The Hands that Feed Us: Eric Regis
The Hands that Feed Us is a series of Eating Niagara. It’s a monthly profile of a seasonal agricultural worker in Niagara. This is Part 5 of a nine-part series.
Eric Regis walked toward my hatchback like a magpie to something shiny.
“Is this your car?” he asked me as he pulled out his cellphone.
“It is,” I told him while he held up his phone camera and looked at my car through the touchscreen.
Regis focused his shot and explained he could snap a picture of the spring green finish and have the paint shop back home in his native Grenada match it and mix a batch of liquid colour for him.
The nearly neon hue isn’t for the faint of heart, though, and I wondered if anyone would want anything coated in it.
“It would fit in back home,” Regis said.
He would know. When Regis isn’t tending to a fruit orchard in Beamsville, he paints houses in Grenada’s St. David Parish. Bright colours, like spring green, are popular there, and business is good when he’s home.
“I love it. It’s like art,” he said. “The colours, they’re beautiful green, coral, blue colours.”
In 1989, Regis put down the paint brush for a few months to take a job at Fred Warner’s fruit farm. He was 21 at the time, and convinced he wanted to participate in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program after learning about it from his boss.
Grenada is one of five Caribbean countries to participate in the federal program that’s been supplementing Niagara farmers’ local workforces for 51 years.
Workers, like Regis, are critical to the economic success of horticulture in Ontario. It’s estimated that for every seasonal worker employed through the program, at least two jobs are created for Canadians in the agri-food industry, according Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS), which overseas the program.
Regis was a natural for the job. The son of farmers, he grows his own vegetable crops — tomatoes, cabbage and carrots — to sell in Grenada.
He arrived on Warner’s farm just as peach season started in July 1989.
“I wanted to see what apples looked like,” Regis, 49, recalled. “I thought (a peach) was an apple, so I go and pick one and it was all fuzz.”
Niagara’s flagship fruit may not have won him over. But Regis was smitten with Warner’s pear crop, especially the russeted Boscs. The crunchier, the better.
He came for the next 15 years, falling into the rhythm of the seasons, from pruning to harvest, and being part of the transition that saw Warner pass the reins to his son, Torrie.
Regis took a year off before returning to the Warner farm where today, after 28 years, he’s the elder statesman among a handful of workers who nurse the fruit through the season and mind Warner’s market stalls throughout the GTA.
“When I think about it, I’ve spent most of my life coming here,” Regis said.
His co-workers call him Arthur and it’s clear they admire him. They seek his approval like children do of a parent.
It’s a point of pride when they get it but he doesn’t dole it out willy nilly.
It’s not for a lack of generosity. Regis offers a devilish smile as co-worker Devon Augustine pleas for him to admit Augustine makes a mean Sunday dinner of macaroni pie and lasagna.
“I don’t like lasagna,” Regis teased.
Regis is no slouch in the kitchen, either. A bachelor, he fends for himself back home in Grenada. The money he earns in Canada builds his painting business and supports his adult daughter who lives in Trinidad. It’s a commitment he’ll keep to her — and customary — until she marries.
Truth is, Regis is a bit of a renaissance man. He can paint, farm and cook well. He also hits “around a six” in cricket. Easily batting six runs in a game made him a star on the local team he once played with in Niagara.
He’s since hung up his bat because of age, but the legend lives on. Come this time of year, Regis will shake off the cobwebs and knock it out of the park at Southridge Community Church in Vineland, which hosts cricket and jerk chicken dinners Sunday nights in July.
“It’s a game that brings people together for fun. When we play together, we share ideas and just have fun.”
But he is here to work and Regis doesn’t shy away from the heavy lifting that farm labour can be. He bestows the same respect his coworkers have for him on his employer, Torrie Warner.
They have barbecues together. Warner takes his men to Wendy’s after market day to feast on grilled chicken sandwiches and supersized fries. On Fridays, Warner orders them pizza with pepperoni and mushroom.
Regis always picks off the mushrooms.
“He’s one of the best bosses in Canada,” he said.
Still, he’s always grateful when he touches down in Grenada after the growing season here.
“When I get home, when I get to the airport, I thank the Master. I thank God for getting me home safe and getting me back without sickness. That’s the first thing I say when I go back home.”
And then he paints. Maybe even something in spring green. — Tiffany Mayer is the author of Niagara Food: A Flavourful History of the Peninsula’s Bounty. She blogs about food and farming at eatingniagara.com. You can reach her at eatingniagara@gmail.com or on Twitter @eatingniagara.