A portion of child-sized roast bird next to steamed vegetables. A piece of pepperoni pizza. Soft lettuce and peppers with regular rice. According to a defence group, meals provided to a lot of quarantined agricultural migrants are insufficient and culturally inappropriate.
In Ontario’s Windsor-Essex region, one of Canada’s worst pandemic hotspots, migrant staff have been quarantined at at least two local hotels after a wave of outbreaks on their employers’ farms. Because quarantine personnel cannot get visitors or buy, they have the food provided.
Justice spokesman for Migrant Workers Chris Ramsaroop said the Red Cross is guilty of offering food to staff at any of the hotels where court cases arose about food quality. The Attorney General of Ontario demonstrated that the Red Cross had been deployed to Windsor’s domain to provide quarantined migrant personnel, but did not specify which hotels. The Red Cross has also failed to show which hotels.
Photo courtesy of Chris Ramsaroop.
Photo courtesy of Chris Ramsaroop.
Migrants “want culturally adequate and healthy food,” said Ramsaroop, who won court cases with photos in recent weeks.
“They’re angry. There is anger and resentment,” Ramsaroop said. “There’s hunger, anxiety.”
Many staff members come from Jamaica, Guatemala and Mexico, so they need foods that reflect their culture, foods they are used to and enjoy,” Ramsaroop said. He added that none of the foods appear to be nutritionally adequate.
Red Cross spokeswoman MairiAnna Bachynsky said the firm offers meals, snacks and other pieces of hygiene and convenience in two places for newly isolated people. She said the Red Cross “treats disorders as they arise” and that representatives, adding local bosses, continually touch others to assess their food needs.
“Some examples come with larger portion requests, vegetarian and vegan demands, fast food types and other portions, among others,” Bachynsky said. “These requests and non-public needs are still met at all times through the user’s staff who are referred to.”
Bachynsky said the factor had caught his attention several times, but specified when he first learned.
Ontario Attorney General’s spokesman Stephen Warner said in a statement that the province had told the Canadian Red Cross to provide “housing and aid services” to agricultural workers.
They are now running in combination to deal with complaints, “including discussing with staff their personal food tastes so that staff get the right supplies,” Warner said.
Photo courtesy of Chris Ramsaroop.
Ramsaroop said they were bringing their food to the ground like this. Photo courtesy of Ramsaroop.
Photo courtesy of Chris Ramsaroop.
Some staff members said they were not allowed to buy on their own, even after completing their two-week quarantine, and employers banned visitors from delivering food, the independent news site Rabble reported. Reality has led defenders to believe and execute secret methods, such as avoiding security cameras, so that staff can receive more food.
Inadequate and narrow living situations have made migrants vulnerable to COVID-19, and many staff members say their employers did not help them in the isolation of the pandemic. A migrant employee who tested positive for COVID-19 and told reporters about poor situations on the farm was recently fired from his job.
Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford, who in the past had rejected the concept of the COVID-19 mandatory test, said the scenario was so bad at the time that he was considering forcing employers to test migrant agricultural staff.
“Guys, I’ll get this far, ” he told the farmers last week. “If you have migrant workers, have them examined. At the end of the day. Close it completely. That’s all.”
But the situations they face when the remote still wants to be addressed, Ramsaroop said.
Photo courtesy of Chris Ramsaroop.
“Think about it: the other people who feed us are hungry,” Ramsaroop said.
The Red Cross does not accept donations at this time, but Ramsaroop said his team is looking to supplement the food presented to migrant staff with additional food and snacks. He added that the current state of food to be served exposes broader systemic racism and barriers to harming migrants.
“The other people who feed us are hungry and this is a testament to the general situations faced by migrant staff,” he said, adding that the pandemic has only exacerbated long-standing problems.
Follow Anya Zoledziowski on Twitter.