Im/migrant Farmworker Justice in British Columbia and Ontario: Past and Present Struggles and Change for the Future
On October 17, 2025, Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) David Lam Centre and Labour Studies Program, and the Understanding Precarity in BC (UP-BC) Project, hosted a stimulating and thought provoking roundtable titled “Im/migrant Farmworker Justice in British Columbia and Ontario: Past and Present Struggles and Change for the Future.” Led and curated by Dr. Evelyn Encalada Grez (Assistant Professor, SFU Sociology and Labour Studies Program, and organizer, Justicia for Migrant Workers, BC), this hybrid event gathered a range of migrant justice community groups, academics, and community-labour organizers to share their insights on intergenerational farmworker struggles in British Columbia and Ontario.
Canada’s broken promises to migrant care workers
Despite the government’s promise to offer permanent residency to migrant care workers applying to the new pilot programs, there currently remains a large number of unprocessed applications from migrant care workers who will continue to be drawn from the Global South and classified as temporary labour. Canada’s care worker programs have largely drawn from the Philippines in the past two decades. Exacerbated by long PR processing times, these workers face chronic uncertainty, prolonged family separation, continual precarious employment and economic insecurity. Migrant Care Workers Precarity Project’s investigation found that despite the elimination of the live-in requirement in 2014, many migrant care workers who arrived under the 2019 pilot programs are still economically compelled to reside with their employers.
New report: A Decade of Migrant Care Worker Programs – Addressing Racism and Precarity in Canada
For more than a century, Canada has seen thousands of migrant care workers enter the country to provide much needed care work. In June 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced impending new pilot programs for migrant care workers. While the announcement brings hope that “new pilot programs will provide home care workers with permanent residence on arrival in Canada,” this report identifies persistent problems with Canada’s migrant care worker programs and demonstrates why permanency upon arrival is a requisite for necessary program changes. Given the ongoing and structural issues of Canada’s migrant care worker programs, the newest pilot programs will also need other critical improvements to ensure dignified work and meaningful inclusion for much-needed care workers in Canada.