Tragic Ontario accident exposes migrant workers’ plight
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TORONTO—In early February a hor rific accident shocked Ontario. A flat bed truck struck a passenger van at a rural intersection near Stratford, two hours west of Toronto, killing 11 people. Of the deceased, only one was a Canadian citizen; the others were ag ricultural migrant workers from Peru who were being transferred from one job to the next in the passenger van.
It is sadly indicative that one of On tario’s worst traffic accidents in his tory should involve migrant workers, since the latter already experience some of the worst working and living conditions in the province. They usual ly work long hours for low pay, on dan gerous and very physically demanding jobs that few Canadians would con sider doing. They live separated from their families for long stretches of time, in isolation from the wider com munity, and sometimes in cramped, substandard living quarters.
Little is done to challenge or change these conditions because migrant workers are often afraid to speak out. “They’re more vulnerable. They don’t have access to the same kinds of services as permanent migrants they have a fear of loss of employ ment, which means they’re less likely to report unsafe working conditions,” according to a Laurier University re searcher on migrant workers, Jenna Hennebry, quoted in the Globe and Mail.
What was Ottawa’s response? Ex pand the migrant worker program. In 2007, there were over 300,000 foreign temporary workers in Canada, accord ing to Laurier’s International Migra tion Research Centre, up from 80,000 a decade earlier. Under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the growth in migrant workers has out stripped that of immigrants—a clear sign of his government’s priorities.
At least part of this growth can be attributed to a new migrant worker program introduced by the federal government in 2002, the “Pilot Proj ect for Occupations Requiring Lower Levels of Training.” Unlike previous agriculture and temporary workers’ programs, employers hiring under this “pilot project” can bring workers from any country and only need to show that Canadians have not responded to job ads. With easier access to foreign temporary workers comes less scru tiny of the conditions they face once here. According to the Globe, “even the most fervent boosters of the migrantwork programs say this set-up [the pi lot project] is perhaps more lax than it should be.”
In a country built by immigrants, it should not be acceptable that some who continue that work today be de nied proper working conditions and the benefit of making a home here. Obstacles in the path of unionization of agricultural workers must be re moved.
Socialists also demand that migrant worker programs be quickly phased out of existence, and that all migrant workers who have lived and worked for the required period of time in Can ada be offered citizenship. Because, as we know, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” this issue should be a priority for unions and the labour-based New Democratic Party. n