Jamaica to Investigate Working Conditions on Canadian Farms

JUL 8 2022·Updated SEP 2 2022

Story

Image credit: Reuters [via Al Jazeera]

The Facts

Jamaica has appointed a special "fact finding team" to investigate working conditions of Jamaicans employed on Canadian farms, after workers in Ontario last month claimed of "seismic" levels of exploitation.
Al Jazeera
In a statement on Thurs., Jamaica's Minister of Labour and Social Security Karl Samuda said a six-person team would travel to Canada to observe conditions and "provide a report to the Minister".
Al Jazeera
Under an initiative called the Season Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), migrants from Mexico and 11 Caribbean nations can travel to Canada for up to eight months for work. Some of these migrants have claimed they've been verbally abused, physically intimidated, and exposed to pesticides.
CBC
SAWP workers also say they work for "minimum wage and can't survive the four months back home." Authorities say three documented migrant deaths occurred last month, while 12 have occurred so far this year.
Lealty
The group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) says that workers are tied to their employers and risk deportation if they raise concerns. The group has called on the govt. to provide migrant and undocumented workers with a feasible path to permanent residency, which would grant them more rights.
Jamaica Observer
The ministry of labor set aside $49.5M Canadian in 2021 to boost support for the program, and Parliament unanimously passed the M-44 motion in May calling on the govt. to produce "a comprehensive plan...to expand pathways to permanent residency" within 120 days.
Jamaica Observer

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Establishment-critical narrative

The Canadian govt. has sat idle watching this human rights disaster unfold. Nobody should be abused and forced into unsafe living and working conditions. With staggering numbers of injuries and deaths, coupled with the lack of rights given to them, it's time the govt. offers these workers permanent resident status.

CTVNews

Pro-establishment narrative

Any reports of abuse on certain Canadian farms should be investigated and brought to an end, but the cases are far and few between. Canada's migrant worker programs offer the same rights and privileges to foreign workers as are given to citizens, and most employers follow the law and treat their employees with dignity - those who don't should be shut down and prosecuted.

More Than A Migrant Worker

Narrative C

While Canada must do more, this issue isn't Canada's alone: Jamaica's Ministry of Labor - which has liaised with this program - is also responsible for the well-being of the workers, whose calls for action they've so far ignored. Their recent trip to Canada's farms did nothing to address the concerns brought forward in the letter, but merely offered empty words of encouragement.