Mexico refuses to send workers after two killed
Local greenhouse farmers worry about crops amid labour shortage
The deaths of two Mexican farm workers in Essex County, as well as critical news coverage back home on the plight of hundreds of their countrymen falling ill to COVID -19 in Southwestern Ontario, has prompted Mexico to halt sending more seasonal workers to Canada.
With as many as 5,000 temporary Mexican farm workers scheduled to arrive over the coming months, the decision — Mexican officials call it a “pause” in the temporary foreign workers program — spells big potential trouble for the Canadian agri-food sector.
“It’s so we can reassess with the federal authorities, provinces and farmers why this happened and if there is anything to correct,” Juan Jose Gomez Camacho, Mexico’s ambassador to Canada, said in an interview.
COVID -19 outbreaks on Ontario farms, and the local deaths of Bonifacio
Eugenio Romero, 31, on May 30, and Rogelio Munoz Santos, 24, on June 5, has been front-page news in Mexico and “created an uproar,” said Alberto Bernal, consul of Mexico in Leamington.
“This is changing completely the rules of the game,” Bernal said Tuesday in a video news conference hosted by the Windsor-essex County Health Unit on the issue of migrant workers and COVID-19. Mexico last year sent about 26,000 temporary foreign workers to Canada, he said, about 3,000 of them just to Essex County, which hosts one of North America’s largest concentrations of agri-food greenhouses.
“We’re already a bit strapped for labour, and it is affecting some production,” said Keith Currie, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. “Are we going to be able to get the harvest of those crops off ? We won’t know until we are there, but that’s the worry.”
As of late Tuesday, there remained some confusion over exactly what the “pause” meant. A diplomatic source told the Star Mexico’s embassy in Ottawa was preparing a statement to further clarify the country’s position on the matter.
Mexico hitting the pause button on a program in existence for decades “could have a very significant impact on field farms — they might not be able to harvest their crops,” said Justine Taylor, science and government relations manager with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers. She said it could also be a problem for those greenhouse growers expecting additional help later in the summer.
While Ontario’s farms have become the latest coronavirus hot zones, everyone from Premier Doug Ford to health officials and municipal leaders emphasize that none of the temporary foreign workers from a number of different countries arriving in Canada so far have been carrying the virus. COVID-19 outbreaks on local farms began by workers being infected in their host communities.
“So I don’t want any finger pointing at these hard-working migrant workers. They’re good people, they mean well, and they’re hard workers too,” Ford said Monday.
But it was outbreaks on local farms that saw Windsor and Essex County remain one of the few areas in Ontario that the province said is not ready to move to Phase 2 of the post-pandemic economic recovery. Expressing concern over the threat of survival of local businesses with his city stuck at Phase 1, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has called on the province to order mandatory testing of all farm workers.
Broader “asymptomatic testing ” of farm populations continues to be “a key priority,” Kelly Mcaslan, assistant deputy minister of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, told the video conference.
Dr. Ross Moncur, chief of staff and interim CEO of Erie Shores Healthcare, described as “quite successful” a voluntary Agrifood Worker Assessment Centre set up in Leamington. But the Covid-testing facility, set up to handle up to 500 individuals per day, only saw about 800 workers over the past week and is set to close after Wednesday.
While an outreach team of health professionals currently visits farms that have reported positive COVID -19 cases, Moncur described any program that would see health professionals visit all local farms to test all workers as logistically too difficult.
As for ordering all migrant workers to be tested, “they enjoy the same rights and freedoms as all Canadians … at this point, there is no mandatory testing for any Canadians,” said the OGVG’S Taylor.
“It’s not the temporary foreign workers coming into Canada — they’re getting it from the community,” said Jules Arntz-gray, director of training and safety with Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. Testing is a good strategy, he said, but what’s better is to “assume all workers have COVID at all times” and act accordingly, with steppedup hygiene like handwashing, health education, supplying personal protection equipment and emphasizing physical distancing.
Testing aside, public health authorities and others say another challenge is how to house and isolate foreign workers who test positive and also ensure they receive some compensation for the time they can’t work and are then, in most circumstances, not paid.
“Ontario is failing our temporary
If they call in sick … they don’t get paid. So they don’t tell anyone and keep working, infecting their friends and co-workers.
foreign workers, and Canada is failing our migrant workers as well,” MPP Percy Hatfield (NDP— Windsor-tecumseh) said in the Legislature Tuesday.
“They come here, work 60 hours a week or more to support their families back home. If they call in sick, and can’t work, they don’t get paid. So they don’t tell anyone and keep working, infecting their friends and co-workers,” said Hatfield. “We must do better for these essential workers.”
Consul Bernal and local medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed acknowledge a “level of fear and apprehension” on the part of foreign workers being asked to get tested when they otherwise appear perfectly healthy.
Ambassador Gomez Comacho said the Mexican government understands “the role these workers play in your food chain” and acknowledges the “tremendous” efforts underway by government agencies to address worker healthand-safety issues surrounding COVID-19 and the agri-food sector. He said the embassy and consulates have fielded calls from Canadians thanking Mexicans for their efforts, and supporting calls for better safeguards on their work.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke Monday to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and expressed his condolences over the death of the two men in Essex County, according to a statement from Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough’s office.
“Our government will continue to engage and work closely with the ambassador and other Mexican officials to ensure their citizens are safe and receive the support they need when they come to work in Canada,” Trudeau said.
About half the foreign workforce in Canada’s agri-food sector is made up of Mexicans.
“They’re very, very critical for our food supply chain,” said Lou Macera, human resources manager at Sun-brite Canning in Kingsville. He said the company, one of Canada’s leading tomato processors — under the Unico and Primo brand names — is expecting about 130 Mexican workers for the vital eight-week tomato harvesting season, which supplies the raw material needed for the rest of the year.
Without them arriving by late-july, they go into 14-day paid quarantine before starting work, “we’d be in serious trouble,” Macera said.
“We need to find solutions. We need to do more,” said Bernal when asked what it will take to reopen the Mexican pipeline of essential foreign workers to Canada.