The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

Not likely, given the spikes, I would guess that it is groups of farm workers who are getting tested all a the same time.

This is proving to be a really big problem. Frankly, it makes me even more uncomfortable with the farm worker situation.

Yes, this is true. Issue is that it seems cheaper to ship these workers from poor nations to Canada, house them, feed them, and pay them whatever, than hire Canadians to do the same job. Farm work is hard, no doubt though. And I am guessing that not many would do this for minimum wage or even close to it. Perhaps the government needs to look at incentives for farmers and farm workers to make hiring local for enticing.

Now as it stands, it looks to be way more expensive to have migrant workers. I am sure some would be upset if we stopped such programs, being that it’s lost opportunities for those from other countries. But it’s probably time to think about doing it local again.

Yeah, there are a number of different factors. Our agricultural industry must continue to be competitive. I don't think it's reasonable to have cheaper imports decimate our farms because labor is cheaper elsewhere, but tariffs also have problems.

And whether our relationship with the migrant workers is abusive or not might depend on who you ask, this year, probably a long stronger of a consensus, but one thing is clear, we (Canada, the farm owners, whatever) have all the power in the relationship with these workers, and that in itself is a problem.

Even just switching is a huge issue. I'm sure they could pay enough for Canadians to do the work, (it would certainly drive up the price of produce), but this is not something that can be done in a day, or a week, or even a month, the entire system is setup for one labor force, they have no recruiting tools to quickly ramp up others.

And I'm not totally sure it would even solve anything. If they managed to find enough Canadians willing to do back breaking labor for low pay, and house them in dorms, we'd still be in a situation with a power imbalance in the relationship and living conditions which would result in spreading of this virus.