New regulations on migrant farm workers should tackle employer/employee power imbalances

These amendments are intended to enhance protections for migrant workers and ensure the integrity of the government’s temporary foreign worker program. While a step in the right direction, the changes side-step the root issues that make temporary foreign workers vulnerable to abuse in the first place. More than 61,000 migrant workers were employed in Canada’s agriculture sector in 2021, an increase of almost 12 per cent from 2020, marking the greatest proliferation since 2016. In fact, migrant workers comprised nearly one-quarter of all agricultural workers in 2021. Injured and sick workers are often repatriated before they can access health care and/or workers’ compensation.