Garvin Yapp, 57, of St. James, Jamaica, was killed Sunday in an accident with a tobacco harvester at Berlo’s Best Farm in Norfolk County, two hours southwest of Toronto. The province confirmed his death. The Van Berlo family, which runs Berlo’s Best, said they were devastated by Yapp’s death, adding that they “didn’t lose an employee, but they lost a person they considered part of their family,” family lawyer Bernard Cummins told CBC Toronto. In a statement on Tuesday, Jamaica’s Ministry of Labor expressed “deep sadness” and said Jamaica’s Minister of Labor Karl Samuda will visit and tour farms in Canada that employ Jamaican workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) this week. The Canadian government, meanwhile, said in a statement that it “expresses its deepest condolences” to Yapp’s family, friends and colleagues, and added that the death investigation is a provincial matter. In a statement, the Ontario Ministry of Labor, which is tasked with investigating the matter, said the investigation is ongoing. Two other Jamaican workers and a Mexican worker died this week as well, according to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC).
“We feel like we’re in prison”
“As it stands today, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) is systematic slavery,” the workers write in their open letter. The letter was sent to the Jamaican Observer, where excerpts of it were published on Monday. The workers said they sent the letter to Samuda on August 11. “Jamaicans have been coming for generations, our Caribbean and Mexican colleagues have as well, and there have been no significant changes since the program began,” the workers said. Karl Samuda is the Minister of Labor and Social Security in Jamaica. The ministry said it will visit farms across Canada participating in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program this week. (Government of Jamaica) The workers wrote that they were afraid to share their grievances directly with Samuda for fear of being kicked out of SAWP. They also said workers from Mexico and the Philippines share the same grievances. Workers have described housing conditions so bad that rats eat their food. They live in crowded rooms with zero privacy with cameras and no dryers to dry their clothes after the rain, they wrote. “We feel like we are in prison,” the letter reads. Regarding working conditions, workers wrote that they are “treated like mules” and punished for not being fast enough. They said they are exposed to dangerous pesticides without adequate protection and that their bosses are verbally abusive. “They physically intimidate us, destroy our personal property and threaten to send us home,” the letter states. “This is very much the reality of the migrant farm worker program in this country,” said MWAC Executive Director Syed Hussan. “Farm labor in Canada is a human rights disaster.” Syed Hussan is the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and says federal immigration policy is the root cause of the migrant worker crisis. (CBC) Santiago Escobar, the national representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, says this is a problem across the country. The union called on the federal government to make union representation a condition for temporary foreign worker permits as a result. “With a union, these workers could exercise their labor and human rights,” Escobar said. It also calls on the provincial government to include agricultural workers in their labor laws and offer workers a flexible path to permanent residency. “We need to give them representation, better work permits and a path to stay,” Escobar said. “With these the workers will be able to overcome all the abuses they experience.” Hussan agrees. “As long as we have a temporary immigration system, farmers will be exploited,” he said. “Farmers themselves are calling for a system of full and permanent immigration status for all.” He says workers fear that asserting their rights will lead to homelessness, job loss and deportation. As it stands now, workers’ licenses are tied to their employer, Hussan said. Hussan says labor laws would help, but farm workers would not be able to claim their rights under those laws without full and permanent immigration status. “This is an ongoing crisis that is a direct result of federal immigration policy,” he said.
