In 1955 and 1966 Canada opened its doors to a limited number of Caribbean domestic workers and seasonal agricultural workers. Canadian government officials remarked that the programmes were part of Ottawa’s aid package to the Caribbean and that they would enhance trading relationships between Canada and the Caribbean, a view which had been echoed by other writers on the topic. This thesis argues that both programmes were instituted after Canada had exhausted all attempts to recruit adequate European labourers. The thesis also argues that both programmes were deliberately designed and executed to ensure that Canada got maximum benefits at low cost. Canada also attached unprecedented conditions to both schemes in an effort to significantly reduce the number of workers recruited. The thesis provides a thorough examination of the proposals by Caribbean governments, together with interest groups from Canada, to persuade Canada to establish these migrant programmes and the excuses and refusals by Canada to those proposals. The thesis documents the increasing recruitment of Mexican agricultural workers at the expense of Caribbean workers which further dispels the view that the migrant programmes were part of an aid package to the Caribbean. The thesis notes that unlike the domestic programme the agricultural programme was not a route towards landed immigrant status.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2007. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2741.

For many years Canada has quietly rationalized importing temporary “low-skilled” migrant labour through managed migration programs to appease industries desiring cheap and flexible labour while avoiding extending citizenship rights to the workers. In an era of international human rights and global competitive markets, the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) is often hailed as a “model” and “win-win” solution to migration and labour dilemmas, providing employers with a healthy, just-in-time labour force and workers with various protections such as local labour standards, health care, and compensation. Tracing migrant workers’ lives between Jamaica, Mexico and Canada (with a focus on Ontario’s Niagara Region), this thesis assesses how their structural vulnerability as non-citizens effectively excludes them from many of the rights and norms otherwise expected in Canada. It analyzes how these exclusions are rationalized as permanent “exceptions” to the normal legal, social and political order, and how these infringements affect workers’ lives, rights, and health. Employing critical medical anthropology, workers’ health concerns are used as a lens through which to understand and explore the deeper “pathologies of power” and moral contradictions which underlie this system. Particular areas of focus include workers’ occupational, sexual and reproductive, and mental and emotional health, as well as an assessment of their access to health care and compensation in Canada, Mexico and Jamaica. Working amidst perilous and demanding conditions, in communities where they remain socially and politically excluded, migrant workers in practice remain largely unprotected and their entitlements hard to secure, an enduring indictment of their exclusion from Canada’s “imagined community.” Yet the dynamics of this equation may be changing in light of the recent rise in social and political movements, in which citizenship and related rights have become subject to contestation and redefinition. In analyzing the various dynamics which underlie transnational migration, limit or extend migrants’ rights, and influence the health of migrants across borders, this thesis explores crucial relationships between these themes. Further work is needed to measure these ongoing changes, and to address the myriad health concerns of migrants as they live and work across national borders.

For many years Canada has quietly rationalized importing temporary “low-skilled” migrant labour through managed migration programs to appease industries desiring cheap and flexible labour while avoiding extending citizenship rights to the workers. In an era of international human rights and global competitive markets, the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) is often hailed as a “model” and “win-win” solution to migration and labour dilemmas, providing employers with a healthy, just-in-time labour force and workers with various protections such as local labour standards, health care, and compensation. Tracing migrant workers’ lives between Jamaica, Mexico and Canada (with a focus on Ontario’s Niagara Region), this thesis assesses how their structural vulnerability as non-citizens effectively excludes them from many of the rights and norms otherwise expected in Canada. It analyzes how these exclusions are rationalized as permanent “exceptions” to the normal legal, social and political order, and how these infringements affect workers’ lives, rights, and health. Employing critical medical anthropology, workers’ health concerns are used as a lens through which to understand and explore the deeper “pathologies of power” and moral contradictions which underlie this system. Particular areas of focus include workers’ occupational, sexual and reproductive, and mental and emotional health, as well as an assessment of their access to health care and compensation in Canada, Mexico and Jamaica. Working amidst perilous and demanding conditions, in communities where they remain socially and politically excluded, migrant workers in practice remain largely unprotected and their entitlements hard to secure, an enduring indictment of their exclusion from Canada’s “imagined community.” Yet the dynamics of this equation may be changing in light of the recent rise in social and political movements, in which citizenship and related rights have become subject to contestation and redefinition. In analyzing the various dynamics which underlie transnational migration, limit or extend migrants’ rights, and influence the health of migrants across borders, this thesis explores crucial relationships between these themes. Further work is needed to measure these ongoing changes, and to address the myriad health concerns of migrants as they live and work across national borders.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (School of Public Health) / South Africa has an estimated two million documented and undocumented immigrants. In addition, Statistics South Africa (2014) notes very significant internal migration. This mobile population is affected by chronic communicable and non-communicable diseases such as TB, HIV, and diabetes, although it has a Constitutional right to health and healthcare. Their quality of healthcare and disease control also affects the general population and the burden on the health system can be increased by inadequately managed chronic conditions as well as acute health care needs. Access to healthcare and continuity of care reflect both patient agency and the health system. Community Health Workers (CHWs) play an important role in linking communities and patients to health services and vice versa. The aim of this study was to understand how agricultural migrants in the Cape Winelands District of Western Cape Province of South Africa navigated the healthcare system to access healthcare services including securing continuity of care, and in particular the role of CHWs in this process, in order to inform policy and practice.

While agricultural work is hazardous for all workers, migrant workers face additional challenges that make them more vulnerable than domestic workers. The lack of access to permanent immigration status in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) makes workers’ jobs hinge on retaining their employers’ favour and creates a particular type of job insecurity that overshadows their behaviour, decisions, and agency to assert their rights for safe and healthy workplaces and workers’ compensation. While researchers argue that the TFWP competes with the SAWP as employers search for the cheapest and most docile workers, less research has examined whether workers’ health and safety exposures and experiences differ within the two programs. Drawing primarily from interviews with advocates and system stakeholders and participant observation at advocate-organized events, this research will offer preliminary answers to discovering whether the programs pose different obstacles to improving health and safety and access to compensation that affect migrant workers’ experiences in Ontario before and after injury. The research will help gather information about possible avenues to improve the health and safety of migrant workers given how the two programs operate within both federal and provincial frameworks. Advocates’ experience assisting workers in both programs offers important insights about whether differences between the programs create particular vulnerabilities for some migrant workers. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This research identifies opportunities and barriers that migrant agricultural workers and their advocates face in improving occupational health and safety and access to workers' compensation in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP). Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document review, the research will help identify whether interplay between the programs causes additional vulnerabilities for some workers. The research will help gather information about possible avenues to improve the health and safety of migrant workers given how the two programs operate in a federal and provincial framework.