On March 18th, the Canadian Federal Government introduced a travel ban that prevented all non-permanent residents from entering into the Canadian territory as part of a series of measures aimed at containing COVID-19. Agricultural sector associations and food producers starred one of the earliest and strongest responses to the travel restrictions by calling on the Federal Government to exempt agricultural temporary migrant workers from the ban. These associations pointed out that since only 10,000 of the 60,000 agricultural migrant workers required to maintain the viability and continuity of the Canadian food supply chain were already in the country, the travel ban could have a devastating effect on the food security of Canadians (CPMA 2020). Shortly afterwards, Canadian provinces declared agricultural workers, including migrant workers, essential workers, and the Federal Government lifted travel restrictions on agricultural temporary migrants acknowledging that these workers are “an essential labour force that keeps Canadian farms operational” (LaFleche 2020)
Migrant workers constitute 53% of Canada’s paid agricultural workforce (Cahrc 2017) and therefore their contribution to the sector remained undeniable. However, this fact is not paired-up with social recognition, decent salaries or appropriate working conditions for migrant workers. Despite Canada’s global recognition for incorporating immigration as an instrument of nation building, agricultural migrant workers have no prospect to access permanent residency, let alone citizenship, in Canada. It is precisely by virtue of their precarious migratory status as temporary foreign workers, bounded by the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP)that Canadian employers can profit out of a racialized and exclusionary system that provides them with a reliable and highly competent pool of workers from Mexico, Jamaica and other Caribbean countries, despite offering low salaries, often compounded by appalling working and housing conditions (Preibisch and Santamaria 2006, Tomic et al. 2008), in addition to racist and abusive treatment (Henao-Castrillón 2019).
Agricultural migrant workers entering Canada under SAWP typically sign a work contract in advance that specifies the farmer they will work for and the requirement to return to their homeland once the contract expires (Sweetman and Warman 2008). While SAWP establishes that employers are responsible for the provision of health insurance and minimum standards of housing, health and safety conditions, migrant workers’ bargaining power is drastically limited due to migrant workers inability to switch employers and their dependence on employer evaluations to be invited back to Canada under the Program the following year. Additionally, SAWP also relies on a growing mass of impoverished and desperate Global South workers forced to migrate north in search of work (Siemiatycki 2010) after the collapse of small agricultural production due to unfair market conditions, violent land dispossession or climate change (Henao-Castrillón 2019).
A recent outbreak of COVID-19 among agricultural migrant workers in British Columbia that resulted in 19 agricultural migrant workers having tested positive for the disease up to date, and exposed 75 workers to the virus, 63 of whom are agricultural migrant workers, was been labelled by migrant workers advocates as “bomb due to explode because federal officials are not doing enough to protect migrants’ health and safety” (Eagland 2020). Indeed, as migrant workers advocates have long denounced, the enforcement of government regulations has always been lax when it comes to agricultural migrant workers, which poses serious doubts over the potential effectiveness of the measures introduced by the Federal Government, such as the two-week compulsory self-isolation upon arrival for migrants workers. As one advocate has stated, the Covid-19 crisis “has made it urgently clear that employer and government negligence to ensure decent housing and working conditions must end. In a public health crisis, we cannot protect anyone if we do not protect everyone” (Knox 2020).
Additionally, recent calls made by government officials to unemployed students and other urban folks to undertake seasonal jobs in the agriculture sector also reveal the disconnect between urban Canadian society’s imaginaries about agricultural migrant workers as non-skilled and the invisibility of the arduous working conditions and the little compensation they received. As one Canadian employer of the sector recognized, even when Canadians and permanent residents apply for jobs in agriculture, “once they hear the hours and duties they change their mind and don’t show up for work.” (Cahrc 2017).
To conclude, one of the most pressing challenges that Covid-19 is posing to the Canadian society at large is the need to confront its reliance on a system that racializes and excludes migrants of the Global South in order to grant food security to Canadians. Unfortunately, this system is only starting to get the attention of the general public now that the precarious working and housing conditions can be seen as a threat to Canadians public health. Countering narratives that reinforce the divide enacted by citizenship status such as the insistence of referring to agriculture migrant workers as “foreign” workers towards the Canadian state has no obligations is a first step towards that end.
Reference list
Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (Cahrc) (2017) A Review of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. Retrieved from: https://cahrc-ccrha.ca/sites/default/files/Emerging-Issues-Research/A%20Review%20of%20Canada%27s%20SAWP-Final.pdf
Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA) (2020) Temporary Foreign Worker Program COVID-19 Agri-food Risk Management Plan Executive Summary. Retrieved from:https://cpma.ca/docs/default-source/covid-19/tfwp_covid-19_protocol_executive_summary.pdf
Eagland, N. (April 2 2020) COVID-19: Kelowna nursery outbreak likely won’t be last for migrant workers, advocates warn. Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/covid-19-kelowna-nursery-outbreak-likely-wont-be-last-for-migrant-workers-advocates-warn/
Henao-Castrillón, A. (2019) A critical analysis of Mexican migrant farm workers in British Columbia: Language, oppression and resistance. PhD Dissertation. Simon Fraser University.
Knox, J. (April 1 2020) More temporary foreign workers test positive for coronavirus in West Kelowna. Global News. Retrieved from: https://globalnews.ca/news/6765729/temporary-foreign-workers-coronavirus-west-kelowna/
LaFleche, G. (March 30 2020) Ottawa releases migrant farm worker COVID-19 guidelines. The St. Catharines Standard. Retrieved from: https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/9919262-ottawa-releases-migrant-farm-worker-covid-19-guidelines/
Siemiatycki, M. (2010) Marginalizing Migrants: Canada’s Rising Reliance On Temporary Foreign Workers. Canadian Issue, Spring 2010.
Tomic, P. Trumper, R. and Aguiar, L. (2010) Housing Regulations and Living Conditions of Mexican Migrant Workers in the Okanagan Valley, B.C. Canadian Issue, Spring 2010.
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Natalia Perez
Natalia Pérez is a legal geographer and a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Nations also known as British Colombia (Canada). She holds a BSc Economics from Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá -Colombia, and a MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Social Sciences (London-UK). Previous to her PhD studies she had extensive professional experience as a policy officer and researcher for several Colombian government agencies including the Land Restitution Unit and the former Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action against Anti-personnel Mines (Paicma). Her research explores racialization and gender in the practices of progressive land policies through the lens of critical relational property. Her activism involves varied initiatives that seek to promote the protection of Colombian social leaders and support local communities resisting large mining and energy projects in Latin America. She is the co-founder of geógrafxs colombianistas, an academic network that gathers geographers whose research focuses on Colombia and the Place + Space Collective. Her email address is nataliasofiaperez@gmail.com