Ottawa offers cash, more promises of reform for migrant workers in the agriculture industry

2020/08/03 Leave a comment

While the changes never go far enough for the activists, nevertheless the funding and related initiatives should result in improvement:

Ottawa will spend $58.6-million in efforts to improve the health and safety of temporary foreign workers in the agriculture industry, amid criticism that the government has not done enough to protect migrant farm workers.

The added funding is aimed at increasing inspections and improving employee housing. The government also said it will consult with provinces, employers, workers and foreign partner countries in the coming months to develop a “co-ordinated national approach” – mandatory requirements on employer-provided accommodations to ensure better living conditions for workers.

Advocates, medical experts and workers have long warned that poor living and working conditions are threatening workers’ health and safety – with these risks only heightened with the pandemic. More than 1,300 migrant farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in Ontario alone, according to a Globe and Mail survey of local public-health units, and three have died – one of whom was just 24.

A Globe investigation into the outbreaks in June revealed the unsafe conditions experienced by some farm workers. Interviews, photos and videos showed crowded bedrooms, broken toilets, cockroaches and bed-bug infestations. Workers cited a lack of access to PPE and pressure to keep working, even when suffering with symptoms of COVID-19.

And while the federal government is ultimately in charge of the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, The Globe’s subsequent reporting found a lapse concerning in-person inspections and little enforcement of the rules at the height of the pandemic meant to protect workers.

“We look at the tragedies that have hit the temporary foreign workers’ community with deep sorrow. This is something that is on Canadians,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday, adding that there are “lots of changes that we need to make.”

In an interview with The Globe in June, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said the federal government was planning an overhaul of the TFW program. On Friday, she said there are still “reported cases of inappropriate behaviour and unsafe working conditions.”

Workers, health professionals and rights groups said the measures still fall short, and don’t address systemic problems embedded in the structure of the program, where a precarious work status leaves workers unable to protect their rights for fear of being fired and deported.

Gabriel Flores, a farm worker in Ontario who tested positive for COVID-19 in May, said in an interview Friday that workers need “permanent residency, because we need to be able to defend ourselves and defend our rights and … be able to do something for our living and working conditions so that we can be healthy, be safe and work in decent conditions.”

Workers need a “comprehensive” solution now, he said, adding that more new programs and money won’t make a difference to workers if they don’t have the power to access them.

New measures announced Friday include $35-million for infrastructure improvements to living quarters, which also cover temporary emergency housing along with PPE and sanitary stations.

The government will also contribute $16-million to improve responses to allegations of employer non-compliance and strengthen inspections; the government will add “up to” 3,000 more inspections, which could potentially double the number of inspections this year. However, it didn’t say how many of these will be in person, or unannounced. And $6-million is slated for outreach to workers through migrant-worker support groups.

Despite some positive steps, such as acknowledging the need for pro-active enforcement of workplace and housing standards, “the changes announced today do not go nearly far enough,” said a statement by the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group.

Workers’ visas are still tied to their employers, which causes barriers in accessing safe working conditions, it said. “We encourage the federal government to address vulnerabilities workers face that arise from the conditions of their employment, specifically by instituting permanent residency on arrival and ending tied work permits.”

In B.C. Natalie Drolet, staff lawyer and executive director of the Migrant Workers Centre, said the government’s response is “too little, too late and is only a Band-Aid solution” that fails to address systemic problems such as their precarious work status.

In Ontario, Santiago Escobar, national representative at United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, said housing must be improved “as soon as possible,” and for these measures to work, migrant farm workers need stronger labour rights, so they can join a union, have collective agreements and better labour mobility.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-offers-cash-more-promises-of-reform-for-migrant-workers-in-the/

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Ottawa didn’t enforce rules for employers of migrant farm workers during pandemic

2020/07/14 Leave a comment

Appears to be a significant program implementation fail, particularly with respect to Ontario in contrast to British Columbia:

The federal government allowed some employers of migrant farm workers to submit three-year-old housing inspection reports in order to secure labour during the pandemic, instead of requiring up-to-date evidence of compliance with the temporary foreign worker program.

As well, for a six-week period at the outset of COVID-19, the government stopped conducting housing inspections under the TFW program altogether. When the audits resumed, they were done remotely.

While Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has received 32 COVID-19-related complaints regarding the program in the agri-food sector since March, not a single farm has so far been found in violation of several key pandemic-related rules. For example, employer-provided accommodations must allow workers to keep a distance of two metres, and employees must be paid for their mandatory quarantine upon arrival in Canada.

The federal government is ultimately in charge of the TFW program. It has the power to conduct pro-active inspections of accommodations, which can include bunkhouses, trailers and sheds. The provinces and local public-health units also have a role to play in oversight, creating a jurisdictional quagmire that has proved detrimental to the well-being of some temporary foreign workers.

In Ontario alone, more than 1,000 migrant farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Globe and Mail survey of local public-health units. Health officials have stressed that, for the most part, the workers arrived in Canada healthy and contracted the virus locally. Three men from Mexico have died.

A Globe investigation into the outbreaks published last month exposed the unsafe conditions endured by some migrant workers. Interviews, photos and videos portrayed overcrowded accommodations, broken toilets and cockroach and bed-bug infestations. As well, sheets and cardboard were used as dividers between bunk beds. Workers also recounted not being fully paid for their initial quarantine.

Federal guidance for employers of temporary foreign workers, updated in April, said that if an agri-food operation can’t submit a valid housing inspection report owing to COVID-19, “they must try to provide a satisfactory” report within the previous three years. The employer must later provide proof of compliance before the end of the permit term.

And even if an employer can’t produce a report from the previous three years, the company can still be approved to receive temporary foreign workers “if photos of the accommodation are provided and the employer agrees to submit an updated [report] to ESDC within the duration of the work permit.”

The department said in an e-mail that it would be rare for an employer to submit a three-year-old housing inspection report. In prepandemic times, employers had to provide, on an annual basis, a satisfactory report no older than eight months if they wanted to hire temporary foreign workers. This means that if a business employed migrant workers last year, for example, it would have had a recent report that it could submit.

In an interview with The Globe last month, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough acknowledged shortcomings in the TFW program and said Ottawa will overhaul it. Ms. Qualtrough said “nothing is off the table,” including changes to the enforcement regime. She also said that the government may create national housing standards that would have to be met for employers to qualify for the program.

Santiago Escobar, a co-ordinator with the Agriculture Workers Alliance, said the group has long sought improvements to what he described as “so-called inspections.” The alliance operates under the United Food and Commercial Workers union and represents migrant employees. “[The oversight regime] is not doing enough,” he said. “All inspections must be done in person, before workers arrive, and again once they’ve moved in.”

Over the past few months, Mr. Escobar said, the alliance has helped process dozens of applications for federal open work permits. This type of authorization, launched last year for vulnerable migrant workers, allows foreign nationals to leave abusive employers and work elsewhere for up to one year. Mr. Escobar said many of the applications included pandemic-related concerns. All of the submissions were approved.

And yet no employers have faced penalties for breaches of federal COVID-19-related rules. The employment department noted, however, that approximately 11 per cent of employers have required “some correction to minor issues” before being deemed compliant.

Of the 32 COVID-19-related complaints regarding the TFW program, the department has launched 11 inspections. Three are complete, with the employer found compliant in all areas. The rest of the complaints are under review. The federal government has the authority to penalize employers found to be non-compliant, including through a fine of up to $1-million and a ban on accessing labour through the program.

From mid-March to the end of April, Ottawa halted its housing inspections; ESDC said this was done to protect the health and safety of migrant workers, employers and government staff. When the inspections resumed, they were done remotely.

York University professor Leah Vosko, a Canada research chair whose work focuses on enforcement of employment standards and the precarious immigration status of migrant workers, said remote inspections are problematic. They don’t always accurately establish whether employers are abiding by the rules, she said, and information can be easily fabricated and manipulated.

In addition to more in-person audits, Prof. Vosko said Ottawa should increase unannounced inspections. “[A worker] being seen as a ‘troublemaker’ can jeopardize current and future employment contracts and lead to repatriation,” she said in an e-mail. “Proactive inspections are therefore needed to address the well-documented exploitative and unsafe conditions migrant farm workers labour under.”

One migrant farm worker told The Globe that when employers are given advance notice of an inspection, they have time to make conditions appear better than they are. “They’re prepared for the inspection, and usually what they do is show the good lunch room or the part of the facilities that are in good shape,” the worker said. The Globe is not identifying the worker because of concerns about future employment.

Prof. Vosko said Ottawa must create a national housing standard for temporary foreign workers. She pointed to a 2018 federally commissioned study on employer-provided accommodations that found a lack of uniformity in housing conditions and oversight.

“Consequently, prior to the pandemic, there were no concrete federal directives around housing capacities, bed size, number of windows and doors, privacy measures, food preparation and storage, [and] sanitation facilities,” she said.

At the provincial level, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly cited Ministry of Labour inspections and compliance orders as evidence that his government is taking action to protect migrant farm workers. But ministry inspections cover workplaces, not housing. The ministry said in an e-mail that it conducted 142 field visits in the agri-food sector related to COVID-19 between mid-March and early June. The inspections resulted in 34 COVID-19-related orders to improve conditions.

Scotlynn Group’s farm in Vittoria has been the subject of two formal COVID-19-related complaints to the Ministry of Labour. In May, there was a complaint with regard to “lack of COVID-19 measures,” and in June, there was a second one regarding “quarantine requirements,” according to ministry records provided to The Globe.

Investigations into the complaints are continuing; neither has so far resulted in a compliance order. The ministry is also investigating the June 21 death of Juan Lopez Chaparro, a 55-year-old Scotlynn worker from Mexico who had been admitted to hospital with COVID-19. The ministry declined to comment on the continuing fatality investigation.

Mr. Lopez Chaparro was one of 216 migrant workers at the Scotlynn farm; almost all of them have tested positive for the virus. Without a work force to speak of, the farm abandoned its asparagus harvest in early June.

The president and chief executive of Scotlynn Group – a North American transportation logistics and farming company with one of the largest vegetable operations in Ontario – told The Globe last week that all of the Vittoria workers have since tested negative and have been cleared to return to work. Scott Biddle said the Ministry of Labour told him they would likely be on site for two days to investigate Mr. Lopez Chaparro’s death, but ended up staying for two hours.

Mr. Biddle said officials interviewed him about the farm’s health and safety measures, including as it relates to accommodations for the initial mandatory quarantine. He said he rented hotel rooms for nearly 200 workers; 21 employees were isolated across seven bunkhouses, in line with a public-health occupancy directive that limited the number of workers per bunkhouse to three.

After four pro-active Ministry of Labour inspections and follow-up visits between January of 2010 and June of 2020, Scotlynn’s farming operation has been issued 13 compliance orders, according to ministry records. The orders require, among other measures, that the company prepare a policy for harassment and “assess the risks of workplace violence that may arise from the nature of the workplace, the type of work or the conditions of work.”

In five instances, the compliance order says vaguely, “the employer shall take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker.”

Three Scotlynn workers were among those interviewed for The Globe’s recent investigation. The men described overrun living conditions; ill workers living with healthy ones; and no PPE to guard against the virus.

Mr. Biddle said the two formal COVID-19-related complaints submitted to the Ministry of Labour are baseless and were brought by one “rogue” employee. “Every company has had complaints, but we’ve never had a fine,” he said. “We take every precautionary measure possible. We always go above and beyond.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-ottawas-enforcement-regime-failed-migrant-workers-during-the/

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A lesson learned early: How B.C. has avoided major COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers

2020/06/23 Leave a comment

British Columbia seems to have gotten virtually everything right compared to the other larger provinces:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to grapple last week with the treatment of migrant farm workers after hundreds of agricultural labourers, mostly in Ontario, tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the Mexican government to suspend the annual exodus of its workers to Canadian farms.

But planeloads of temporary foreign workers from Mexico are still expected to arrive in British Columbia, because of a unique program the province implemented in April designed to avert the kind of outbreaks Mr. Trudeau now promises to address in other provinces.

An investigation by The Globe and Mail has shown that the living and working conditions of some of the country’s most vulnerable workers allowed the pandemic to spread.

As Mr. Trudeau promises to find ways to do better by the migrant workers who are essential to Canada’s food system, he could look to B.C. for at least part of the answer.

British Columbia, like Ontario and Quebec, relies heavily on temporary foreign workers for farm labour.

The difference is that B.C. responded to a single COVID-19 outbreak at a plant nursery early in March with a plan designed to prevent a repeat. The cost of the program is not known yet, but it is expected to be tens of millions of dollars.

Since April 13, the B.C. government has organized and paid for quarantine services for migrant workers who arrive in B.C. to take seasonal farm jobs. The employers must pay wages during this time. So far, 2,800 people have been housed in Vancouver-area hotels, where they are provided meals, health care and other supports during their two week isolation. Of those, 23 have tested positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine.

Because of the pandemic, new arrivals to Canada are legally required to self-isolate for two weeks. But housing on the farms is typically crowded, with shared kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms.

Providing these services is a tacit admission that those operations relying on migrant workers cannot effectively provide quarantine in their housing.

David Geen, owner of Jealous Fruits, a cherry producer in B.C.‘s Okanagan Valley, said he has invested millions of dollars in housing for the migrant workers who make up the majority of his workforce at harvest time. But even with that, he said, he could not imagine how to safely provide quarantine facilities.

“We were seriously contemplating sitting out the year. We could not figure out how to properly do this,” Mr. Geen said in an interview. “We’re farmers, we’re not epidemiologists.”

His cherry farms and packing facility employ 150 local and 500 migrant workers at peak times. “We have spread people out in the dorms, and in the fields, but if you have an infected person arrive in your dorms, it’s difficult to keep [the virus] out.”

So far this year, he has 155 temporary foreign workers on site, and another 130 are in quarantine. He expects another group later in June, and still more in early July. Even after their quarantine, the farm provides the workers with groceries and amenities so that they can remain isolated while working.

There have been no reports of COVID-19 cases on B.C. farms since the quarantine housing program began. Mr. Geen said B.C. deserves credit for that success, but he believes Ottawa should have stepped up to ensure farmworkers and farms across the country were similarly protected.

“I feel ill reading about the tragic situation in Ontario,” he said.

Still, the living and working conditions for migrant workers remain an ugly aspect of food production in Canada, including in B.C. The fact that many farms cannot recruit local workers, even as unemployment spikes due to the pandemic, is telling.

Weeks before B.C. unveiled its quarantine plan, the Dignidad Migrante Society, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization that provides services, support, representation and assistance to migrant workers, called attention to those working conditions.

Raul Gabica, a former farm worker who is now a Canadian citizen, said B.C.‘s response has been a very good step. “But the workers are still in overcrowded housing, with no space for social distancing.”

Typical accommodations on B.C. farms provide one bathroom and one kitchen for every 10 workers, he said, with two or three people in each bedroom. “The housing standards have to change,” he said.

The pandemic has exposed that putting cheap food on the table comes at a high price for some.

Source:    A lesson learned early: How B.C. has avoided major COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers    

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Essential but expendable: How Canada failed migrant farm workers

2020/06/17 Leave a comment

Good investigative reporting on the policy and enforcement failures after the quarantine period:

When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit in March, the annual flow of farm labour into Canada hung in the balance.

Farmers feared that border closings and grounded planes would prevent agricultural workers, coming from countries such as Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica, from reaching their fields and greenhouses in time for the seeding season. Knowing this, Ottawa allowed entry of temporary foreign workers critical to the food system.

Conditions – including a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival – were put in place to protect Canadians. But advocates and health officials say not enough was done to protect the workers themselves.

In interviews, farm workers detailed the myriad reasons that COVID-19 has infiltrated farms with such success: a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), an information vacuum and pressure to work, despite symptoms. In one instance, a feverish worker developed chest pains and a nosebleed that dripped on the vegetables he tended; he said his supervisors refused to take him home until the shift was over. Photos, videos and interviews portrayed overrun bunkhouses with broken toilets and stoves, cockroach and bed-bug infestations, and holes in the ceiling.

Rules were rolled out, but they weren’t adequately enforced and failed to consider what life on a farm is actually like for a migrant worker. Ottawa requires that farms, which generally provide housing under the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program, ensure that accommodations allow physical distancing during the initial quarantine period.

But what happened after those 14 days was a massive blind spot. After isolating, workers often move into the bunkhouses, where they share bathrooms and kitchens and climb atop one another to get into bed. As former migrant worker Gabriel Allahdua put it, conditions in farm accommodations are a “recipe for COVID-19 to spread like wildfire.”

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In Ontario alone, more than 600 foreign farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Globe and Mail count; health officials have stressed that, for the most part, the workers came to Canada healthy and contracted the virus locally. British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec have also recorded outbreaks among migrant agri-food workers.

The situation is most dire in Southwestern Ontario, home to the continent’s highest concentration of greenhouses. Ontario’s largest outbreak is at Scotlynn Group, where at least 167 of 216 migrant workers have tested positive. Mexico has become so concerned by the outbreaks that Ambassador Juan Jose Gomez Camacho told The Globe that his country has “put a pause” on sending more workers – 5,000 more are still due to make the trip – until Canadian officials ramp up monitoring of health and safety rules, and ensure workers are paid while in isolation.

Two of Mr. Gomez Camacho’s countrymen have already died. Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, 31, and Rogelio Munoz Santos, 24, left their loved ones in Mexico to earn a better living. Their families are now planning the young men’s funerals. Mr. Eugenio Romero and Mr. Munoz Santos died – on May 30 and June 5, respectively – after testing positive for COVID-19. Their final days were spent mostly in hotel rooms, mostly alone.

“For a 24-year-old to die of this is beyond tragic,” said David Musyj, president and chief executive of Windsor Regional Hospital, where Mr. Munoz Santos died. “It should not happen. Just because he was from Mexico, I don’t give a damn. He was my son’s age. He was in Canada. And we should be taking care of him.” Mr. Munoz Santos is one of the youngest people in Canada to die from COVID-19-related causes. Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner is investigating both deaths and will decide whether to launch the province’s first inquest into a migrant worker fatality.

The federal government has the power to conduct pro-active inspections of farm accommodations, but during a six-week period at the height of the pandemic, these audits stopped. They are now being done virtually. The provinces are responsible for occupational health and safety, but in Ontario at least, the Ministry of Labour does not inspect employer-provided accommodations. Local public-health units in the province typically inspect farm bunkhouses once or twice a year, but this is done before workers arrive; an empty space looks markedly different from one with dozens of occupants.

In Canada, advocates and community health care workers for months warned federal and provincial politicians, as well as local public-health officials, that migrant workers were at a heightened risk. In letters, e-mails and conference calls, they asked for a number of measures, including increased funding for public-health units to ensure adequate housing inspections and limits on the number of people using each bathroom in bunkhouses. While some action was taken, many people say help came too little, too late. And advocates worry that unless enforcement and public-health outreach kick into high gear, there are lives and livelihoods at stake, along with the potential for disruption to the food system.

To understand what went so wrong, The Globe interviewed seven migrant workers across four farm operations, at times through a translator, as well as employers, advocates, academics, hospital executives, former migrant workers, doctors, lawyers and industry associations. The Globe reviewed four immigration files detailing allegations of employers who did little or nothing to protect workers. Migrant workers’ identities are being concealed because of privacy concerns and fears of reprisals.

The investigation revealed that problems in an already broken system have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. The experiences of workers varied, with some describing decent housing and respectful bosses who have worked hard to keep them healthy. Others spoke of racism and recounted threats of termination or deportation if they didn’t meet stringent productivity quotas.

Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), said there is a massive disconnect at play. “Migrant workers,” he said, “have been treated as expendable and exploitable – and essential, all at the same time.”

….

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The agriculture sector employs approximately 60,000 temporary foreign workers each year, with upward of 10,000 of them in Windsor-Essex county, which includes Leamington. Under the TFW program, foreign nationals are allowed to work for a particular employer for a set amount of time. Some stay for several months, others are here year-round. There are also foreigners who work in the country unauthorized; according to some estimates, Canada is home to hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants.

…

Source: Investigation: Essential but expendable: How Canada failed migrant farm workers

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Canadians have farmed out tragedy to the migrant workers who provide our food

2020/06/15 Leave a comment

Valid if somewhat imbalanced commentary on the vulnerability of temporary agriculture workers by Edward Dunsworth but yes, more and better regulation required. Permanent residency for seasonal work is more problematic:

On May 30, Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, a 31-year-old Mexican migrant farm worker in Windsor-Essex County, became the first known temporary foreign farm labourer to die from COVID-19 in Canada. One week later, a second Mexican migrant in Windsor-Essex, 24-year-old Rogelio Munoz Santos, met the same fate.

Elsewhere in Ontario, hundreds of farm workers have tested positive for the virus and dozens have been hospitalized, with the biggest outbreak occurring at the Scotlynn Group farm in Norfolk County, where about three-quarters of the migrant work force has contracted the novel coronavirus.

Lamentably, for these men and women, risking their lives in the course of their work is nothing new. Instead, in the half-century in which they have laboured in Canada, seasonal farm workers from the Global South have found themselves in a permanent state of risk – of illness, injury and death – while governments and employers have demurred on enacting meaningful reforms. These latest tragic deaths and the swell of infections during the pandemic are part of a rotten, decades-old regime of racial and economic apartheid and amount to nothing less than the systemic sacrifice of human lives at the altar of profit.

Mr. Eugenio Romero, Mr. Munoz Santos and the Scotlynn farm workers all came to Canada through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). Founded in 1966, the SAWP brings upward of 40,000 workers to Canada each year from Mexico, Jamaica and other Caribbean countries to work seasonal jobs in agriculture and food processing. Another 20,000 or so temporary farm workers enter Canada each year through other programs.

Participants in the SAWP are bound to their assigned employer, unable to freely change jobs. In most provinces, they are barred from joining or forming a union. They are often housed in cramped, if not downright appalling, conditions – perfectly suited for the spread of infectious disease. With their employment and immigration status effectively controlled by employers, migrants dependent on their minimum-wage Canadian incomes have a strong disincentive to speak out against abuses. And though many toil for decades in Canada, there is no pathway for SAWP workers to become permanent residents in the country that so desperately needs their labour. (A small permanent residency pilot program announced last year is open only to workers on year-round contracts, thus excluding the large majority.)

On top of it all, migrant farm workers’ jobs and living situations are highly dangerous and – as we are seeing now – sometimes even deadly.

This has been evident since the very founding of the SAWP. While none of the 264 Jamaicans who travelled to Canada in the program’s first year died on the job, 13 of them were chased out of their bunkhouse one night by a drunken, shotgun-toting friend of their boss, and forced to flee seven kilometres down a dark rural road. The program’s first fatalities came in 1967, its second year, when two of the 1,077 participants died in Canada from unknown causes.

In the decades since, dozens of workers have had their names added to this unenviable list, with countless more injured and taken ill. A Jamaican worker, who is unnamed in government reports, was killed by lightning strike in Beamsville, Ont., in 1973. Ned Peart, another Jamaican, was killed in 2002 on a tobacco farm in Brantford, Ont. In 2012, in Hampstead, Ont., a passenger van carrying 13 Peruvian and Nicaraguan poultry labourers returning home after a long day’s work collided with a truck driven by Christopher Fulton; David Armando Blancas Hernandez, Elvio Suncion Bravo, Enrique Arturo Arenaza Leon, Juan Castillo, Fernando Martin Valdiviezo Correa, Jose Mercedes Valdiviezo Taboa, Cesar Augusto Sanchez Palacios, Corsino Jaramillo, Lizardo Mario Abril and Oscar Walter Campomanes Corzo were killed, as was Mr. Fulton. Ivan Guerrero of Mexico drowned in 2014 while trying to fix a leak near his bunkhouse in Ormstown, Que., a year after recording a video in which he described being treated like a dog by his employer. Sheldon McKenzie, a Jamaican worker who suffered a severe head injury working at a tomato farm in Leamington, Ont., passed away months later in September, 2015. Zenaida, a Mexican woman whose last name was not made public, was killed in a hit-and-run in Niagara last summer. And now, Mr. Eugenio Romero and Mr. Munoz Santos.

Just as the Black Lives Matter movement has so poignantly implored us to do for victims of police violence, we should know – and say – their names.

Then and now, employers that have built a multibillion dollar industry on the backs of migrant labourers have demonstrated more concern for the financial costs of death and illness than with providing safer conditions for workers.

The primary response from growers to the two SAWP workers’ deaths in 1967 was to lobby the government on cost-sharing arrangements. “The employers … felt that they should not be held responsible for the costs of burial in case of the death of a worker,” a government memo tersely noted.

Amid the current pandemic, as a scathing June 8 report by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change reveals, employers have illegally clawed back wages from quarantining workers, imposed draconian restrictions on their freedoms and required employees to live and work in wildly unsafe conditions.

Publicly, farmers have voiced opposition to quarantine rules, and stridently so in Norfolk County, the site of the Scotlynn outbreak. In recent weeks, Schuyler Farms – with the vocal support of many other area growers – launched a legal challenge against local health unit regulations that prohibit more than three workers sharing accommodations during their two-week quarantine upon arrival in Canada. Even with the Scotlynn outbreak in full effect, Schuyler has pushed forward with the challenge, decrying the threat to crops and calling the requirement “arbitrary.”

Meanwhile, Scotlynn chief executive Scott Biddle saw it fit to give a newspaper interview last week lamenting the loss of 450 acres of asparagus, even as seven of his employees lay in hospital beds – two in intensive care – with COVID-19.

For their part, governments in both Canada and migrant-sending countries have remained steadfastly disinterested in taking measures to better safeguard the health and safety of migrant workers, preferring to treat worker deaths and accidents as isolated incidents rather than as manifestations of systemic oppression.

To date, there has never been a single coroner’s inquest into the death of a migrant farm worker, despite significant pressure from victims’ families and advocacy groups such as Justicia for Migrant Workers over the years. Meanwhile, workers who have been incapacitated on the job in Canada are frequently sent back home and cut off from compensation payments, regardless of their employment prospects. And now, as Toronto Star uncovered, Jamaican workers leaving for Canada are required to sign waivers that release the Jamaican government from liability for any coronavirus-related “costs, damages and loss.”

Urgent changes are needed to protect migrant farm workers from COVID-19. But the coronavirus is merely the latest symptom of a decades-old illness for Canada’s migrant agricultural work force. To treat it properly will require a complete overhaul of the temporary foreign worker regime, a key component of which will be the granting of permanent residency status to all participants, as has been done for front-line migrant workers in many other countries during the pandemic.

Only then can Canada begin to correct the rank hypocrisy of treating essential workers as expendable and turn a page on this shameful part of our history.

Source: Canadians have farmed out tragedy to the migrant workers who provide our food

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Advocate warns new agri-food pilot is inaccessible for many critical migrant workers

2020/05/21 Leave a comment

I would reserve judgement until we see how the program works or doesn’t work in practice. As a pilot, it allows the government to test the approach and adjust as necessary, as it did with The Atlantic Immigration Pilot (now no longer a pilot)”

The federal government’s new agri-food pilot program gives too much power to employers and won’t be accessible for labourers hoping to gain permanent residence status, migrants workers’ advocates say.

Applications for the long-awaited pilot opened on Friday, after being delayed for some months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said the pilot is a “slap in the face” to migrant workers who have been deemed essential during the coronavirus shutdowns, and now can’t access a pathway to citizenship due to the program’s stringent requirements.

“By and large, it’s not a program that’s designed to work for the people,” Hussan said in an interview with iPolitics. “It’s an employer-driven program that the vast majority of workers won’t be able to access.”

The three-year pilot was presented by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as a way to help employers in meat processing, mushroom and greenhouse production, as well as livestock-raising, by providing a pathway to permanent residence for temporary foreign workers who are already in Canada. The department said a total of 2,750 applications will be accepted annually throughout the pilot.

But Hussan pointed to the education and language testing requirements for the program, which he believes that migrant workers won’t be able to access.

The program requires applicants to have either a Canadian high school diploma or an educational credential assessment report, from a designated organization or professional body, that shows they’ve completed a foreign credential at the secondary school level or above. The workers must also meet minimum language requirements: a level four in the Canadian Language Benchmarks of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The test must be considered approved, and no older than two years.

Keith Currie, vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, acknowledged the language and education requirements may need to be adjusted as the pilot is studied. Unlike the Temporary Foreign Workers program, which is another avenue for migrant workers to access employment in Canada, he noted that the pilot requires the same language and education testing necessary for those seeking full citizenship.

“We just want to make sure that things, rules aren’t too stringent to make it viable for workers to stay,” he said.

Applicants also must prove they have enough money to settle in Canada, eligible work experience, a minimum of 1,560 hours of non-seasonal, full-time work in the past three years, and a job offer letter.

Hussan told iPolitics that many migrant workers come in and out of Canada, and therefore may not be able to meet the hours requirement, which are to be counter over a total period of at least 12 months. As well, he said the job offer requirement will exacerbate employers’ power, claiming that the measure hasn’t been used in federal immigration programs before. Such criteria exists in some provincial regulations though, he said, adding that they’ve proven problematic in some instances.

“We’ve seen multiple examples of employers use these job offers to stop workers from speaking out,” he said.

Currie said he hadn’t heard any complaints about the requirement to have a job offer letter, and said it made sense that the federal government would want to ensure applicants had employment waiting for them. Agriculture producers, he said, were welcoming the program and had advocated for its introduction. Many seasonal workers returned year after year, he said, or sent their children or grandchildren.

“They’re beginning to almost be like family to some of these operations,” he said.

Currie also said the program will help shore up the agriculture sector’s labour needs, where tens of thousands of labour jobs go unfulfilled each year.

In June, the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry released a report forecasting a worsening of farmers’ difficulties with finding workers.  The report referenced testimony from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council in saying the country’s agriculture sector was short 59,000 workers in 2019 — a figure that could reach 114,000 by 2025.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino said in a release that the pilot aimed to attract applicants who could establish themselves in Canada, while supporting the labour needs of farmers and processors.

“It’s very important that we support our farmers and food processors to make sure they have the workers they need to help strengthen Canada’s food security,” he said.

But Hussan stressed that migrants who make up a critical part of Canada’s agricultural workforce should be valued for the contribution they made to the sector — and claimed the government had skipped over migrant advocates’ organizations in their consultations and assessments within the agricultural realm.

“Canada clearly needs these workers,” Hussan said. “The program should be designed with them in mind.”

Source: Advocate warns new agri-food pilot is inaccessible for many critical migrant workers

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New immigration plan targets agricultural workers

2020/05/16 Leave a comment

The government continues to implement more targeted immigration programs:

A long-awaited program to give temporary agricultural workers a path to citizenship will be launched today, but its tight criteria will exclude many of them, including those who work in Manitoba.

“Immigration criteria is set up for urban-centric occupations and not rural, farm and food occupations,” said Janet Krayden, a spokeswoman for Mushrooms Canada.

The federal Liberals announced the agri-food immigration pilot program last summer, but delayed its launch, set for March, due to COVID-19. It will offer permanent residency to non-seasonal, year-round agricultural workers in Canada who meet certain criteria.

Ottawa will grant permanent status to as many as 8,250 workers over three years. Just as many people can qualify as family members, for a total of 16,500.

But applicants have to pay for an assessment of their home country’s high school degree. They also must pay for a Canadian Language Benchmark-4 language test, a level that involves being able to read a recipe and give driving directions.

“The requirements are fairly high,” said Diwa Marcelino, an organizer with Migrante Manitoba.

Seasonal workers, who continue to spend summers in Canada before returning to their home countries, are ineligible for the pilot program.

Yet the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council praised the program, saying the sector has lobbied for years to keep workers with skills that agricultural companies need, but whom Ottawa doesn’t deem as specialized labour.

“This is what this new program is designed to address,” said council head Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst.

Her group found that in 2017, 1,100 unfilled Manitoba agriculture jobs cost the sector $367 million in lost sales. The council believes Manitoba is on track to fall short by 5,300 jobs at the end of this decade, as demand rises for grain, oilseeds, beef and pork.

MacDonald-Dewhirst said her industry has pushed hard to hire Canadians, but recruitment campaigns haven’t bridged the growing job gap that leads to unharvested food.

Now, COVID-19 travel restrictions make it harder to fly in foreign workers and safely house them, and the coronavirus is disrupting supply chains that import food.

“This is a great time to be doing this project,” MacDonald-Dewhirst said of the pilot. “These are people who are here on a temporary basis, and are looking to make Canada their home; they’re excited to do so.”

Marcelino fears the program will worsen the exploitation of foreign workers. His group has long advocated that agricultural workers are only safe when they have Canadian citizenship.

“There’s a huge power imbalance employers have over their employees, because their status is dependent on their employment,” he said.

Marcelino argued employers will use the pilot program as leverage to make sure workers don’t cause a fuss over labour conditions.

“You have this even bigger carrot on a stick that workers are vying for.”

Marcelino argued that’s especially dangerous during COVID-19, with migrant workers alleging that Alberta meat plants encouraged them to keep working even though they had symptoms, sparking some of the largest coronavirus outbreaks on the continent.

Source: New citizenship plan targets agricultural workers

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A study urged better standards for migrant workers’ housing. Nothing was done. Now COVID-19 has struck

2020/05/12 Leave a comment

One can just imagine the lobbying that occurred, given the likely competitiveness impact on the sector, with the health and pandemic consequences that have now become more widely apparent.

The same pattern of greater risk to temporary workers living and working in crowded conditions is seen everywhere, whether pristine Singapore or the Gulf countries:

Across Ontario, nursing homes are the province’s deadliest epicentres for the COVID-19 pandemic. But in Chatham-Kent, the county’s largest outbreak of the virus is on a farm — where 49 migrant workers have fallen ill.

Labour advocates warn that living conditions are hastening the virus’s spread on farms across the country, where bunkhouses often make it impossible for temporary foreign workers to social distance.

Those workers are essential to the country’s food supply, leading agricultural groups to push for their exclusion from Canada’s COVID-19 travel ban.

But prior to the pandemic, many of these groups also lobbied against the creation of a national housing standard that a government study recommended “to reduce the risk of negligence and possibly of harm” to migrant workers, documents obtained by the Star show.

The national standard for migrant worker housing has not been implemented — despite a study commissioned by the federal government that found “gaps in the housing inspection process” and an “extremely wide variation of what is deemed an acceptable housing standard.”

Substandard, overcrowded housing for migrant farm workers is an issue that workers have raised literally “literally for decades,” said Fay Faraday, a Toronto-based lawyer and York University professor who has written numerous studies of migrant workers’ conditions.

“From the very beginning of the outbreak the first concern that workers were raising was whether they would have housing facilities that would be safe.”

In consultations initiated by the federal government in 2018 on updating migrant worker programs, agricultural groups including Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture pushed back against stricter auditing of living and working conditions, according to submissions obtained by the Star.

The groups argued that the process treats employers “like they are guilty of an infraction before proven innocent” and represented an “excessive” administrative burden.

“The approach from government has caused a great deal of concern, stress, and anxiety,” says one submission.

Employers’ eligibility to hire workers through Canada’s temporary foreign worker schemes is contingent on submitting housing inspection reports to the federal government. But the 2018 study conducted by the National Home Inspector Certification Council found no “uniformity” in housing standards and confusion over who enforces them: “complex jurisdictional roles and responsibilities can make it unclear what housing standards applies,” and whether housing makes the grade.

The study recommended updating and standardizing guidelines across the country, and letting inspections include a “broader scope” of issues — including bunkhouses’ electrical systems, and the age of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

In response to questions from the Star, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada said the government’s review of its temporary foreign worker program “identified some opportunities to improve housing for foreign workers” that would be addressed with the provinces.

“Because of the urgencies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, this work has been delayed.”

Workers say the delay comes with a price tag that is now more costly than ever.

As the tomato capital of Canada, Leamington runs on farm labour, provided mostly by migrant workers who plant, pick, and pack the fruit and vegetables the country relies on.

Some come for eight months a year; others have work permits for up to two years. None can gain permanent residence through the country’s temporary foreign worker streams.

Leamington has always been a town of immigrants, its evolution tied to successive waves of workers who powered its economy.

This year, as the COVID-19 crisis deepened, the town transformed once more.

Local hotels became self-isolation quarters for workers just in from Mexico and the Caribbean. The community health centre launched an education campaign, urging migrant workers to practice social distancing. Police circulated videos in Spanish, warning of the penalties for failing to do so.

For some workers, the rules seemed impossible to heed.

One Mexican worker here on a two-year permit said he shares a house with 10 other workers; he is picked up by a bus full of other workers to get to his job at a mushroom farm’s packing plant, where there are some 200 other employees.

“We cannot social distance because we have to work very close,” he told the Star. In April, several workers across his employer’s facilities were diagnosed with COVID-19.

In Ontario, housing inspections for migrant workers are usually done by local public health units. In Leamington, the Windsor-Essex County unit conducted 121 bunkhouse inspections between the beginning of March and mid-April, a spokesperson told the Star. Around 100 were for housing permits or licensing; the rest were reinspections or responses to complaints.

In many regions, Faraday says, the inspection process has long been flawed. In Ontario, for example, health units can’t fine employers for shoddy or unsafe housing because there are no legislated standards for worker accommodation.

Inspections “have typically been done before any workers arrive,” said Faraday. “So they are seen in a pristine condition without the workers there and without necessarily a realistic assessment of how many workers will be in that space.”

According to the 2018 housing study, where provincial standards exist, “enforcement is only done on an ad hoc, complaints based basis.”

For some migrant workers, the pandemic now prompts other concerns.

One worker, originally from Guatemala, said he has not been allowed to leave his bunkhouse since the pandemic started, other than to go to work. Even shopping for groceries is off limits — instead, he said, the farm’s secretary brings a weekly supply.

His bed is in a large open space shared by 12 workers, he said. He usually works nine-hour days, Mondays to Saturday. Sunday is a half day, leaving hours, pre-pandemic, that were the only time that felt like his own. Often he would go for walks, or visit Leamington’s scenic lakefront.

“It’s really nice for us to go out, to do other things, and stop thinking about work,” he said. “That’s how we were able to relax.” Now leaving the bunkhouse could be grounds for suspension, he said.

He understands the need to social distance, he said. But Canadians, he noted, can still go out occasionally — “We feel like prisoners.”

One county over at Greenhill Produce, site of 51 of the region’s 89 COVID-19 cases, one migrant worker said he shared a room with six others before the outbreak. In total, 24 workers lived in his bunkhouse.

“I feel like I want to cry,” the worker said.

Chatham-Kent’s public health unit said the workers are believed to have been exposed to the virus by a local farmhand. The unit’s spokesperson Caress Lee Carpenter said the bunkhouses received routine inspections prior to the outbreak, and said living arrangements make it “easy to transmit this kind of infection.”

That risk, she added, was “similar to if someone in your own household had the virus but did not yet know. The chances of other household members contracting the virus is likely.”

But few Canadians live in conditions like migrant workers, said Faraday, where “it is completely normal to have eight people living in a two-bedroom space.

“It’s so common to have workers in storage sheds or tool sheds that have been repurposed into dormlike housing with dozens of workers separated only by hanging sheets.”

The worker at Greenhill said the quality of his bunkhouse was good, other than the number of people who shared it.

By the end of April, Greenhill workers were rehoused to separate those who tested positive and negative, he said. “I think they could have moved us much much earlier.”

The public health unit said it has provided support to workers on a daily basis and the company has followed “all public health measures directed at them.”

In a statement posted to its website, Greenhill said it cared “deeply for our employees and takes all steps to protect their health and safety … we are proud to provide some of the best quality living quarters for our workers, meeting and greatly exceeding federal government regulations.

“Examples of amenities we provide in all residences is free Wi-Fi, telephone, satellite TV in each bedroom, extremely high quality furnishings, kitchen and sanitary amenities, fire alarm system, in floor heating and air conditioning.”

After authorities in British Columbia began investigating a COVID-19 outbreak amongst migrant workers in Kelowna in March, advocates warned that more would follow. Since then, agricultural employers such as Greenhill have been hit; so too have food processing facilities that rely heavily on temporary foreign workers, such as a Cargill meat-packing plant in Alberta.

Responses have varied from employer to employer. But to Faraday, the structural issues remain.

Migrant workers’ precarious immigration status and fear of reprisal makes it difficult to voice concern about conditions, Faraday said: “There is also the undeniable racism” behind employers providing conditions for migrant workers that locals wouldn’t accept.

And while employers’ responses to COVID-19 have varied, their submissions to the consultations that addressed housing concerns two years ago were consistent: stronger enforcement is not necessary.

“We urge the government to not only consider the rights of the workers but also the right of the employer to due process as they deliver these inspections,” said one submission from the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers.

Noting the “importance of ensuring that our (temporary foreign worker) workforce is treated fairly,” the submission added that “fairness is only one aspect of what individuals need to feel included and secure” and suggests that the federal government reallocate “funds from compliance activities to initiatives that support the inclusion and acceptance of our TFW workforce in rural communities across Canada.”

Last year, a Star investigation exposed thousands of complaints that migrant workers made to Mexican authorities. Housing was the biggest concern, with allegations of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and pest infestations. Only a small number of the complaints are ever shared with Canada’s government.

Now, the pandemic has brought the enforcement issue into sharper focus. Canada announced a $50-million program last month to help farms modify accommodation and subsidize migrants’ wages when they are in self-isolation.

Accessing the money, said Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, is dependent on employers following public health guidelines and will be accompanied by targeted inspections from federal ministries and local health units.

In a statement to the Star, Employment and Social Development Canada said it had “ceased conducting proactive inspections” in mid-March so it could “abide by local travel restrictions” and protect the health of communities and departmental staff. .”

The ministry said it expected to resume proactive inspections “in the coming days” by video and other means.

In Ontario, advocacy group Justice for Migrant Workers wants the provincial Ministry of Labour to include housing in health and safety inspections.

Farm employers get subsidies, grants and regulatory exemptions, and “It is time that the workers receive the benefits that are due to them,” the group said in a recent letter to Premier Doug Ford.

Faraday said the pandemic has also brought migrant workers’ value into sharper relief.

“These are essential workers,” she said. “We would not eat without them.”

Source: Star ExclusiveA study urged better standards for migrant workers’ housing. Nothing was done. Now COVID-19 has struckA study urged better standards for migrant workers’ housing. Employers objected and nothing was done. Now the virus has struck.

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Quebecers answer call to work on farms, but are they up to the task?

2020/04/28 Leave a comment

The productivity and cost benefits of foreign agricultural workers and the resulting dependence:

Melina Plante has found that, on her five-hectare fruit and vegetable farm south of Montreal by the U.S. border, one experienced Guatemalan farmhand can produce more than two Quebecers.

She and her husband, Francois D’Aoust, have hired the same four Guatemalan seasonal workers year after year. They typically clock up to 70 hours per week on the farm in Havelock, Que., and though the pay is relatively low, the workers value it.

But this year, Plante said, the farmhands are stuck in Guatemala due to travel restrictions their country has imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

They are among the roughly 5,000 seasonal and temporary workers that Quebec’s farmers’ union estimates will be missing on the province’s farms this year because of the pandemic, leaving Plante, D’Aoust and scores of other farmers with a tough choice: They can either reduce this year’s food production or take a chance on inexperienced but eager Quebecers thrown out of work by the pandemic.

In response to the foreign labour shortage, the provincial government on April 17 announced a $45-million program to pay an extra $100 a week above regular wages as an incentive to work on a farm. About 2,800 Quebecers have so far responded to Premier Francois Legault’s call.

But it is still unclear if there are enough unemployed Quebecers able and willing to do the work — and whether those who do will stick around if the economy picks up and their old jobs return.

Plante said bluntly that in the past, Quebecers have proven unreliable farmhands.

“That’s been our experience — and why we turned to foreign labour …. We estimate that one Guatemalan worker can be replaced by 2.5 Quebecers,” she said by phone from her farm.

The provincial program pays minimum wage, plus the $100 per week top-up and requires that applicants be available to work at least 25 hours per week. But Marcel Groleau, president of Union des producteurs agricoles, which represents about 42,000 Quebec farmers, says those kind of schedules simply won’t cut it.

“It will take farms — at a minimum — 40 hours per week, per employee, to replace the foreign labour,” he said in a recent interview.

The Canadian border remains open to seasonal farm workers, he explained, but many of them are having difficulty obtaining travel permits in their home countries.

“The pandemic made us realize how much we rely on foreign labour — but it’s been hard to attract local labour in the fields for many years now,” Groleau said.

Florence Lachapelle is hoping she’ll qualify for the extra $100 per week.

She had already agreed to work on Plante’s farm to help replace the Guatemalan farmhands before the province created the recruiting program. The 19-year-old visual arts student from Montreal met Plante and D’Aoust through family.

Lachapelle said she got involved in environmental activism at her junior college but since the pandemic doesn’t know what to do with her energy.

“I think the key to fighting climate change is through agricultural self-sufficiency and knowing how to work the earth in a respectful way,” she said in a recent interview. “I really want to learn how it works.”

And while people such as Lachapelle may be helping to fill a critical gap created by the pandemic, there are other fragile links in the agricultural supply chain exposed by the pandemic.

COVID-19 has highlighted the problems associated with industry concentration, particularly within the food-processing sector, Groleau said.

“There are fewer and fewer (processing plants), and the ones that are left are bigger and bigger,” he said. “When there is an issue at one of them, there are serious impacts for the rest of the supply chain.”

For example, the closure of a single meat packing plant in Alberta last week forced Canada to curtail beef exports to meet domestic demand. The Cargill-operated factory in Alberta has seen an outbreak linked to at least 484 cases of COVID-19s, including one death.

“We are not, at this point, anticipating shortages of beef,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier in the week, “but prices might go up.”

Aside from higher prices, Plante said she and other farmers in her network expect food shortages this fall. She and her husband have already estimated they will have to cut production this year by about a third.

Pascal Theriault, a lecturer at McGill University’s farm management and technology program and vice-president of Quebec’s order of agronomists, said he hopes this crisis forces Canadians to rethink their relationship with food.

“We worked on producing food at the lowest possible cost and that’s all that counted,” he said in a recent interview. But over the years, international supply chains controlled by a handful of big players have contributed to Canadians’ alienation from the food they eat.

“I think the crisis will build awareness to eat more locally,” he said. “It’s not that we weren’t doing it before, but now we are really paying attention to it.”

Buying local could mean higher grocery bills for Canadian consumers used to seeing stores stocked with imported produce grown with cheaper labour under fewer regulations.

Canadians spend about 10 per cent of their budgets on food — one of the lowest proportions in the world, Theriault said. So there is room to pay a little more for local products — but not that much more, he said.

Lachapelle started her new job Thursday. She’ll live in a trailer on Plante’s farm and keep mostly to herself for two weeks to ensure she is not carrying the virus. Then when she starts what she expects will be gruelling work in the fields, she will respect physical distancing guidelines.

“I am very hard-working,” she said. “I’m 19, and I think I am ready, physically and mentally. I know it’s going to be a challenge. But I think it’ll be will super fun!”

Source: Quebecers answer call to work on farms, but are they up to the task?

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Federal guidelines for temporary foreign workers aren’t enforceable, says advocate

2020/04/11 Leave a comment

Of note. Legitimate concern although the associated position by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change for the government to “extend EI benefits to workers who chose not to travel to Canada this year due to coronavirus concerns” and some other demands are largely non-starters:

The federal government’s new guidelines for employers of temporary foreign workers coming to Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic won’t offer substantial protections for critical agricultural labourers, says a migrant workers advocate.

Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, says the federal government must create enforcement mechanisms for these new guidelines to ensure the rights of workers are upheld.

“We need proactive enforcement,” said Hussan, who’s also a member of the Migrant Rights Network, a coalition of self-organized groups of refugees and migrants.

“We are very far away from instituting actual protection for essential migrant workers.”

Employment and Social Development Canada published the guidelines late last month, which include instructions that workers must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival to Canada and employers must pay workers for the time they spend in self-isolation.

Hussan, though, said many workers aren’t aware of their rights because the guidelines are only available in English. He said organizations like MWAC created education materials to share with workers so they could understand employment rights and social distancing.

“What is the point of a guideline if the workers who it’s supposed to protect doesn’t know [the guideline],” he asked.

Hussan said some members have been told to work by their employers, despite the self-isolation guidelines, and then were refused pay when they declined, to adhere to self-isolation measures. He also said some workers are in quarantine and employers aren’t providing groceries or medication they’ve requested, with local churches instead stepping in.

He said the federal government should create calling and internet hotlines for foreign workers to file complaints about their employers anonymously, as well as to have regular spot checks at farms where migrant workers are hosted.

“We need proactive enforcement,” he said.

Keith Currie, first vice president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said despite some frustration among members about not having access to labourers during their self-isolation period, farmers are prepared to do whatever is necessary to maintain Canada’s foreign labour force — including following the protocols set in place by the government.

“The government made it very clear that [migrant workers] are to be paid for these two weeks, so [farmers] will do what they have to do,” he said.

Currie, who’s also president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said farmers would like the government to include migrant workers under the employment insurance benefits that have been announced for Canadian workers rather than paying them out of pocket. Meanwhile, he said proper payment to foreign workers will be documented through a businesses’ tax filing.

“[Famers] will build that unto their business case, and they will pay [migrant workers] for the 30 hours a week while they’re in isolation,” he said. “It’s all on the record.”

Hussan also said migrants workers deserve to be treated like permanent workers as a permanent part of Canada’s labour force. As a part of this, he said the government should extend EI benefits to workers who chose not to travel to Canada this year due to coronavirus concerns. Workers who grow ill from COVID-19 should be covered under Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), but Hussan said some workers don’t have access to valid SINs because they just arrived in the country and Service Canada offices are closed. He said the federal government should make CERB available on the basis of expired SINs for workers that can’t renew their number this year.

Hussan said quarantine measures are showing the necessity of “urgent immigration reform,” including a national housing strategy, noting that workers with temporary status can’t enforce their rights “even when facing a deadly pandemic.”

He pointed to a COVID-19 outbreak in a Kelowna B.C. nursery, where 14 migrants workers have tested positive for the virus, with a total of 63 in self-isolation.  The migrant workers arrived in Kelowna from outside Canada on March 12, before any travel restrictions were in place.

“Worker lives are being put into danger because of inaction by the federal government,” Hussan said.

Marielle Hossack, press secretary for Employment and Workforce Development  Minister Carla Qualtrough, said all employees coming to Canada to help secure our country’s food supply deserve a safe working and living environment. She said employers have an an important role to play in helping prevent the introduction and spread of COVID-19.

“Our government has provided guidance to employers of temporary foreign workers to ensure they meet public health requirements regarding accommodations, hygiene and working conditions,” she said in an emailed statement to iPolitics. “We continue to engage with key stakeholders to ensure this program supports the Canadian economy and protects the health and safety of Canadians and workers.”

Currie urged that farmers are willing to do “whatever is necessary” to maintain the foreign worker’s program, noting that 16,000 agriculture jobs went unfilled last year.

“It’s desperately needed because we just can’t get Canadians to fill those jobs,” he said. “We just want the public to know, there still are jobs available should they choose to work on a farm, but these foreign workers are key to food production in Canada.”

Source: Federal guidelines for temporary foreign workers aren’t enforceable, says advocate

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