Visualizing Niagara’s hidden backbone
Multimedia event honours migrant agricultural workers through film, photography and dance
The 50th anniversary of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), a bilateral initiative between Canada, Mexico and several Caribbean countries that allows the employment of temporary foreign agricultural workers on Canadian farms for up to eight months a year, was marked in 2016.
The program now employs about 40,000 workers across the country, with the hotbed being southern Ontario. Many of the workers live more of their adult lives in Canada than in their countries of origin, working here for decades, but are never permitted to immigrate. Niagara is home to thousands of such workers, whose labour is critical to support the region’s many vineyards, orchards, nurseries, greenhouses and farms.
SAWP and other temporary foreign worker programs generate complex and sometimes contradictory outcomes.
Often, they are hailed as a “win-win” solution to supporting Canadian agriculture while providing much-needed employment to workers, with access to many of the same rights and benefits as Canadians enjoy.
At the same time, critics have argued that workers are vulnerable to poor living and working environments and remain socially isolated, and that the rights on paper are difficult to access in practice. This is due largely to the program’s structure, which ties work permits to a specific employer, who may fire workers without any appeal mechanism. Afraid of losing not only their job but also their right to be in Canada, workers are often reluctant to complain about problems or access their rights.
However, many workers also transform their lives in positive ways through participation, not only supporting their families
economically, but also developing meaningful relationships in the Canadian communities in which they live years of their lives.
On Wednesday, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre will host a multimedia presentation celebrating the contributions of these workers to the Niagara region, and the greater Canadian society, and discuss these various issues. The night will feature a presentation of the documentary film Matices and a short dance performance titled The Sunflower Man by Heryka (Brock University) and Luis (a migrant agricultural worker in our Niagara community). Local resident Jane Andres will display portrait photography of Niagara’s workers. There will also be a postshow Q&A when the audience can ask questions. Panellists include: Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo, Matices director and postdoctoral fellow of Wilfrid Laurier University; Janet McLaughlin, associate professor, Wilfrid Laurier University; community support volunteer and photographer Andres, and a migrant agricultural worker in our Niagara community; and Despina Tzemis, Quest CHC, which provides health services to migrant workers.
Matices is a 54-minute documentary film, based in Mexico and Canada, which gives voice to the different actors involved in SAWP. We learn the perspectives of community members, activists and support workers. Government officials and local employers describe the importance of the program, while academics offer critical analyses of policies regarding health, housing, immigration, family and social impacts. Most crucially, we hear from the workers themselves, who each share different situations they have experienced during their stay in Canada.
Migrant worker Hilda reflects: “I think it’s hard for all of us to leave our families behind, it’s hard being eight months in Canada, but you don’t belong in Canada. You go back to Mexico for four or five months and sometimes you don’t feel at home either. So it’s as though you lose your identity …”
The film and the event provide an invitation to reflect on precarious transnational work, migration policies, on the way in which the food we consume is grown and, ultimately, the impact on human lives.