ONTARIO DEPLOYS EMERGENCY TEAM TO LOCAL FARM CRISIS

Shutdown over COVID-19 outbreak in Leamington leaves migrant workers in chaos, Trevor Wilhelm and Anne Jarvis write.

Emergency Management Ontario, deployed to co-ordinate handling of the COVID-19 crisis on farms in Essex County, instead is mired in confusion.

No one is in charge, there’s no plan and everyone is “firing off in different directions” and “tripping over themselves,” two local municipal officials said Friday.

When the EMO contacted the region Tuesday, “there was no concern that these big shots are coming down from Toronto,” said the first municipal official. “It was, thank God, someone’s taking the reins now.”

But that hasn’t happened.

“If you ask one of the two EMO people here who’s in charge, they’ll shrug their shoulders and say, ‘I don’t know,’” said the second municipal official. “With any other emergency, there’s a command structure set up. That’s not the case here yet.”

Both officials asked to remain anonymous because they don’t want to inflame the already high tension.

Instead of a plan, the officials described the response as “patchwork” and “disjointed.”

Some testing is happening, and hotel rooms are being reserved for migrant farm workers who must isolate, “but we really don’t know what the plan is,” said the second official.

The EMO, Canadian Red

Cross and even Infrastructure Ontario are all calling hotels to ask if they’re available. Workers have already been moved to two hotels, but not to the one that Windsor reserved several weeks ago. That hotel remains empty.

“That shows the lack of co-ordination,” said the second official. “If you have something ready, why wouldn’t you use it first?”

The workers who have been moved to the hotels tested negative for the novel coronavirus, but they are considered likely to become infected. And many are being housed two per room.

Officials are also scrambling to arrange health care, meals, transportation, security and translators.

Brent Ross, spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General, which includes the EMO, didn’t address the allegations directly Friday but stated in an email that the EMO has been deployed to “assist the local municipal and public health officials in co-ordinating the response to this outbreak ... with a particular focus on isolation of workers who tested negative.

“Alongside its partners, the province is working to ensure that the farm workers are appropriately housed and that the necessary services and supports are provided such as food, health care, as well as personal protective equipment (PPE),” Ross stated.

Said the second local official: “They’re responding to the need, but they’re firing off in different directions.”

“Everyone is tripping over themselves to help but there is no co-ordination,” said the first official. The lack of co-ordination is “bound to lead to more chaos, and that’s the last thing we need,” that official said.

Referring to the need for someone to take charge, the other official said, “We just need one throat to choke when things go bad.”

Said the other official, “It’s been just extremely frustrating.”

Officials are pushing the EMO to take charge because it has the power and resources and because it is seen as more independent since it’s based in Toronto.

Said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens: “I’m really happy the government of Ontario has sent Emergency Management Ontario here, and it is my hope they will take a lead role in helping to co-ordinate the urgent response required to address this very difficult situation.”

The crisis impacts the city, he said, because 200 migrant workers are already isolating here, and more are expected because the city has the most hotel rooms.

This is just the latest havoc. Premier Doug Ford, Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams say infected migrant farm workers who don’t have symptoms can work. Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu says that’s highly risky. More than 750 doctors, nurses, researchers and epidemiologists called it a “specific and demonstrated risk” and petitioned the province to reverse it “immediately.”

And local medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed, to his credit, defied it and won’t allow them to work. Then Ford said that’s up to Ahmed. Then Ford criticized Ahmed for it. Then Williams appeared to partly backtrack on the plan. Unfortunately, this bedlam is the norm. A confusing array of bodies are supposed to protect workers. The federal ministry of labour brings them here. Now the federal health ministry is involved.

Three different provincial ministries have been involved: labour, agriculture and health. Now Infrastructure Ontario is also involved. Plus the Windsor-essex County Health Unit. I’ve probably missed one.

When Ahmed told local EMS chief Bruce Krauter that Ontario’s labour ministry is responsible for occupational health and safety at farms, “it just confused me,” said Krauter, who couldn’t keep track of who did what.

“Why can’t we just go in and test instead of getting lost in whose silo did it belong to?” he asked.

Said Leamington Mayor Hilda Macdonald: “There should have been a department in charge. It should have come from the federal government. When they opened the border to the workers, they should have followed it all the way through. If you had one ministry in charge, you wouldn’t have all these silos posturing for position, and we wouldn’t have egos in the mix. Because we have shared responsibility, no one is willing to take the bull by the horns.”

But the many people who could have done something sooner didn’t listen to Macdonald, mayor of the municipality at the epicentre of the crisis, who has been begging for help for two months, who understood the threat, whose worried constituents called her constantly.

No one even notified her that Nature Fresh was being effectively shut down.

And they didn’t listen to Krauter, whose ambulance data showed Covid-19-positive screens and transports rising, who lives in Leamington and saw buses of 40 to 45 migrants shoulder to shoulder arrive in town to shop. And who also urged action seven weeks ago.

“It’s no one’s fault at all,” Ford said Friday.

Of course not. Because no one is accountable.