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  2020-06-21

  Third migrant farm worker dies as Canada reaches deal with Mexico

  Article discussing the disproportionate number of temporary foreign workers infected with coronavirus and the efforts to mitigate this. The temporary foreign worker program has been controversial in Canada for years, for a number of reasons including condition and treatment of workers, immigration status, the employment of foreign nationals over Canadian residents and citizens etc. Like many societal issues the pandemic has brought the ethics and practice of the program to a flash-point. "The outbreak has triggered heightened scrutiny of Canada’s temporary foreign worker program and the conditions in which foreign labourers live and work. In Ontario alone, more than 630 migrant farm workers have been infected with COVID-19; two men from Mexico – Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, 31, and Rogelio Munoz Santos, 24 – have died. The third worker who died is Juan Lopez Chaparro, 55; he had been coming to Canada since 2010 and is survived by his wife and four children, the Migrant Rights Network said in a release Monday. "Federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough told The Globe and Mail last week that Ottawa will overhaul the temporary foreign worker program, including through more surprise inspections of working and living conditions at farms that employ migrant workers. Mexico had temporarily stopped sending more workers, until Canadian officials got a handle on the outbreaks and ensured people are properly paid while they’re in isolation."