Due to allegations that the federal government’s migrant worker program is based on racist ideals, the government is being sued.
The federal government is the target of the proposed class-action case, which was brought on behalf of migrant workers who worked in Canada for the previous fifteen years.
The Toronto Star reports that the case focuses on agricultural workers especially and makes the claim that the logic employed to support their employment is essentially racist.
The employment requirements for migrant farm workers under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) bind them to a particular employer, in contrast to an open permit that allows them to look for work elsewhere.
The administration of Lester B. Pearson created the SAWP in the middle of the 1960s, and ever since then, companies have been entitled to use TFWs (temporary foreign workers) from participating Caribbean countries and Mexico in lieu of native agricultural laborers.
Employers participating in the SAWP may employ TFWs for up to eight months a year as long as they can guarantee 240 hours of work in six weeks or fewer.
Employers are mandated by law to provide TFWs with the same pay and benefits that employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents receive for performing the same work.
In addition, they must demonstrate that they can offer suitable living and working circumstances, pay employees for all labor—including overtime—as mandated by law, and offer workplace safety insurance.
However, the Toronto Star reports that the case makes use of “historical records to show that Black and Indo-Caribbean farmworkers were burdened with employer-specific work licenses due of their race and that it was motivated by overtly racist policy objectives.”
Because migrant workers aren’t eligible for benefits if they abandon their jobs, Goldblatt Partners, Koskie Minsky, and Martinez Law are requesting $500 million in restitution for employment insurance that they paid out. This was reported by The Toronto Star.