Migrant farm workers line up outside the Nature Fresh Farm Recreation Centre in Leamington, Ont., to get tested for COVID-19, on June 11, 2020.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The federal government failed to protect essential migrant workers from the spread of COVID-19, despite repeated warnings that its oversight of working conditions was insufficient, a report from the Auditor-General says.
In the report released Thursday, Karen Hogan says her office reviewed dozens of inspections conducted by government officials – inspections meant to ensure temporary foreign workers arriving in Canada had safe environments in which to quarantine and isolate. The report said 73 per cent of the inspections reviewed from 2020 were inadequate.
Workplaces were almost unanimously deemed “compliant,” despite inspectors often gathering little or no evidence, the report says.
Even after the government was informed of these problems and given an opportunity to remedy them – and long after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to better protect workers – matters only worsened: 88 per cent of inspections from 2021 were deemed inadequate, according to the report.
“Over all, we found that the Employment and Social Development Canada’s [ESDC] inspections – whether they targeted quarantine, outbreaks or basic living conditions – provided little assurance that the health and safety of temporary foreign workers were protected,” Ms. Hogan said.
Carla Qualtrough, the federal Minister of Employment, said Thursday that the government accepts the report’s findings. “Like every worker in Canada, they deserve to be safe in their workplaces,” she said of the migrant workers. She pointed to recent measures, including new inspectors and a new virtual inspections regime. Still, she said, “the Auditor-General’s report clearly outlines that despite our efforts, we fell short.”
In the spring of 2020 – amid rising concerns about COVID-19 and the importance of TFWs to Canada’s food system – Ottawa issued new rules, including a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arriving migrant workers.
But the report details instances where, even when evidence arose during inspections that suggested violations of rules, inspectors neglected to follow up and instead marked those workplaces as compliant.
In some instances detailed, quarantine facilities meant to house dozens of workers were deemed “compliant” based on just one, or a few photographs, according to the report.
In one inspection – at a farm where an outbreak was already under way – a worker who had tested positive was not given separate accommodation in which to isolate, and continued sharing a kitchen and bathroom with otherwise healthy workers.
The employer, meanwhile, had declined an offer from local public-health officials to provide a hotel room for the worker. Despite knowing this, it took more than a month for government officials to follow up with “corrective measures.”
The report follows repeated calls for Ottawa to better protect vulnerable migrant workers who travel to Canada to work on farms – doing jobs that domestic workers are often unwilling to take on.
The COVID-19 pandemic heightened the urgency of these calls, after outbreaks at farms across Canada. A Globe and Mail investigation last year found a number of problems behind these outbreaks: overcrowded housing, insufficient access to personal protective equipment, and pressure to work despite illness.
Last year, at least 600 foreign agricultural workers in Ontario alone were infected with the coronavirus. At least three died.
In June, 2020, Mr. Trudeau vowed to provide safer conditions for the workers. “We should always take advantage of moments of crisis to reflect: Can we change the system to do better?” he said at the time.
Ms. Hogan began her audit in 2020 and by the end of the year, had already warned ESDC of “significant concerns.” She raised those concerns again in February, 2021.
She extended the audit at that point. “We expected to see improvements,” she said. She told reporters on Thursday that she was “deeply concerned and disappointed” that the situation only worsened.
Migrant Workers Alliance for Change executive director Syed Hussan called the government’s oversight “a sham.”
“Inspections is not the point,” he said. The underlying power dynamic – which leaves migrant workers vulnerable to abuse or exploitation, with little recourse for fear of losing employment or being kicked out of the country – is the real problem, he said. “For someone to really be able to protect themselves, they need to be able to not live in fear.”
He and other advocates have long urged the government to give migrant workers permanent-resident status.
“I think we as a society – and as a nation – really need to come to terms that our food system is based on the exploitation of black and brown workers,” said Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers. “That means not just dealing with the ESDC, but the inherent power imbalance that exists in the agriculture industry.”
Ms. Qualtrough acknowledged this Thursday. “The pandemic has highlighted the systemic challenges and the inherent inequities that exist within the temporary foreign workers program,” she said. “This also needs to be addressed, and that work is ongoing.”
For subscribers: Get exclusive political news and analysis by signing up for the Politics Briefing.