Plus ça Change? – A Comparative Analysis of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program and the Pilot Foreign Worker Program for Farm Workers in Quebec

For the last 40 years, migrant farm workers from the Caribbean and Mexico have been recruited to work temporarily on Canadian farms under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). In 2002, the pilot Foreign Worker Program (FWP) for low skilled migrant workers was initiated in the province of Quebec and under this program began the recruitment of Guatemalan migrant farm workers. Since the program's start, the number of Guatemalan migrants has nearly tripled and there seems to be a decline in the number of workers hired under the SAWP in Quebec. This paper examines the FWP's development, set-up, consequences and operation alongside the SAWP and shows how the Canadian state is expanding the number of flexibility and temporary worker programs. This paper draws attention to the neo-liberal context of migrant farm labour in Canada, pointing to the ways in which Canada's federal policies governing seasonal agricultural migrants and athe agricultural labour market are exploitative and racist.

Cosmopolitan county: migrant farm workers' impact on the agricultural community of Leamington

Migrant farm workers are behind-the-scenes backbone of Canada's agricultural economy. Despite their significant role within the food production industry, the outer public is typically unfamiliar with their contributions, experiences, and even their presence in Canada. Many researchers agree that workers arriving through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program hold a precarious status, primarily due to the invisibility of their plight to the rest of Canada. In Leamington, Ontario, large-scale greenhouse operations call for thousands of workers from Mexico and the Caribbean to grow vegetables year-round. This study sought to gain an understanding of the relationship between migrant workers and community members by surveying and interviewing Leamington residents. While worker visibility and local familiarity with the presence of migrant workers is heightened in the Essex County region, the quality of social interactions was found to be severely limited. The implications were found to involve social marginalization, culture clash, and racial stereotyping.

Cosmopolitan county: migrant farm workers' impact on the agricultural community of Leamington

Migrant farm workers are behind-the-scenes backbone of Canada's agricultural economy. Despite their significant role within the food production industry, the outer public is typically unfamiliar with their contributions, experiences, and even their presence in Canada. Many researchers agree that workers arriving through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program hold a precarious status, primarily due to the invisibility of their plight to the rest of Canada. In Leamington, Ontario, large-scale greenhouse operations call for thousands of workers from Mexico and the Caribbean to grow vegetables year-round. This study sought to gain an understanding of the relationship between migrant workers and community members by surveying and interviewing Leamington residents. While worker visibility and local familiarity with the presence of migrant workers is heightened in the Essex County region, the quality of social interactions was found to be severely limited. The implications were found to involve social marginalization, culture clash, and racial stereotyping.

Plus ça Change? – A Comparative Analysis of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program and the Pilot Foreign Worker Program for Farm Workers in Quebec

For the last 40 years, migrant farm workers from the Caribbean and Mexico have been recruited to work temporarily on Canadian farms under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). In 2002, the pilot Foreign Worker Program (FWP) for low skilled migrant workers was initiated in the province of Quebec and under this program began the recruitment of Guatemalan migrant farm workers. Since the program's start, the number of Guatemalan migrants has nearly tripled and there seems to be a decline in the number of workers hired under the SAWP in Quebec. This paper examines the FWP's development, set-up, consequences and operation alongside the SAWP and shows how the Canadian state is expanding the number of flexibility and temporary worker programs. This paper draws attention to the neo-liberal context of migrant farm labour in Canada, pointing to the ways in which Canada's federal policies governing seasonal agricultural migrants and athe agricultural labour market are exploitative and racist.

Borders and boundaries in the lives of migrant agricultural workers: Towards a more equitable health services approach.

In 2018, over 70% of the 69,775 temporary migrant agricultural labourers arriving in Canada participated in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Despite having legal status in Canada, these individuals are often systematically excluded from community life and face barriers when accessing health and social services. SAWP workers’ exclusion from many public spaces and their incomplete access to the benefits of Canadian citizenship or residency provide us a unique opportunity to examine social and political mechanisms that construct (in)eligibility for health and protection in society. As individuals seeking to care for the sick and most marginalized, it is important for nurses to understand how migrant agricultural workers are positioned and imagined in society. We argue that the structural exclusion faced by this population can be uncovered by examining (1) border politics that inscribe inferior status onto migrant agricultural workers (2) nation-state borders that promote racialized surveillance and; (3) everyday normalization of exclusionary public service practices. We discuss how awareness of these contextual factors can be mobilized by nurses to work towards a more equitable health services approach for this population.

Racial Capitalism, Slavery, Labour Regimes and Exploitation in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program

This paper will attempt to critically examine Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) with an intent of connecting four themes: the Canadian agricultural industry, indentured servitude, the labour regime in Canada, and the racialization of the SAWP. It has been argued that the workers from the Caribbean who participate in the Temporary Agricultural Workers Program are should consider themselves fortunate to be given such an opportunity. I argue that this assertion is problematic because it overlooks the hardship the workers face in Canada as a result of their non-citizen status. I also examine the fact that many of the workers enlisted in the SAWP are forced to migrate for a living wage due to poor economic conditions in their countries of origin, and that these conditions are a direct consequence of unequal trade policies and structural adjustment programs. Finally, I demonstrate Canada’s complicity in benefiting from these programs.

Legal but Deportable: Institutionalized Deportability and the Limits of Collective Bargaining among Participants in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program

This article explores how model temporary migrant worker programs (TMWPs) that permit seasonal return can institutionalize deportability or the possibility of removal among participants with legal status. It draws on the cases of two groups of workers who participated in the British Columbia–Mexico Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and who managed to unionize and secure collective agreements (CAs). The author argues that the design and operation of SAWP constrains workers’ capacity to see out fixed-term contracts and to realize the promise of seasonal return. These inherent constraints lead to a form of institutionalized deportability, even among participants covered by CAs crafted to mitigate the possibility of unjust termination and premature repatriation and to address workers’ precarious transnational situation. Focusing on how deportability operates, the article analyzes immigration and labor laws and policies, CAs, key informant interviews, and testimony before British Columbia’s labor relations tribunal along with the decisions of that tribunal.

Migrant Workers in Ontario's Tobacco Belt: An Examination of Workplace Dynamics

Recent critiques by scholars conducting research on the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program and labour geographers assert that there has been a lack of emphasis in the academic literature on the relevance of the formal workplace for developing an understanding of the social relations between capital and labour. In this article, I address these critiques through an empirical examination of workplace dynamics on two small-scale tobacco farms in Delhi, Ontario, Canada. My analysis draws upon original empirical evidence from interviews with three Mexican and nine Jamaican workers, two union representatives, and two farm owners. I argue that the farm is not simply a site for producing tobacco with economic efficiency, but an arena of struggle in which workers confront their employers, and a place of critical contests in the politics of production.