Do You Know how Tonight’s Supper got to Your Table?
Although most of Canada is still in the grip of winter, farmers who rely on a steadily increasing stream of migrant workers are in the midst of preparing for their annual arrival. Year upon year, mostly men from countries like Mexico, Jamaica and the Philippines return to the greenhouses, vegetable fields and cranberry bogs to perform back breaking labour for long hours at minimal salary. Canadians by and large are indifferent to their situation and probably give nary a thought of how exactly did the ingredients for their three squares a day made it from farm to table.
Back in the early 90’s when I was flailing about for employment after a couple of failed career attempts, I worked at a couple of dairies as a hired hand. My family and I ended up north of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba where I had the misfortune to work for Craig Finnie of Finnie-Wishart Farms. It was my distasteful experience with the man that planted the seed of how farm workers could easily be abused by their employers.
In Canada, temporary foreign workers have been employed under programs like the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SWAP). The farm workers end up mostly in the provinces of Ontario, BC and Manitoba. In 2015, a reported 59% of all BC temporary foreign workers were out in the fields. As I’m originally from Manitoba and am quite familiar with agriculture in that province, I have seen and am very aware of the potential for abuse regarding these people.
Migrant Mexicans have been coming to pick vegetables in Manitoba fields since 1974. Under SWAP, the numbers have dramatically increased in all provinces. It’s not a matter of not being able to find Canadians to do these jobs, it’s merely a fact that these temporary workers cost less to employ. Back when I was a hired farm hand in the early 90’s, technically a farmer didn’t have to pay their workers. They could get away with bartering, living accommodations, and/or food in lieu of wages. Thankfully worker’s regulations have gotten better since then but that was the starting point. Under SWAP, a farmer will bring in migrants, put them up in sometimes questionable living accommodations, work them inhuman hours, and pay them less than the going Canadian rate. Current labour laws dictate that the worker need only be paid a straight hourly wage with no overtime. I assure you that each of these farm workers are working way past 40 hour work weeks. PIus, there is always the specter that if they get uppity, they would be deported and blacklisted. These practices have spilled over to other areas of food production. For example, the large pork production plant in Neepawa that used to employ young men like my brother and cousin now only has Philippino migrant workers on the cutting floor.
The arguments from the farmers and companies are 1) they cannot afford to grow vegetables/process meat any other way; 2) Even though the wages are less compared to paying a Canadian, they were far and above what the migrants would make back home; and 3) There are not enough Canadians to do the jobs.
My counter arguments are: 1) If you have to use semi-slavery to profitably grow vegetables/cut pigs up on the floor, then switch to another crop/way of doing business; 2) All employers should follow minimum labour standards just as if they were employing a Canadian; 3) There should be a rigourous demonstration that the employer attempted to hire Canadians first; and 4) Innovation in the form of mechanization which has revolutionized much of Western farming and food production is being stifled because it is easier to employ ‘throw away’ migrants.
Canadians are already forced to follow numerous laws and regulations even when outside the country. Just because pedophilia is tolerated in the Philippines or Thailand does not mean that you will not be prosecuted upon your return from your ‘sex-cation’. Royal Canadian Navy ships are required to follow the higher environmental laws while in foreign port. I guarantee the oily waste water in many of our Caribbean or African ports of call was going straight back into the chuck once the truck was out of sight. The Navy still paid through the nose for the service even though they knew they were being ripped off. But that’s reality in the world’s shitholes. But the reverse should happen when working migrants come to Canada. They shouldn’t be taken advantage of and should be treated the same as Canadians under Canadian labour laws.
The most hilarious and sad Canadian case of temporary foreign workers occurred in the early 2000’s when Romania became our favourite supplier of strippers. Word passed back home to that struggling Eastern European country that Canadian lap dances were very lucrative so numbers increased to a high of 552 Romanian exotic dancers rubbing Canadian poles in 2003. The Liberal Immigration Minister, Judy Sgro, had a difficult time explaining how this situation developed.
The Western world increasingly relies on ‘lesser’, invisible humans to do all our dirty work. That’s why I have no patience for people getting torqued over the latest Rage du Jour when they have no idea of where their heads of lettuce, bean sprouts or cheap pork comes from. Maybe all those #metoo women marching this weekend should give their heads a bit of a shake. I wonder how many of them have Philippino nannies?