Growing Frustration: WECHU halts temporary foreign workers

Windsor, Ont. -

Leamington greenhouse owner Gerry Mastronardi says his plants look good and his operation is moving along nicely. However, the agri-farm industry was issued a letter of instruction from the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.

Putting a pause on the arrival of temporary foreign workers to the region until Feb. 1.

“Now you're looking at millions of dollars that could be lost because of this letter that came out without the proper consulting with the industry,” said Mastronardi.

Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Shaker Nesathurai says there are currently eight outbreaks affecting 15 bunkhouses.

“Approximately 275 people have been recognized to have Covid or be close contacts with individuals with Covid and are on self-isolation.”

Calling it a “public health emergency,” Dr. Nesathurai says the exposures are among the approximately 2,000 workers already working in the region.

With the arrival of a couple of thousand people in the next few weeks the health unit says the region can’t handle the stress shortages.

“We would probably not be able to keep up as a community to provide appropriate self-isolation residences services,” he says.

Dr. Nesathurai says the Recovery and Isolation Centre in Windsor was near empty a week ago but is now completely full. Three additional hotels are accommodating the overflow.

“We placed the three-week time period allowing us sufficient time to identify additional self-isolation resources and also work with the federal and provincial authorities,” he says.

With over 200,000 plants ready to move to the next phase Mastronardi and other owners need to dip into an already shallow local labour pool.

He thinks there won’t be enough people available. He also feels the fines for not complying is a slap in the face, “It says we can get fined $500,000 up to $10-million. This is an insult to all of the work we've put in to getting all of this done properly,” Mastronardi says.

Justice for Migrant Workers organizer Chris Ramsaroop says the pause takes away income workers rely on.

“This is money they’re not going to have to take home to their families,” he says.

Ramsaroop feels the federal and provincial government could have helped avoid the desperate measure of pausing.

“This is what happens when you haven’t listened to workers throughout this pandemic,” he says. “Nobody seems to want to take responsibility to protect the workers.”

Ramsaroop worries about that nothing will change post pandemic or future pandemics.

“Unless we make fundamental changes to the way migrant workers come to Canada and the way that they live while in Canada,” he says.