Premier Doug Ford pleads with migrant workers to get tested for COVID-19

Premier says he’ll do ‘anything’ to stop spread of COVID-19 on farms

TORONTO—Premier Doug Ford pleaded with Ontario’s “scared” migrant workers Wednesday to get tested for COVID-19, acknowledging that the current testing strategy has captured only a small slice of the migrant population in a region with several outbreaks.

Ford made the comments one day after a local hospital in Windsor-Essex — one of only three regions not allowed to enter Stage 2 of reopening this week — announced it was closing a centre designed to test the workers.

Only 724 workers — out of the region’s 8,000 temporary foreign workers — have been tested since the centre was opened on June 9.

Ford said he would do “anything” to help test more workers and stop the spread of the virus on farms. Not working with the government, he said, isn’t fair to the rest of the region.

“I’ll send buses, I’ll send mobile units,” he said. “Please — to the farmers and the workers — I understand the reluctance. In some cases, they’re worried (or) they’re scared, the workers. There’s no reason to be scared. Just please get tested.” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the government needs to provide the workers with more assurances that they will be protected should they test positive.

“It’s not just about providing buses — there’s a lot of risk to those workers,” she said. “They need to know that their jobs will be protected. They need to know that they won’t be deported for testing positive.”

Health Minister Christine Elliott said Wednesday that a new “hybrid” strategy could use a stand-alone testing centre along with mobile teams moving from farm to farm, at least partially adopting a plan farmers have called for to help ease fears among workers.

Elliott said a mobile team by itself would take 84 days to test workers on every farm in the region, while a stand-alone centre could test all of the workers in 10 days.

“We can’t force anyone to be tested, but we can make the circumstances for them to be tested — if they wish — easier,” Elliott said.

Dozens of Windsor-Essex’s seasonal farm workers have tested positive for the virus, nine farms are in active outbreak, and two workers have died because of COVID-19.

Erie Shores HealthCare has said it plans to shutter the testing facility for migrant workers in Leamington on Thursday because it is not an efficient use of resources. The hospital said Wednesday it had previously considered on-farm testing, but ruled it out because it would be “next to impossible” to attend to the roughly 176 agri-food farms in the region.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said the outbreaks in the farming community, which lies outside of its municipal borders, are impacting the entire region’s ability to move into the next stage of reopening.

“I have business owners and others in the city of Windsor who are saying, we’ve got to move forward, we’ve done everything you’ve asked us to do for 90 days,” he said. “And they have, and we need to see progress.”

Dilkens has called for mandatory testing of all migrant workers to help the province contain the spread of COVID-19.