A transcript of episode 7 of The Conversation Weekly pocast, including an extra from Don’t Call Me Resilient on the treatment of migrant workers in Canada.
The health and well-being of temporary foreign workers in the seafood industry in Atlantic Canada are disregarded in favour of business and economic concerns.
(Paul Einerhand/Unsplash)
Debates about public safety and temporary foreign workers continue without input from those whose health is most affected. Migrant workers themselves are largely invisible amid discussions about risk.
COVID-19 has laid bare how migrant workers in Canada are treated.
(Tim Mossholder/Unsplash)
For much of its history Canada has encouraged people to come and work in this country. However, racialized migrant workers often face an immigration system designed to leave them powerless.
Temporary migrant workers in Canada are facing COVID-19 while dealing with an immigration system that leaves them vulnerable.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought further suffering to migrant workers in Canada already experiencing the abuses of discriminatory immigration policies and poor working conditions.
Seafood processing workers in Thailand.
(Shutterstock)
Many have looked to Asia for lessons on successful pandemic management. However, recent COVID-19 outbreaks in Thailand and nearby countries also offer warnings about what not to do.
A woman takes part in a protest in Montreal, Jan. 30, 2021, to demand status for all workers and to demand dignity for all non status migrants as full human beings as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Canada and around the world.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Migrant workers’ families suffer from limited access to pandemic-related health care and loss of income.
Protesters attend a demonstration in support of migrant worker in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in Toronto in August 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
The federal government must make good on its throne speech language about making it easier for migrant workers to formally become Canadian by instituting a comprehensive regularization plan.
A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., in May 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
COVID-19 has proven that prioritizing the economy over the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable should never be an acceptable fix to economic woes.
Temporary foreign workers from Mexico plant strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., in May 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Migrant workers are not inherently more vulnerable to COVID-19, nor more likely to be carrying it than Canadians. Yet our treatment of them this year stigmatizes them and puts them at risk.
Police stop migrants from moving in Mumbai during the COVID-19 lockdown on April 28, 2020.
(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s Narendra Modi government has been successful in scapegoating, discriminating against and marginalizing minorities, putting lives at greater risk.
A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., on May 6, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Now that the pandemic has made migrant workers visible in Canada, as well as the true value of the work they do, it’s time to dramatically improve their working conditions.
Mexican migrant farmworkers sort cherries at one of Canada’s largest cherry orchards in British Columbia.
Elise Hjalmarson
Elise Hjalmarson, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
COVID-19 may not discriminate, but Canadian policy does. Income support during the pandemic must be extended to everyone, including migrant and undocumented workers.
Singapore, once a success in containing coronavirus, now has the most cases in Southeast Asia. One of the main reasons: the government’s neglect of its 300,000 foreign migrant workers.
Migrant workers from Mexico maintain social distancing as they wait to be transported to Québec farms after arriving in April at Trudeau Airport in Montréal.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The demands of social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic will make it increasingly difficult for migrant agricultural workers to meet their basic needs.
Money transfer offices in Amman, Jordan reopened in late March.
Amel Pain/EPA
The legislation before parliament discriminates against employers who take on temporary migrants, impoverishes Australian residents and will hold back the fight against coronavirus.
A farmworker picks lemons at an orchard in Mesa, California.
Brent Stirton/Getty Images
The US food supply depends on several million agricultural laborers, who are mostly undocumented, tend to work in close quarters and lack medical insurance.