Birthday boy cycles 100 km
Peterborough’s Don Bourne marks his 80th birthday by cycling for 100 km in Niagara Region, then taking part in Toronto Zoo’s Zoorun
Every year for the past 15 years, Don Bourne bikes his age in kilometres on his birthday.
This year, he decided to up the ante a little bit.
The Peterborough resident marked his 80th birthday by cycling
COBOURG -- A roundtable discussion and forum on migrant workers’ rights Tuesday night topped off a march and rally from Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Kim Rudd’s constituency office into downtown Cobourg earlier in the afternoon.
The round table event, co-sponsored by the Northumberland Community Legal Centre and Horizons of Friendship, comes on the heels of about 75 recommendations being made last week to the federal committee reviewing the Temporary Foreign Workers program, and an on-going review of the provincial Employment Standards Act.
The Legal Centre’s Theresa Williams said in an interview prior to the march that the federal recommendations will be reviewed in detail and a submission made - but she said it is important to focus on some items that are scattered through the recommendations dealing with matters surrounding “status.” For instance, when a worker is injured, instead of that person being shipped 100 kilometres through Niagara Region on Thursday.
“By the time we get back to our hotel, we’ll be pretty close to 100 kilometres,” he said during a brief stop along the Niagara Parkway in Chippawa, a village just south of Niagara Falls. “If not, we’ll keep riding up the street to get to 100.”
He was accompanied on the ride by his wife Becky Bourne and his grandson Andrew Yorke, a triathlete who represented Canada at the Summer Olympics in Rio last month.
“I thought this would be a great birthday gift for him, to come down and support him,” said 27-year-old Yorke, who lives in Guelph. “It’s better than any gift I could buy him.” back to their home country, such as in the Caribbean or Mexico - areas where many Northumberland migrant workers live when not working on county area farms, they should be given a type of “status” allowing them to stay, plus access to social programs and health care.
In a written statement, Williams also said the Legal Centre will respond to the report on the Temporary Foreign Worker program pushing
Bourne said he doesn’t feel that being an octogenarian should put a damper on his active lifestyle.
“I’m kind of obsessed,” he said with a smile. “We ride, we run, we play tennis.”
Just last weekend, the Bournes participated in the Canada Army Run and the Terry Fox Run in Ottawa.
Bourne’s birthday was Saturday but he decided to do his birthday bike ride a few days early so that he could also participate in the 10-kilometre Zoorun at the Toronto Zoo over the weekend.
He challenged his five children and 12 grandchildren to run with him.
That was the only birthday present he wanted. for action and not more review, and raising issues related to the “pathway to immigration” - reiterating the need for status allowing them to stay in Canada if they are injured and can’t work.
As it relates to the provincial legislative review, the local push is related to “wages” and inappropriate “deductions” from those. In addition, the Employment Standards Act should also impose “unannounced inspections of work places,” she said. The Legal Centre plans to meet with “provincial partners to determine the best way to determine what the next steps should be.”
Vansanthi Venkatesch is one of the organizers of the Harvesting Freedom, Justice for Migrant Workers campaign that began with marches in Windsor on Labour Day and will end next weekend in Ottawa. She was among the group of about 16 that began outside Rudd’s office on Elgin Street around 3 p.m. and then made its way down Division Street to Victoria Hall where people were invited into the nearby Horizons of Friendship office to take part in discussions about migrant workers’ rights around 5 p.m.
There were no migrant workers from Northumberland at the forum because most work until 7 p.m., Venkatesch explained.
The usual situation for migrant workers under the federal Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program that has been in place for about 50 years is there is no access to status within the country, she said, agreeing with Williams’ view.
Those migrant workers who pick apples, cabbages and other field vegetables in Northumberland usually come for eight months every year under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program, the Northumberland Legal Centre’s Peter Vance said in an interview. He said he has been to five farms and viewed the bunkhouses where four to six people live together in the equivalent of a one-bedroom apartment.
“I wouldn’t stay in them,” Vance said.
Some farms treat their migrant workers very well. Usually this is where there are just a few employed. He noted that migrant workers at Moore’s Orchards and Burnham’s were “quite happy” with their employers.
Among the problems for migrant workers is the farmers have to administer the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program and this can vary from farm to farm.
Most years about 300 migrant workers live and work in Northumberland but this year that number has dropped to half.
“We aren’t sure why,” Vance said.