Foreign farmworkers not treated equally

On Thursday, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced a $50-million program to get surplus perishable food products to vulnerable people during the pandemic.

According to a CBC news report, “Bibeau said 12 million kilograms of food that otherwise would have been wasted, including one million fresh eggs, would go to families.

“Surplus fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood was generated because the COVID-19 crisis shut down much of the restaurant and hospitality industry, leaving producers with unprecedented surpluses.”

Sounds good. Except that a lot of that surplus isn’t in a warehouse somewhere, easy to access. It’s still on the ground.

Another report, from Global News, said: “The Okanagan agriculture industry, especially orchards and farms, is struggling to find enough workers to harvest their crops.”

Amarjit Lalli, of B.C. Tree Fruits, estimated that 10,000 migrant workers come from Mexico or the Caribbean to pick fruit.

“There are farmers out there looking at their crop and just harvesting what they can and the rest is being left on the trees,” said Lalli.

Fruit left on the trees will not even enter Bibeau’s program of getting food to families and food banks.

Nor will ground crops that can’t be harvested.

The Scotlynn Group in Ontario abandoned three million — three million! — pounds of asparagus because it couldn’t find workers to harvest it.

An article in Broadview magazine quoted CEO Scott Biddle that his company had offered $25/hour to hire Canadians — about 40% more than the $17.69 average hourly pay of most migrant farm workers — but couldn’t find people with the skills to handle the machinery.

I wonder how Mexican workers felt, knowing that they could be paid 40% more if they were Canadian.

About how women feel about getting paid less than men for the same work, I guess. Although that gap is now down under 15%, not 40%.

As I read these figures, I wonder why farm workers aren’t classed as an essential service. Like police and paramedics. And like truckers, who can cross the border bringing vegetables grown in Mexico.

But not Mexican workers who could be harvesting those same vegetables here in Canada.

Canadian pandemic regulations are part of the problem. Migrant workers must go into two weeks isolation on entry into Canada. And they must be paid while in isolation.

Mexico imposed its own restrictions on farm workers coming to Canada, after two of its citizens died from COVID-19 earlier this year at two Ontario farms.

Approximately 50,000 “temporary foreign workers” would come to work on Canadian farms in a normal year. But this is not a normal year.

COVID-19 regulations have forced employers to provide different housing. To set up different work arrangements, maintaining separation.

In response, said the Globe and Mail, “Agriculture employers in several provinces are restricting the movement of migrant farm workers during the pandemic … who in some cases aren’t allowed to leave the premises, even to get groceries.

“Workers told The Globe that they feel pressure to abide by the employer-imposed restrictions because their status in the country is tied to their status on the farm.”

The workers come to Canada under two programs that have been in effect for 50 years: The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Both allow temporary residence in

Canada to fill jobs in industries with specific labour shortages.

Both programs, by my reading, treat these foreign workers as of lesser value than Canadian workers: lower pay, longer hours, fewer rights.

If they’re essential, that’s not right.

All religions profess some kind of “golden rule” — basically, to treat others as you would like to be treated, if you were in their situation.

The key phrase is “in their situation.” Sometimes that requires re-thinking our assumptions.

When he was the United Church’s out-front voice on social justice issues, the late Clarke MacDonald frequently got accosted by people who saw the church as soft on criminals. They wanted the maximum possible punishment for rapists and murderers.

“How would you feel,” they demanded, “if it was your daughter who got raped?”

MacDonald replied calmly, “And you would you feel if your son was accused of doing it?”

I suspect that most of us would consider it unfair to be invited to perform an essential service in some other country that penalized us financially and socially compared to its own citizens.

It happens, of course. But it wouldn’t feel fair.

It’s probably not fair when we do it, either.

Jim Taylor is an Okanagan Centre author and freelance journalist. He can be reached at rewrite@shaw.ca