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Are Caribbean migrant workers in Ontario’s agricultural sector being exploited?

I noticed this topic recently and decided to provide my comments. I do employ such workers in Southern Ontario and reside on the Niagara escarpment.My neighbours and I have accepted over 100 migrant workers over the last decade plus for the eight months that help is required. Southern Ontario is a fruit basket of Canada .
It grows various grains such as soya, canola, corn plus peaches , plum , strawberries, pears, apples, grapes etc.Some of these products are exported via Hamilton, Ontario Ports,land and sea.Ice wine is shipped via air to Europe.Canada is now the world’s fifth largest food exporter, generating CA$94 billion in income from agricultural exports annually.

The move towards export-oriented farming has fuelled a need for highly productive labour, enabling produce to be exported at competitive prices. Canada's population cannot supply the total amount of people required for farm work.In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, migrant workers make up 41.6 percent of the agricultural labour force. Demand for labour in the sector has grown over the years with the transition from small and medium-sized family farms to large scale commercial farming operations focused on export.
The Commonwealth Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, which was created in 1966 in response to demands from Canadian fruit and vegetable growers who were facing a shortage of Canadian workers willing to provide low-wage manual farm labour.The programme started with workers from Jamaica, and has since expanded to include Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico and eight eastern Caribbean countries.Workers accepted into the programme are permitted to come to Canada to work for a maximum of eight months out of the year and are advised of terms and conditions. After eight months of work in Canada, they have to return home.They can purchase medical and life insurance should they wish.On occasions they don't.

Under such programs, Canada through various Governments requests such labor for Canadian farm owners.We must notify the governments of how many workers a farm needs one year in advance, some farms request the same workers yearly. This program started in 1966 and has been ongoing for over 5 decades.As workers reach 65 years old they are replaced by younger workers.However, employers have the right to request specific workers by name to return the following year.In practice, most of the participants in the SAWP are recalled year after year, sometimes accumulating decades of experience working on Canadian farms.Their work is repetitive and physically demanding and could require them to operate heavy machinery or handle pesticides and other chemicals.
If the ministry visits and sees them without safety gear the farmer can be charged,a hefty fine and taken to court. They work under intense pressure to meet daily productivity targets,and workers are notified of the production schedule.Certain crops have a timeline to be processed.In practice, most of the participants in the SAWP are recalled year after year,sometimes accumulating experience working on Canadian farms.

As of June 1, 2022, the general minimum wage is $15.65 Cdn per hour.The average farm worker salary in Canada is $30,106 per year or $15.65 per hour. Entry-level positions start at $27,300 per year, while most experienced workers make up to $45,950 per year.They reported being subjected to increased restrictions on their mobility, which prevented them from going to town to shop for necessities or send money to their families, while Canadian farm workers faced no such restrictions.All Canadians had restrictions during the pandemic.The one problem I had with my workers was that they weren't allowed to go to the local bars to party during the pandemic.In 2023 they are partying on weekends.Caribbean workers –who are mostly men,report particularly high levels of racist treatment, not only from their employers but also from the local residents of surrounding white farming towns.Yes,such do occur on occasions; we do have small redneck towns but it's changing.


Today,over 60,000 workers come to Canada every year through the programme, as well as through the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP).Moreover, the practice of medical deportation allows employers to repatriate sick workers even if their illnesses or injuries were caused by their work in Canada.Out of 787 repatriations of agricultural workers that occurred between 2001 and 2011 in Ontario, 41.3 percent were for medical or surgical reasons and 25.5 percent for external injuries.Migrants living and working on employer premises in rural areas have limited ability to make contact with others in the community, contributing to their isolation.Towns can be over 60 km apart,most worker use bicycles as means of transportation.They are often housed in livable barracks on the farms.

Precedents include the recruitment of Chinese labourers to build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late nineteenth century (600 of whom died on the job) and the Live-in Caregiver Program, which brought Caribbean women to perform domestic work while blocking the permanent settlement of Black migrants in Canada. Scholars have connected these practices to the driving logic of British colonialism behind Canada’s founding: after the conquered land was ‘cleared’ through the violent subjugation of indigenous peoples, migrants were brought to work for the economy established on the cleared land.While some categories of migrants were deemed ‘settler-worthy’ and welcomed to stay, others, predominantly those who are racialized and constructed as ‘lowskilled’, continue to be treated only as disposable sources of labour by the British colonials in Canada.

For SAWP workers, there is no pathway through which they can acquire permanent residence or become covered by the labour rights guaranteed to other Canadians.Their precarious immigration status is an inherent feature of the programme, which legally constructs workers as ‘temporary’ even though the need for their labour is structural and permanent, as evidenced by the fact that the programme has been running for over five decades.The nomenclature of these programmes means that agricultural workers are always described in public discourse as ‘foreign’ and ‘temporary’,reinforcing the assumption that they do not belong in Canada

The Government is looking at changing SAWP conditions as modern slavery in Canada and calling for the abolition of the TFWP.These programmes justify a lower standard of treatment for racialized workers from the global south, while enabling the profits of their labour to flow disproportionately to Canada’s corporate class.Agricultural workers coming to Canada should have pathways to permanent residency available to them after working a certain period in the country, similar to other migrants.They play a vital role in Canada’s and should be treated accordingly.

During his tenure in governmental organizations, Ewart shown unwavering dedication in assisting migrant workers to achieve integration within Canadian society.

In reply to sgtdjones

Do you have a working definition of exploitation in an economic sense?

Marx contends that in actual capitalist societies, it is not obvious that capitalists profit by exploiting laborers and accumulating surplus value; surplus value is the "invisible and unknown essence" of capitalist exploitation.

Capitalists can purchase labor from laborers, who can only supply the market with their own labor. As soon as capitalists are able to pay laborers less than the value of their labor, surplus labor forms, resulting in capitalist profits. Colonial exploitation, imperialist exploitation, and totalitarian exploitation are among the numerous forms of economic exploitation. The underlying principles and personalities of these forms of exploitation exhibit both similarities and differences.

A domestic worker or helper is a person who conducts various tasks within their employer's residence. When domestic laborers are restricted in their movement and required to work long hours for low pay, this arrangement becomes exploitative. Dual modes of oppression Sexual exploitation includes coercing a person to perform sexual acts for monetary gain, such as prostitution or the creation of pornography. Domestic servitude, restaurant work, menial labor, factory work in sweatshops, and migrant agricultural labor are examples of labor exploitation. Women's exploitation and forced labor The most prevalent form of human trafficking identified by national authorities is sexual exploitation trafficking.
As an example of capitalist exploitation, the capitalist pays the worker $100 for a day's work, and the worker produces $100 worth of new value in the form of products that belong to the capitalist. These products can then be sold on the market to recoup the capitalist's investment in wages and other production costs.


Ananda Marga Publications 2012
United Nations drug, crime and terrorism treaties

One must note that I dont like Economists ...
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Galbraith was born on October 15, 1908, to Canadians of Scottish descent, Sarah Catherine (Kendall) and Archibald "Archie" Galbraith, in Iona Station, Ontario, Canada, and was raised in Dunwich Township, Ontario.

The only models I believe in are in Engineering,it must be proven not like the ones in economics. They can never predict what will happen but always have excuses after it happens and great explanations.
I look at my yearly Financial statements to see black not red.

You are allowed to copy three paragraphs. Please follow the rules,or this potentially interesting thread will be locked. You cannot copy and paste like this.
Allyuh just follow di blasted rules and stop behaving like pickney.

In reply to Chrissy

Crack the whip, mod!

In reply to Chrissy

In reply to googley

She is a nutty moderator...an should retire

let's hear her comments' where I copied 3 paragraphs ...I used some from Statistics Canada.Such is public information...
she has done this to me twice...

I have attended better Universities that she did..and didn't write a thesis on cricket...

In reply to sgtdjones
You should stop the 'self-aggrandizing' peeps are going to start asking how many things you can really do all at once in one short live. Then they interesting topic will get derailed

In reply to sgtdjones
The reference was added after I responded to the length of the post.
That is dishonesty.

In reply to Chrissy

Why not say such rather than your 3 paragraph notation,I would have noticed the error

Yes, that was my error and I take full responsibility.
If one were to look at my threads if I use, I always use references.

I am human I make mistakes and will continue to do such.
Someone claim I am using AI , it shows I am not.

In reply to Brerzerk

I have a very interesting life with numerous challenges and hobbies.
Some of my CEO's often wonder how I can do all that I do.
When I get home , I have found reading/writing to be very relaxing
I write hoping someone would show me the other side , it's how I learn.

In reply to KTom

In reply to sgtdjones

In reply to KTom

You have asked some interesting questions

Exploitation can be defined as the unethical practice of taking advantage of an individual, resulting in an inequitable acquisition of benefits or advantages. The conduct involves taking advantage of the weaknesses or vulnerabilities of another individual for one's own personal benefit, profits. Indeed, it might be argued that leveraging the vulnerabilities of others does not inherently constitute a moral wrong. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that exploitation can also take the form of a structural occurrence, in which specific institutions or systems include inherent prejudices that lead to one group of individuals being unfairly privileged while others suffer as a consequence. Karl Marx espoused the notion that the economic and political frameworks intrinsic to capitalism were marked by exploitative inclinations. Some contemporary feminists argue that the traditional institution of marriage is exploitative because it perpetuates and intensifies harmful manifestations of gender-based inequalities between men and women.Producing examples of unjust and exploitative behavior that are intuitively compelling is a relatively uncomplicated endeavor.

Nevertheless,the effort of providing a philosophical interpretation to support and augment these intuitions has proven to be a more formidable undertaking. One of the foremost issues pertains to the specific delineation of the criteria that establish the conditions under which a transaction or institution might be categorized as unfair.Does a correlation exist between the inherent inequality in exploitation and the allocation of resources? Could it be argued that this is a violation of her ethical rights? Is the occurrence of unfairness in exploitation primarily influenced by procedural considerations, substantive factors, or a combination of both? The evaluation of claims of exploitation is influenced by the attitudes and motives of the suspected exploiter to what degree?

The primary defining feature of capitalism is its inherent motivation to produce economic profits.According to Adam Smith, a prominent philosopher and influential figure in 18th-century economics, the provision of our meal is not motivated by the altruistic intentions of the butcher, brewer, or baker, but rather by their self-interest.In a voluntary exchange transaction, both parties include their respective individual interests into the final product. Nevertheless, it is imperative for all parties involved to recognize and fulfill the needs and aspirations of the opposing party in order to achieve their individual goals.The endeavor to prioritize rational self-interest possesses the capacity to make a positive impact on the advancement of economic progress.

Capitalism is often understood as an economic system in which private individuals acquire and exert control over property in accordance with their particular interests.The functioning of this system is characterized by the independent operation of supply and demand forces, which facilitates the determination of prices in markets and has the potential to enhance societal well-being.The variables that frequently contribute to the prosperity of capitalism can also potentially lead to its decline.The successful development of free markets relies on the implementation of government regulations that effectively govern them.These regulations encompass the protection of property rights through legal frameworks, as well as the provision of sufficient infrastructure, such as transportation networks, to facilitate the efficient exchange of goods and the mobility of individuals. However, governments may be susceptible to the influence exerted by organized commercial interests seeking to utilize regulatory authority for the purpose of protecting their economic position, frequently to the harm of the public interest. This phenomenon may be observed, for example, in the curtailment of the fundamental principles of a free market that had previously contributed to their own economic well-being.

Marx, K., 1847, Wage Labour and Capital,
Stanford tome of Philosophy
Holmstrom, N., 1977, “Exploitation”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
IMF Finance and development
2014, “G.A. Cohen on Exploitation”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics,
Arneson, R., 1981, “What’s Wrong with Exploitation?”, Ethics,
Hall, Peter A., and David Soskice, eds., 2001, Varieties of Capitalism: