Trudeau Government's New Self-Serving Regulations for Temporary Foreign Workers
The proposed new regulations are said to be about improving protections for temporary foreign workers in employment contracts, housing, health care and to weed out "bad actors" that take advantage of the vulnerability of migrant workers. The Trudeau Liberals point to changes made earlier this year that allow migrants with employer-specific work permits to change employers and to start work while a new permit is being processed. The government has even created a Job Bank bulletin board that connects eligible employers with temporary migrant workers looking to change jobs. Any benefit to the workers is only incidental to government pay-the-rich schemes. Last year, for example, the federal government gave the agribusiness monopolies $50 million toward the cost of the mandatory 14-day self-isolation public health requirement for incoming migrant farm workers. This year the federal government will give them another $35 million in Emergency on Farm Support to upgrade the living accommodations of migrant workers. Agribusiness monopolies had great difficulty hiring migrant workers last year, due to the global pandemic. In March 2020 there were 43 per cent fewer temporary migrant agricultural worker arrivals in Canada, compared to the same period the year before. These workers were compelled to work dangerous and intolerable hours -- 15-hour days, 7-day weeks. Migrant Workers Alliance for Change reported more than 1,100 such overtime pay complaints between March and May of 2020 with not a single worker compensated. Will the federal government make sure these workers are properly compensated? Workplace injuries soared. Even with the reduced numbers of migrant farm workers, bunkhouse accommodations were still overcrowded. COVID-19 outbreaks were common. Migrant workers died as a result. The longstanding lack of access to medical services for migrant farm workers only compounded the situation. The new regulations are said to require all employers to provide reasonable access to healthcare services, and for employers to provide health insurance when needed but what that means in practice remains to be seen. It is a far cry from guaranteeing health care as a right.
The "bad actor" in this whole scenario is the Canadian state and its systemic discrimination and denial of the human rights of migrants. Migrants are made vulnerable, denied equal rights and denied equal access to services by the very programs the Canadian government has put in place to serve the needs of the rich. Better regulation of systemic discrimination does nothing to end the discrimination. The solution lies in affirming the rights of all. "Status for All!' is the demand of migrant workers, migrant advocacy organizations and the Canadian working class. (Photos: MRN, J4MW)
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
On July 26, one
day after a lively very successful demonstration converged in Ottawa,
organized by migrant rights advocacy groups, to call for equal rights,
equal access to services and Status for All!
migrant workers, the Trudeau government announcement that it will pass
new regulations "to improve protection of temporary foreign workers."
It is a cynical ploy to curry votes in an upcoming election when in
fact the government's intention is to secure the supply of cheap
migrant unprotected labour for agribusiness. Their cynicism is such
they say the new regulations will make "our" food supply chain more
secure -- when in fact most of the agricultural production of the
mega-corporations involved in Ontario, BC and Quebec is shipped south
to the U.S. and reimported to Canada in the form of ketchup and other
consumer products.
The government
pledged to launch a discussion on migrant farmworker housing and
allocated more funding for inspections of existing accommodations. In
2018 a federally commissioned study found "a wide variation of what is
deemed as acceptable housing standard" and "gaps in the housing
inspection process" that "can potentially cause harm or injury to the
workers." That study could not avoid the elephant in the room that
there is no national standard for temporary migrant farmworker housing.
Even when inspections find housing unsafe there are no repercussions
because there are no enforceable standards. What more needs to be
discussed before the workers' rights to adequate housing are enforced?