Abstract
COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated many longstanding barriers and shortcomings in labour protections for migrant workers in Canada. This paper focuses on the situation of workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) in Ontario, demonstrating how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and greatly aggravated the already precarious conditions of migrant workers. It explores the employment, labour and immigration law frameworks that render SAWP workers particularly vulnerable to exploitation and harm, both during pandemic and non-pandemic times. While some government policy and legislative responses have sought to respond to the increased vulnerability of migrant agricultural workers to the virus, fundamental changes in both the immigration and labour spheres are necessary to fix the structural causes of migrant agricultural workers’ vulnerability. This paper suggest that the pandemic has created not only an unprecedented urgency for systemic change, but also an unprecedented opportunity. Given the current broad shifts in public ideas about employment, health, and vulnerability, as well as mainstream public attention to the plight of migrant farm workers, I suggest that there is now an unprecedented space in Canadian public policy discourse to advance the urgently needed structural changes to protect the rights of migrant farm workers.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.