Migrant workers demand protection

Advocates call on Ford government to enact regulations

- NICHOLAS KEUNG

Migrant farm workers pick apples in Norfolk County. On Wednesday, Premier Doug Ford said employers are required to ensure they have proper facilities to keep workers cool, but “that’s going to be up to the employer and the employees.”

He has harvested tons of fruits and vegetables in Ontario farms over the years — apples, carrots, tomatoes and many others that would end up on Canadians’ dining table.

The migrant farm worker from Trinidad and Tobago is proud of what he does because the job allows him to provide for his family back home. That’s why he’s been returning here annually for the last 12 years.

However, amid the recent brutal heat dome, he and other workers, struggling in temperatures between 38 and 45 C, were upset when their boss made them stay out to remove all the bins of apples from the fields so the fruit wouldn’t get sunburn.

“If the apples can get sunburn, what about us who are there working in bare heat with no shelter?” questioned a worker at the farm in Haldimand Norfolk in southwestern Ontario. The Star is not naming him for fear of work reprisals.

But he said no one dared to disobey the order or raise a stink for fear that they would not be called back to work in Canada next year.