-by-step guide.

Basok, whose research focuses on migrant rights, said a lot of Canadians started to recognize the role of migrant farm workers in the food supply chain and their precariousness and working conditions during the pandemic.

Despite government attempts to improve labour protection, she said many migrant workers remain silent because they are afraid to be sent home and denied work by employers if they speak out.

“The working conditions have to improve,” Basok explained. “Inspections would be one way. But there has to be something more. What would encourage growers to provide better conditions for the worker? So that’s where we’ll bring some kind of market mechanisms to improve working conditions.”

Researcher Erika Borrelli said the fair-farmwork certification could highlight the work of good growers and help improve their competitiveness in attracting and retaining high-quality workers, especially as changes are underway by Ottawa to introduce sector-wide work permits for migrant farm workers. The research was supported by The WES Mariam Assefa Fund.

What different certification models have in common, she noted, is they all provide a way for workers to express their needs and concerns.

The Equitable Food Initiative, for instance, started in the U.S. as a coalition by Oxfam America, Costco Wholesale and United Farm Workers. It was launched as an independent non-profit social enterprise in 2015 that offers a comprehensive certification audit, covering labour conditions, food safety and pest management.

An Equitable Food Initiative label signifies that the food comes from a grower that meets the standards in compensating and treating the workers fairly.

“Let’s say Costco has a few big farms in Ontario or B.C., and they say, ‘We now want all of our suppliers to abide by social certification standards and otherwise we’re not buying your product,’” said Borrelli, who prepared the tool kit.

“So what’s the grower going to do? When Costco, Walmart, Target and all these retailers demand more from their suppliers, there’s that level of enforcement.” 

Sunrite Greenhouses, a farm in Kingsville, Ont., learned about the EFI program over a year ago after one of its U.S.-based customers requested it to complete a social responsibility audit. Two trainers provided training to 20 leadership team members at the farm, which drew from all levels of the company from worker to the CEO.

The one-time training was followed by an audit, which identified issues and gave the management an opportunity to fix them. The Equitable Food Initiative certificate was then issued upon compliance. The workers have a voice on the leadership team and there is an anonymous reporting system to let them report issues, make comments and suggestions in their native languages. The training cost $20,000 (U.S.), which is separate from the audit fee.

“We are starting to see a culture shift in the company where employees are prioritizing safety and the well-being of all workers more, and there has been a slight boost in morale,” said Amanda Sharman, food safety compliance and regulatory specialist and EFI co-ordinator for Del Fresco Produce Ltd.

“When workers are happier because they feel like they are heard, and they can see improvements being made … we see productivity, camaraderie and safety culture all increase.”

Del Fresco operates Sunrite, which hires 170 foreign workers and 20 domestic workers during the peak of the season. The 46-acre farm produces tomatoes, peppers and organic mini-cucumbers.

Migrant worker advocate Gabriel Allahdua said that when he makes presentations to university students about workers’ rights, the audience is often interested in how to buy food that is ethically sourced and what they can do as consumers to support workers.

“Consumer power can certainly create changes in the market,” said Allahdua, who first came to Canada from St. Lucia in 2012 under the seasonal agricultural worker program. “So this is filling a void for Canadians, who are increasingly raising concerns.”

Having another tool to hold growers and grocery retailers accountable is welcomed, he said, but no matter how a certification mechanism is shaped, farm workers must be actively involved in decision-making.

Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer of Justicia for Migrant Workers, said a certification process can never replace legislative protections because participation is voluntary and it fails to address what he called the indentured nature of migrant worker schemes.

“It is imperative that the necessary structural measures are undertaken so that agricultural workers can exert their rights to organize and collectively bargain,” said Ramsaroop. 

“It is imperative that these type of fair food programs do not impede or become an obstacle to the advocacy and organizing that address larger structural reforms to our food system, our agricultural system and our immigration system.”

Source: Canada’s migrant farm workers need better protection. A new program could help — if grocery chains and consumers buy in

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Migrant farm workers pay into EI, but can’t access it. Now they’re suing the federal government

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Yet another possible class action suit. Another to watch:

Migrant agricultural workers in Canada pay into employment insurance (EI), but they are not able to access it when their contracts expire and they return to their home country.

They also have employment contracts that are tied to one employer, preventing them from changing their employer while they’re in Canada.

A proposed $500-million class action lawsuit is aiming to challenge those regulations.

“It’s an issue that has been around for some time now,” said Jody Brown, a partner at Goldblatt Partners LLP, the law firm that filed the statement of claim. “The time is now for workers to come forward and try and make a change to this program.”

Kevin Palmer and Andrel Peters, seasonal migrant workers from the Caribbean who worked for companies in Leamington, Ont., are the lead plaintiffs in the suit, filed last month at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.

It was filed on behalf of workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the Temporary Foreign Workers Program-Agricultural Stream for the last 15 years.

“They’re seeking to bring a case not just on their own behalf, but on behalf of 10s of thousands of other workers who have been in a similar situation,” said Brown.

Class action lawsuits have to be certified by a judge in order to proceed. The allegations in the proposed lawsuit have not been proven in court.

A 2022 report from Statistics Canada stated that Canada is “increasingly reliant on TFWs to fill labour shortage gaps” and that the number of TFWs in Canada increased by 600 per cent from 2000 to 777,000 in 2021.

An advocate for migrant workers says the suit is important in the fight to get more rights for migrant workers.

“The feedback from workers has been quite positive,” said Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers. “The biggest concerns that they’ve got are around immigration and around employment insurance and that in their time of need, they can’t claim or access this benefit.”

In an emailed statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada says the government does not comment on ongoing cases or “an individual’s personal circumstances,” but said that it takes “its responsibilities with respect to the protection of temporary foreign workers very seriously and the safety and protection of workers is paramount…

Source: Migrant farm workers pay into EI, but can’t access it. Now they’re suing the federal government

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UN envoy links temporary foreign worker program to ‘contemporary forms of slavery’

2023/09/08 Leave a comment

Of note. Wonder how Canada compares to other Western countries, let alone the workers in Gulf countries:

A United Nations official on Wednesday denounced Canada’s temporary foreign worker program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”

Tomoya Obokata, UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, made the comments in Ottawa after spending 14 days in Canada.

“I am disturbed by the fact that many migrant workers are exploited and abused in this country,” he said.

Source: UN envoy links temporary foreign worker program to ‘contemporary forms of slavery’

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Fruit and vegetable growers need strong agriculture policies

2022/12/09 Leave a comment

Note reference to seasonal agriculture workers:

Labour shortages and financial support programs are crucial issues for many Canadian farms trying to meet growing global food demands, says Charles Stevens, Chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA).

The most useful support for them would be streamlining government inspections of farms and establishing financial protection for fresh fruit and vegetable farmers to match what U.S. growers have, he told the Commons agriculture committee.

OFVGA wants quick passage of the Financial Protection for Fruit and Vegetable Growers Act to match the support available to American farmers when buyers go bankrupt.

Other helpful measures would be implementing a grocery code of conduct, refunding tariffs on Russian fertilizer and protecting farms from anti-competitive practices by large retailers, “which are stretching family farms to the limit,” he said.

The government should also increase funding to Agriculture Canada’s Pest Management Centre to develop new crop protection technology for the fruit and vegetable industry. Without the Centre, “we’re going down the tube. It’s very important.”

At the rate farm land is being converted to other uses, there will be no agriculture left in Ontario in 100 years, Stevens said. “We need better land use policies to save the No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 agriculture lands, which a farmer can make a living on. The five, six, and seven, which he cannot make a living on, maybe that’s where we need to put the houses.”

The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council says that in 2021 labour shortages cost Canadian farms $2.9 billion in lost sales. Meanwhile studies of Ontario farm safety net programs show 95 per cent of farms would be negatively impacted without them.

Government should make a priority of the Seasonal Agriculture Workers Program, which is important to the fruit and vegetable sector. “If we lose this or if it gets tweaked badly, we’re out of business.”

It used to take a month to get seasonal workers approved through Service Canada, he said. “Now it’s six months. We have to organize for six months to get it through Service Canada. It is not getting its job done in time for us to get the job done.”

Despite all the criticism of the seasonal workers program, Stevens said, “Almost all farmers treat their workers as well as their local workers or they’d be out of business. I have a man who’s been with me for 34 years. They are vital. We would not have a horticulture industry in Canada without this labour.”

He also urged that government inspections be streamlined. “They are complicated and drawn out, especially the temporary worker program integrity audits. There were 11 audits on my farm last year. When I started, there were none. It doesn’t help the farmer when he’s under stress and harvesting his crop to have somebody come in and audit. At the end of the day, there has nothing wrong, and it just overburdens them.”

More than 75 per cent of fresh vegetables and 80 per cent of the fresh fruit sold in Canada are imported. Still Canada exported $2 billion in fresh vegetables and $3 billion in frozen fruits and vegetables in 2021.

Source: Fruit and vegetable growers need strong agriculture policies

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Government urged to speed up foreign-worker applications by farms and meat plants

2021/10/16 Leave a comment

No surprise. Some administrative bottlenecks likely can (and should) be reduced (e.g., reintroduction of online forms, more streamlined application and renewal applications):

Canadian farmers and meat processors are urging Ottawa to quickly bring in more foreign workers to help ease a labour crisis that is hurting the country’s agriculture industry.

They want the federal government to raise caps and speed up applications for the temporary foreign worker program to allow them to increase production.

Agriculture is one of many sectors struggling to add staff as the Canadian economy tries to recover from the damage caused by the coronavirus.

Although farms and plants were not subject to the sorts of lockdowns faced by restaurants or retailers, the pandemic made travel to rural sites difficult and slowed or stopped international travel. As well, COVID-19 outbreaks in some facilities put migrant workers’ health in danger and hampered operations.

But, agricultural business leaders say, the flow of foreign workers to Canada is integral to keeping the sector functioning as it has struggled for years to retain domestic employees.

Groups, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), Mushrooms Canada and the Canadian Meat Council, say application processing times have grown exponentially during the pandemic, which is making it more difficult for farms and plants to maximize their production.

“When we talk about unfilled jobs, what we’re talking about is lost opportunity,” said Mary Robinson, CFA president and partner of a family farm operation that produces soy, barley and hay in Prince Edward Island. The CFA estimated the agriculture industry lost about $2.9-billion in revenue in 2020 because of low productivity, or about 4.5 per cent of overall sales.

Canadian agriculture has increasingly relied on bringing in workers from overseas to make up for shortfalls in domestic hiring. According to a Statistics Canada analysis from 2020, 27.4 per cent of all workers on crop production in Canada were temporary foreign workers (TFWs).

Meat processors have fewer foreign workers because, by law, there is a cap of 10 per cent or 20 per cent of their work force that can be TFWs. The percentage depends on the amount of a plant’s historical use of the program.

Marie-France MacKinnon, vice-president of public affairs at the Canadian Meat Council, said her group is calling for the cap to be raised to 30 per cent, which is where it was before the Ottawa lowered it in 2014. That year, the Conservative government tightened the rules to the TFW program, responding to reports that it was being overused and abused by some Canadian businesses.

“Our labour shortage is critical right now,” Ms. MacKinnon said. “It’s over 4,000 empty butcher stations from across the country.”

The federal government said in a statement Thursday that adjustments to the program are made on a continuing basis, depending on changes in labour-market conditions.

Mark Chambers, vice-president of Canadian pork production at Alberta-based Sunterra Farms, says his production runs below capacity because of a shortage of workers. He said his pork-processing plant has 120 stations, 20 of which are empty because there is no one to work them.

Mr. Chambers said he has had difficulty attracting new domestic workers to the company’s farms and plants, which he attributes to the low population of the rural communities, the reluctance of urban Canadians to work in the country and the nature of the work.

“You can’t completely fill every position with Canadians,” he said.

As part of the application to bring in a temporary foreign worker, employers first have to fill out a Labour Market Impact Assessment to show that no Canadians want the job. The federal government unveiled a new online form last year to speed up applications. But the website went down in August and has remained offline in the months since then, forcing employers to once again file by e-mail or fax.

Mr. Chambers said using the online portal, the turnaround time on an application was two to seven days – but now that he’s back to old methods, it’s lengthened to two to four weeks.

A spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada said some “technical issues” emerged on the website after an update, and department officials are still working on a fix. The government was not able to provide a timeline for when it would be online again.

The government also said processing times have increased because of an increase in the number of applications.

Representatives of the meat industry say their goal is to bring workers into Canada under the TFW program and then sponsor them for permanent residency, because their ultimate aim is to create a long-term work force in the sector. Ottawa made that easier with the launch of the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot in 2020, which allows agricultural employers to sponsor non-seasonal, full-time employees for permanent residency under some conditions.

Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance of Canada, said if Canada’s economy requires an influx of new immigrants, those people should be brought in through permanent-residency programs and not work permits that are tied to individual employers.

He said migrant workers who have to rely on their employers’ good graces to stay in the country are open to exploitation and abuse, such as having to endure unsafe working conditions. He said he has worked with TFWs who feared lodging labour complaints because they could lose their work permits if they did.

“Our members say this isn’t a pathway [to permanent residency], it’s a minefield where very few of us will survive to get to the other end,” Mr. Hussan said. “And most of us will be injured or hurt or forced to leave the country.”

Mr. Hussan said one solution is for TFWs and their sponsorship status to be protected under collective bargaining agreements, which helps shield those workers from employer reprisals.

One such agreement covers about 2,000 workers at the Maple Leafs Foods’ pork-processing plant in Brandon. That agreement requires all TFWs to be sponsored for permanent residence, which they can qualify for under the provincial nominee system after working two years.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-government-urged-to-speed-up-foreign-worker-applications-by-farms-and/

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Migrant workers need priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine

2021/03/12 Leave a comment

While some of the specific recommendations have merit (e.g., free access to tests and vaccines, not needing a health card to access vaccines), others are either unnecessary or raise broader policy issues.

For example, a cursory search of PHAC and other public health sites indicates COVID information being available in many languages.

Should vaccination be subject to consent for workers in vulnerable settings or not, given the risks to other workers?

While their advocacy for a number of paid sick days makes sense, other advocacy – permanent residency status, full coverage under labour and social protection laws, family reunification and an effective right to collective bargaining – raise broader policy issues that need more reflection and analysis:

Their general points, attentive information in migrant worker languages (some already being done

Last year, in the first COVID-19 wave, 12% of migrant agricultural workers in Ontario were infected with the virus after arriving in Canada, and three men died. Migrant agricultural workers’ incidence of infection exceeded other high risk occupational categories like front line health care workers. But as the 2021 agricultural season quickly approaches, Canada still has no plan to ensure these essential workers receive priority, free and safe access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

As of 31 January, 5,400 migrant agricultural workers were already in Canada. Over 50,000 more will be returning across the country soon. Media attention waned after the fall harvest season, but COVID-19 outbreaks have continued on farms every month since – including 53 since the end of October.

The virus spreads quickly on farms because migrant workers typically live in crowded employer-provided congregate living quarters. Without a plan to give these workers priority access to the COVID-19 vaccines, we stand on the verge of another season where essential workers will risk their lives to feed Canadians.

Governments promised to increase health and safety inspections for agricultural workers. However, a blitz by health and safety officers this month revealed that nearly one-fifth of Ontario farms are not compliant with COVID safety protocols. Action is required urgently to prevent further tragedy.

Agricultural workers are only the most visible of the 85,000 low-wage migrant workers who come to Canada under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program each year. Other migrant workers perform essential jobs delivering in-home care to children, the elderly and people with disabilities as well as working in meat processing plants, warehouses, food preparation, grocery stores, cleaning services, delivery services, construction and many other jobs that keep the economy running. Tens of thousands more workers are undocumented.

Whether they have temporary or undocumented status, migrant workers need priority access to vaccines because most live in congregate settings and work in spaces or roles that preclude physical distancing, putting them at high risk for infection.

Vaccine access must be delivered with keen awareness of the imbalance of power that puts migrant workers at risk of coercion. Access to vaccines must be free, informed, consensual and safe. Migrant agricultural workers from rural Mexico report travelling a day or more into urban centres to take pre-departure COVID-19 tests for which they have been charged up to $350. They must then take another test after arriving in Canada. This is prohibitive for minimum wage workers. It puts them in debt before they start work in Canada which increases the risk of exploitation.

Here are four steps for government to take to protect workers in accessing the vaccine.

First, migrant workers need access to free COVID-19 testing and vaccines. Workers must also be able to receive both of the required vaccine doses while they are in Canada. Unless this is guaranteed, they may return to their home country not fully vaccinated and without access to the same or any vaccine to complete their immunization.

Second, public education about the vaccines must be delivered directly to migrant workers in their own language. Many racialized migrant workers come from communities that distrust the medical system because of longstanding histories of systemic racism in healthcare. Migrant agricultural workers in southern Ontario have particular reasons to be wary after they were subjected to mass DNA testing by police due to racial profiling in 2013.

Third, migrant workers must be able to access vaccines on the basis of informed consent and that consent must be real. Workers must be able to freely agree to or decline a vaccine. Migrant workers’ precarious immigration status and dependence on their employers due to their employer-specific work permits and housing arrangements must not be leveraged to coerce migrant workers into mandatory vaccination.

Fourth, migrant workers must be able to access vaccines in a way that is safe and attentive to their precarious status. Many migrant workers do not have health cards or coverage under provincial healthcare programs due to the nature of their work permit, being between contracts or being on implied status awaiting their permanent residency. Having a health card must not be a precondition for vaccine access.

At the same time, undocumented migrant workers must be able to access vaccines without fear that their immigration status will be disclosed to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Coming forward to protect themselves, their co-workers and the broader community during a global pandemic must not put them at risk of detention or deportation.

But vaccination alone will not eliminate the risks that migrant workers face.

Like 70% of low wage workers, most migrant workers do not have the right to paid sick days. Governments must move immediately to legislate, on a permanent basis, a minimum of 7 paid sick days with an additional 14 paid sick days during a public health crisis. Unless workers can stay home without penalty when they are ill, poverty and the risk of being fired will force them to keep working. At all times, going to work while sick increases the probability of disease spreading. During the pandemic, it means those who are already most marginalized will continue to become ill and die in disproportionate numbers.

Over the past year, the pandemic has laid bare the underlying structures that drive social and economic inequality in our society. While prioritizing migrant worker access to COVID-19 vaccines is of immediate urgency, real security won’t exist until governments address the laws and policies under Canada’s labour migration programs that make migrant workers exploitable. Permanent residency status, full coverage under labour and social protection laws, family reunification and an effective right to collective bargaining would go a long to more lasting security.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-migrant-workers-need-priority-access-to-the-covid-19-vaccine/

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Survey shows support for migrant workers getting more benefits and protections, as senators introduce motion for change

2020/12/12 Leave a comment

Good initiative by Senators Black and Omidvar in commissioning this poll:

Eight in 10 Canadians say temporary foreign workers should be entitled to the same benefits and protection as any other workers in this country, according to a Nanos Research poll.

The survey, commissioned by senators Ratna Omidvar and Rob Black, was released Thursday in the wake of a Star story that highlighted the plight of hundreds of Trinidadian seasonal migrant farm workers, who are stuck in Canada due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and unable to access employment insurance benefits.

The pandemic has shed light on the vulnerability of temporary foreign workers, who pay the same EI premiums as Canadian workers but who have difficulty accessing the benefits due to their precarious immigration status.

Trinidad and Tobago has closed its airports to international flights since March and the estimated 400 stranded workers are on the verge of losing their legal status in Canada as their work permits expire on Dec. 15. Many have been denied EI, with officials saying their “closed” work permit prevents the workers from looking for other employers, resulting in them being declared not “ready or available” for work.

The senators say that in addition to benefits, migrant workers should have “pathways” to obtaining permanent resident status in Canada, something that is currently very limited for these workers.

“The pandemic has highlighted the fact that temporary migrant workers and seasonal agricultural workers are essential to Canada,” said Black. “We are calling on the Government of Canada for pathways to permanency for essential workers, should they so desire.”

The poll of 1,040 Canadians was conducted in late October and independent from the Star story.

It found that 93 per cent of respondents said migrant workers are essential contributors to Canada’s agricultural sector and 81 per cent said they deserved a pathway to permanent residence.

Canada’s agricultural sector depends on the temporary migrant work force, which makes up 17 per cent of the total employment in the sector.

“We need more concrete and equitable improvements to our migrant workers program. Since the workers are essential to our well being and safety, then the safest … and the most human way forward is to provide them with more permanent residency options,” Omidvar said.

Both Black and Omidvar plan to introduce a motion in the Senate on Thursday calling on the Liberal government to create permanent residence pathways for migrant workers.

Source: Survey shows support for migrant workers getting more benefits and protections, as senators introduce motion for change

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Virus Hits Foreign Farmhands, Challenging Canadians’ Self-Image

2020/10/13 Leave a comment

The NYTimes covers seasonal agricultural workers:

Three weeks after they began cutting asparagus in the thawing fields, Luis Gabriel Flores Flores noticed that one of his co-workers was missing. He said he found the man shivering with a fever, in bed — where he would remain for a week.

“I was trying to tell the foremen, ‘He is very ill, he needs a doctor,’” said Mr. Flores, one of thousands of migrant farm workers flown into Ontario in April to secure Canada’s food supply. “They said, ‘Sure, soon, later.’ They never did.”

The sprawling vegetable farm where he worked became the site of one of the country’s largest coronavirus outbreaks. Almost 200 workers, all from Mexico, tested positive, seven were hospitalized and one died: Juan Lopez Chaparro, the one Mr. Flores said he had tried in vain to help.

The farm owner insisted that Mr. Chaparro had been treated promptly and called Mr. Flores a “bad apple” being used by activists to score political points. If that is the case, it has worked: The outbreak and others like it have spurred national protests about the systemic vulnerability of migrant farm laborers, a population unknown to many Canadians until they began to fall ill at a rate 11 times that of health workers.

Canadians pride themselves on a liberal immigration system welcoming to an array of ethnicities and nationalities, contrasting their attitude with what many see as xenophobia in their neighbor to the south. The reality does not always match the rhetoric, but Canada encourages different groups to maintain their cultures, and an embrace of multiculturalism is enshrined in Canada’s charter and self-image. When other world leaders shunned refugees from Syria’s civil war, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed them in person, handing them winter coats.

But in importing large numbers of seasonal farm laborers from abroad and offering them no path to residence or citizenship, Canada looks disturbingly un-Canadian to many of its people. Canada admits temporary workers who stay for most of a year but requires them to return home when their contracts end (the United States does, as well, but they are outnumbered by farm workers who are undocumented and often do stay year-round).

As in the United States, farm workers live for months on their employers’ property, often in large bunkhouses where disease can spread easily. Those who enter Canada with work permits often return year after year with no prospect of ever legally putting down roots. Canada, at least, guarantees them health care, but on isolated farms, gaining access to that care can be difficult.

“In no other immigration category do you have people who come only from certain countries, are trapped in certain occupations, living only on their work sites and must absolutely leave the country at the end,” said Jenna Hennebry, director of the International Migration Research Center at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

“It’s not consistent with our ideals of multiculturalism.”

Professor Hennebry was among a group of academics who warned the Canadian government about the heightened risks migrant farm workers faced from Covid-19 before the first planeload of Mexicans arrived in April.

The coronavirus outbreaks prompted the Mexican government to pause sending workers to Canada for a week in June. In response, Mr. Trudeau said: “We should always take advantage of moments of crisis to reflect. Can we change the system to do better?”

Since then, his government has announced 59 million Canadian dollars — about $45 million — for improved farm housing, sanitation and inspections. But it has not offered the cure that advocates for migrant workers demand: a path to citizenship.

“We have a group of people defined as good enough to work in Canada, but not good enough to stay,” said Vic Satzewich, a sociology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “As a country we have to ask ourselves why that’s the case.”

The seasonal agricultural worker program began in 1966, when 264 Jamaican farm hands arrived in Southern Ontario as a temporary solution to chronic farm labor shortages.

It was designed “to prevent Black settlement,” Mr. Satzewich wrote in his book “Racism and the Incorporation of Foreign Labor.” Unlike earlier agricultural worker programs for Europeans, the Jamaican workers were not permitted to apply for Canadian citizenship or bring their families because of fear that there would be “race relations problems” and that they would not assimilate or be “competitive,” he wrote.

The program has expanded to include more than 56,000 workers from a dozen countries, making up one in five farm workers across Canada. The coronavirus has infected more than 1,600 of them in Ontario alone this year and killed three.

In theory, migrant farm workers are protected by all the laws that shield Canadian farm workers. But their contracts state that any worker fired for cause requires “immediate removal” from the country, which keeps people from complaining about abuses, advocates say.

The federal government introduced an enforcement system in 2015, with a complaint line for migrant workers, but Canada’s auditor general deemed it inadequate: Only 13 of 173 planned inspections were completed in the 2016 fiscal year. This year, no farms have been found noncompliant.

“The employers have too much power over their workers,” said Mr. Flores, 36, at a protest by migrant workers and their supporters in downtown Toronto in August. Around him, masked men and women held up pictures of Mr. Chaparro, his deceased co-worker.

“It could have happened to any of us,” said Mr. Flores, a father of two from the outskirts of Mexico City, who has worked on farms across Canada in four of the past six years.

This year, the program placed him at Scotlynn Sweetpac Growers, a family-run agribusiness with a large trucking fleet and 12,000 acres in Ontario, Florida and Georgia.

He tested positive for the virus, but experienced only mild symptoms. The day after he learned of Mr. Chaparro’s death, he left the farm two hours southwest of Toronto.

He has been supported since then by the advocacy group Migrant Workers Alliance For Change, which helped him file a complaint with the provincial labor board, seeking 40,000 Canadian dollars from Scotlynn for lost wages and suffering. He contends that he was fired for asserting publicly that the company had a role in Mr. Chaparro’s death.

The farm’s owner, Scott Biddle, said his family had hired farm workers from Mexico for more than 30 years and never fired a single one. He said Mr. Flores was one of three workers who asked to be returned to Mexico after the outbreak began.

Mr. Biddle said his farm had strictly followed the district’s coronavirus regulations, putting almost all the workers up in hotel rooms for two rounds of quarantine. He called Mr. Chaparro’s death an unfortunate reflection of the disease’s vagaries, not of systemic failures.

“Every regulation was followed that needed to be,” he said, standing in a parking lot behind his office. “At the end of the day, these gentlemen are living in close contact, they work in close contact, they are frontline workers providing food.”

He invited a New York Times reporter to speak to three of his employees, one of whom had worked for him for 32 years.

Two confirmed that Mr. Chaparro had lain sick in bed for a week. They said that four other workers in the bunkhouse had also had fevers and that one coughed so much, they thought he had pneumonia.

“All of us were 100 percent convinced it was just the change in climate,” said Daniel Hernandez Vargas, a roommate of Mr. Chaparro’s who was working at the farm this spring for the first time.

Workers in another bunkhouse, who were unsure where to turn when one of them became seriously ill, reached out to the assistant to an anthropology professor, whom they had met during a previous growing season. With the help of the two academics nearly 2,000 miles away, at Okanagan College in British Columbia, an ambulance was called.

“It had gotten to the point, one of their co-workers was so ill, he was slipping in and out of consciousness,” said the professor, Amy Cohen, who is an advocate for migrant workers.

Mr. Biddle said he believed a foreman had called the ambulance, but wasn’t sure of the details.

“If anyone showed any symptoms of being ill, they were always taken to the hospital,” he said.

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Canada needs to walk the talk on migrant rights

2020/08/28 Leave a comment

COVID-19 has exposed a number of the long-standing issues, particularly with respect to agriculture workers:

If you drive around the farming communities of Southern Ontario, you’ll see workers in the fields toiling under the hot sun. Their exhausting work puts food on Canadian tables. It also puts food on tables in Mexico, Jamaica and across the Caribbean. These front line workers ensure we don’t go hungry, particularly during the pandemic; they are critical to our food security.

Almost all migrant workers arriving in Canada were tested and confirmed to be free of COVID-19. Through no fault of their own, hundreds have contracted the virus through community transmission after they arrived, and three have died. The virus spread quickly because of their cramped living quarters and inadequate working areas.

Canada has been a leader in establishing international standards on migration, but our country’s treatment of migrant workers runs counter to its international commitments and threatens to damage its global reputation.

In 2018, Canada endorsed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration at the United Nations. The Global Compact is a framework of principles, objectives and actions to strengthen migration standards and protect the rights of migrants. It applies to both sending and receiving countries, and by endorsing it, Canada made a commitment to implementing those standards.

Over two years of negotiations, Canada was recognized as a leader by the UN. Canada identified and proposed concrete solutions to global migration challenges. It worked closely with civil society organizations and built partnerships that crossed the world. Canada was regularly asked by the Global Compact organizers to mediate with countries that were backpedalling on migration issues and to assist in garnering international commitment for the compact’s implementation.

Canada’s accomplishments are doubly impressive given the rise of populist movements around the world. In the U.K., the Brexit side won in part because of a campaign against migration, and in the United States, President Donald Trump ran on an anti-migration platform, subsequently pulling out of the Global Compact. Globally, anti-migrant sentiment has been growing. Even in Canada, a misinformation campaign claimed the compact would impinge on sovereignty and encourage mass migration.

Now COVID-19 has put a spotlight on Canada’s own policies. The outbreaks among farm workers have exposed the pre-existing weaknesses in how we treat these migrants.

For decades, Canada’s migrant worker programs have been plagued with vulnerabilities to abuse, exploitation, workplace injuries and deplorable living conditions. This vulnerability is particularly true for those on work permits tied to only one employer. Migrant workers risk losing their jobs and livelihoods if they raise complaints.

Implementing the Global Compact can help Canada do better.

The compact’s underlying, non-negotiable principle is respect for human rights, including labour rights. It also promotes partnerships among governments, employers and migrant worker organizations. It stresses that policies should “not create, exacerbate or unintentionally increase vulnerabilities.” Following the premise of the compact means that including migrant workers as partners is an important first step. For example, working directly with migrants early in the pandemic to understand why they feared COVID-19 tests could have reduced the number of outbreaks.

In adopting the compact, states committed “to adapt options and pathways for regular migration in a manner that facilitates labour mobility and decent work.” In order to do so, one action outlined in the compact is to provide “flexible, convertible and non-discriminatory visa and permit options.” In line with the compact, Canada’s migrant worker programs should move from providing migrants with employer-specific visas to open or occupation-specific visas or even permanent residency.

Not tying workers to one employer reduces the risk of exploitation and abuse. Furthermore, not fearing reprisals, migrants may more often report violations and access services, thus recognizing their rights. Canada moved toward open visas with last year’s regulatory change allowing migrant workers at risk of workplace abuse to apply for an open visa, usually for one year. However, the onus is still on the migrant worker in a vulnerable situation.

Migration, and specifically the impact of COVID-19 on migrant workers, is a global story as much as it is a national one. What we do at home affects how we are seen elsewhere. Recently, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne noted that Canada would “continue to play a leadership role and continue to defend and promote our values and principles around the world.” If Canada is committed to a global leadership role, it must improve its own standards before advocating to others the importance of principles and values.

By truly improving migration standards at home and acting on the international commitments it has made to protect the most vulnerable, Canada will build healthier communities and stronger economies – at home and abroad.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-needs-to-walk-the-talk-on-migrant-rights/

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Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

2020/08/15 Leave a comment

A further reminder of our dependence of foreign seasonal agriculture workers:

Nineteen-year-old Florence Lachapelle was among hundreds of Quebecers who tried their hand at planting seeds and harvesting produce this summer, replacing migrant workers who were unable to leave their countries because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while Lachapelle spent long days working the fields on Francois D’Aoust’s farm in Havelock, Que., too few other Quebecers took up the call to help the province’s struggling agricultural industry.

Despite a recruiting drive by the provincial government in April, the lack of labour this season has forced farmers to cut production or leave food rotting in the fields.

Unfortunately for Lachapelle, she fell ill with mononucleosis after two months and returned home to Montreal. She said the work was very demanding with so few migrant workers available.

“They’re professionals and we’re simply not,” Lachapelle said in a recent interview.

D’Aoust said he hired a handful of people to work alongside Lachapelle, who were out of work in other sectors such as communications, film and the restaurant industry. But once their opportunities returned, he said, they left for their better-paying jobs.

“Not a lot of people are used to (physical) work all day,” D’Aoust said in a recent interview. “It’s just not the kind of work that we do. It’s rare that people are in shape and can (work) all day in the field.

“People that are farmers, themselves, in their country, surely they are at an advantage.”

D’Aoust and his wife, Melina Plante, have hired the same four Guatemalan seasonal workers year after year. But this year the farmhands were stuck at home at the beginning of Quebec’s farming season due to travel restrictions their country imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

He said it takes inexperienced Quebecers up to three times as long to do farm work compared to a migrant worker. That meant he had to pay locals to do less work, eating into his profits.

D’Aoust slashed production at his farm, Les Bontes de la Vallee, by 60 per cent this year because he and his wife figured they would only have migrant workers later in the harvest season.

Two Guatemalan workers eventually made it on D’Aoust and Plante’s farm — but the financial damage to the business was done. “What we hope is to pass through this difficult period without too much loss and start again next year,” he said. “We just want to stay alive.”

For Michel Ricard, who owns 60 hectares of farmland in Saint-Alexis-de-Montcalm, about 60 kilometres north of Montreal, he said he’s going to lose a lot money and food this year because migrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala haven’t been able to arrive.

By the end of August, Ricard said he expects to lose approximately $100,000 dollars worth of cucumbers because he has no one to pick them.

Experienced foreign workers are “essential for the future, for me, and for the majority of growers of vegetables,” he said in a recent interview.

“The people from Guatemala are able to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It’s not a problem. Sometimes I need to stop them because they want to continue, but sometimes I say ‘that’s enough for today.'”

Local workers haven’t been much help to him, he said. Ricard had his daughter post a message on Facebook to reach out to prospective farmhands, but he said only eight came through for him.

“It was impossible,” Ricard said.

The Union des producteurs agricoles, which represents about 42,000 Quebec farmers, says there are close to 2,000 fewer migrant workers on Quebec farms than usual. Despite the UPA’s efforts to lure Quebec workers through a recruiting drive, just under 1,400 were assigned to Quebec farms this year.

“It didn’t replace, really, the foreign workers,” UPA President Marcel Groleau said in a recent interview. “It helped on some issues … but those workers are not trained and can’t really replace the foreign workers that are trained and have experience on farms.”

Farmers such as D’Aoust and Ricard say migrant farmhands are willing to work longer hours, even for minimal pay.

Groleau said the federal government’s emergency response benefit, which offers up to $2,000 a month to many people who have lost jobs, has encouraged Quebecers to stay away from the gruelling field work.

“When you can get two thousand dollars a month sitting at home,” Groleau said, “it’s not really interesting to go on a farm and work a little bit for minimum wage.”

Source: Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

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