Migrant workers in Canada need help
HALIFAX — A new report highlighting labour abuses and mistreatment of migrant workers in Canada has called for urgent reforms from the federal and provincial governments to protect the health, safety and rights of migrant agricultural workers.
The Status of Migrant Farm Workers in Canada, 2020 report calls for 14 “significant” legislative and regulatory reforms at the federal and provincial levels to the temporary foreign worker scheme, which brings roughly 50,000 to 60,000 temporary foreign agricultural, food and fish processing workers to Canada each year.
The 46-page report was released by the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada and the Agriculture Workers Alliance on Monday. It comes on the heels of allegations by migrant workers in Nova Scotia about poor living and working conditions, wage theft and threat of deportation.
UFCW Canada representative Santiago Escobar said the union is calling for the changes to better protect migrant workers, who make up the “most precarious and vulnerable worker population in Canada” due to the fact that they come to Canada with a work permit tied to a single employer, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, health risks and employer reprisal.
“If they have an unscrupulous employer, it is very likely that they'll be experiencing abuses," Escobar said. "The employer will take advantage of their precarious status and lack of labour rights.
“Having said that, we're making some recommendations for the federal and provincial governments.”
Some of the 14 recommendations include providing migrant workers with a “flexible” pathway to permanent residency, ending the tying of a worker to a single employer, making union representation a necessary condition of the temporary foreign worker program, and establishing significant fines and/or jail sentences for employers who exploit migrant workers.
“We have seen many injustices, overcrowded housing conditions, rooms infested with bedbugs, kitchens infested with cockroaches, and in some cases, workers didn't have (air conditioning) or heating in the winters, or things like that, that are very problematic,” Escobar said.
“If these workers are able to exercise their labour rights through a collective agreement, have open work permits and a path to permament residency, their issues, a lot of them, will be addressed.”
According to Escobar, UFCW Canada has been producing reports and warning governments about the poor living and working conditions of migrant workers for several years.
However, he said the COVID-19 pandemic has further “uncovered” these issues, which led to the COVID-19 deaths of at least three migrant agricultural workers and more than 1,000 others testing positive for the virus in Canada to date.
“We are seeing a crisis within a crisis,” he said.
In an emailed statement, provincial Labour Department spokesperson Carley Sampson said the “health and safety of all workers in this province is of the utmost importance, including temporary foreign workers.”
Sampson said migrant workers have the “same protections” under the province's Labour Standards Code as any other person working in Nova Scotia. She noted the code establishes protections specifically for temporary foreign workers, including requiring individuals to obtain a licence to provide foreign worker recruitment services.
“The labour standards division responds to complaints, including anonymous tips, and takes proactive steps to ensure compliance with the standards set out in the code,” Sampson added.
If a worker has a complaint, she said they can reach out to the Labour Department at 1-888-315-0110.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not respond to a request for comment on the report. In a previous statement, IRCC spokesperson Nancy Caron told SaltWire Network the federal government will “continue to work with provinces, partner countries, and stakeholders to ensure workers' health and safety.”
Caron also highlighted a recent $58-million investment to improve workers' health and safety on farms and said migrant workers mistreated by an employer have been able to apply for an open work permit since June 2019. The open work permit allows them to "almost immediately" look for new work with a different employer, she said.