Ken Forth, president of the Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services which administers the Temporary Worker Program for
agriculture, is reacting in frustration about news reports about the 10 men from Peru who died Monday in a crash at Hampstead, between
Shakespeare and Wellesley.
Three others remain in hospital, one of them in critical
condition. The driver of a truck which hit the workers' van also died.
“There is a side to this story that has never been reported.,” Forth
said in a news release issued late Friday afternoon.
I wonder what took so long to get this news release out. It certainly left the field wide open to critics of the program.
“The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is the most regulated of all
the temporary worker programs in Canada,” he noted. It differs from the
Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program about which the news media has reported
many negative comments, many of them from union officials seeking to represent
farm workers.
“The strengths of the program are that they go to the top level of the
Canadian and source country governments, checks and balances are in place.
“Representatives of the source countries are in Canada to serve the
needs of these workers.
“This program truly benefits Canadian and Foreign countries, workers,
their families and farmers,” the news release says.
The news release appropriately began with “our sympathies go out to the victims and
families lost in the traffic accident in Hamstead.”
“Every year more than 250,000 temporary workers come to Canada for
employment under various programs within the Temporary Worker Program and
industry sectors.
"The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program represents only
25,000 and approximately 16,000 are in Ontario,’ Forth’s news release says.
“The victims of this terrible accident were not under the Seasonal
Agricultural Worker Program.”
The workers involved in the crash were vaccinating chickens for a
nearby farmer who engaged Brian’s Poultry Service of Mildmay to handle the task
for 16,500 birds.
