Every year, more than 50,000 migrant agricultural workers come to Canada, primarily from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Thailand and the Philippines.
- Migrant workers are employed on temporary contracts and have no direct pathway to permanent residency.
- They work in a relatively high risk industry in which health and safety problems are common, and may go unreported.
- Research indicates these workers face many barriers to accessing healthcare and insurance, such as language and cultural barriers, social and physical isolation, and fear of loss of employment or forced return to their country of origin.
Drawing on two decades of research, clinical and legal encounters with migrant workers, the aim of the Migrant Worker Health Project is to provide evidence-based educational initiatives that describe these barriers to healthcare and service providers, and facilitate collaborative identification of strategies to increase these workers' access to healthcare services and workers' compensation.
DEDICATION
We dedicate this initiative to the memory of Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, a migrant agricultural worker from Mexico who died from COVID-19 on Canadian soil. May this tragedy serve as a constant reminder of how Canada has failed these workers, and a commitment, that we will not repeat the same mistake again. Read more