Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said she wants more surprise inspections of working and living conditions at farms that employ migrant workers.
And she said import permits would be conditional on employers meeting national standards for living conditions.
Her comments come after news media reports about the experiences of some migrant workers employed by Ontario farmers. Outbreaks of COVID-19 and two deaths have resulted in more news media attention.
“We still are at the point where people are sick and people are dying, and work conditions aren’t safe,” Qualtrough told the Globe and Mail Thursday after that newspaper published a number of articles about temporary foreign workers on Ontario farms.
“There’s a power imbalance that exists in this system that has to be acknowledged, so that we can fix it,” she said.
I think the news coverage also demonstrates why Canadians are reluctant to work on Ontario farms. Would you want to work under the terms and conditions faced by temporary foreign workers?
