Star Editorial Board The Star Mon., Aug. 29, 2022
An open letter penned by Jamaican migrant farm workers has brought fresh attention to the poor working conditions that temporary foreign workers are facing in Canada.
According to the Jamaica Observer, the letter was written to that country’s Ministry of Labour. Its release was timed around a tour of Canadian farms by Jamaica’s Labour Minister.
The Jamaican workers, members of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, described their experiences to “systematic slavery” and said they are “treated like mules.”
Other recent headlines have also brought renewed focus on the precarious and sometimes dangerous working conditions that migrant workers endure.
The recent death of a Jamaican man while working on a Southern Ontario farm is now under investigation. Also this month, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found that the Ontario Provincial Police discriminated against migrant workers during a 2013 sexual assault investigation in Elgin County.
What is clear from these stories, and others like them, including extensive reporting by the Star, is that the safety and well-being of migrant workers is far from guaranteed. This is a blight on Canada’s reputation as a beacon for migrant acceptance and a violation of its commitment to human rights.
That abuse does occur on Canadian farms hasn’t been lost on the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. It brought in the Vulnerable Worker Open Work Permit program in 2019 as a means to provide workers a way out of abusive workplaces.
However, it hasn’t done enough to protect workers, according to a report by the Migrant Workers Centre and the Law Foundation of British Columbia released in March. Research showed that the new program was inadequate in addressing abuse under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
That program’s framework dictates that migrant workers be tied to their employers, preventing them from leaving abusive workplaces, unless they want to risk their livelihoods, or be sent back to their countries. The open work permit is supposed to grant workers the freedom to find another employer if they find themselves facing unfair treatment. The regulation provides authority to immigration officers to issue open work permits where they believe such a request is warranted.
The Centre’s report analysed the reasoning of immigration officers for granting or refusing applications and found gaps in the way officers’ interpreted provincial and federal laws related to employment. The analysis found that officers struggled to see the contraventions of provincial and federal law as a form of abuse.
“Although the (Vulnerable Worker Open Work Permit program) has undoubtedly assisted many workers to flee abusive situations, without structural change to the (Temporary Foreign Worker Program), migrant workers will continue to face abusive situations in the context of their employment.”
The open permit program is essentially a Band-Aid solution that isn’t sticking. The report advises the federal government to instead institute broader systemic change in order to protect workers.
That would include providing workers permanent status on arrival “to avoid the power imbalance between migrant workers and employers”, end the use of employer-specific work permits, and provide new pathways to permanent residence for workers already in Canada, including those who currently have no status at all.
The feds should take the advice. Canada is facing significant labour shortages right now and immigration targets have already reached their highest levels since 1913, according to the Conference Board of Canada. A report from RBC Economics this past June points out that newcomers are already driving 100 per cent of the country’s labour force growth.
Simply relaxing rules for employers to hire more temporary foreign workers, as the federal government did this past April, does nothing to address its flaws. Furthermore, bringing in temporary foreign workers to work in low-wage jobs means that employers may opt for workers with fewer rights than workers already living in Canada who may be struggling to find work yet can’t be so easily taken advantage of.
Next month, the Migrants Rights Network will hold rallies across Canada calling for status for all undocumented people, migrant workers, students, families and refugees. It’s a righteous cause that will help improve the lives of many people — and make Canada a safe place for workers to contribute to the country’s prosperity.