Jenna Hennebry: Migrant Farm Workers

Wilfrid Laurier Dept: When we talk about the 30,000 migrant workers that come to Canada annually, the majority have been here before, said the study s author, Wilfrid Laurier professor Jenna Hennebry. This is not a one-off. This is people who have spent the better part of their lives, five or 10 or 25 years, coming to Canada to the same communities over and over. , according to Globe and Mail. You end up with some kind of disjuncture where they really are quite separate. There is some animosity toward them. You get conflict, Prof. Hennebry said. Long-term it can be arguably quite damaging because you don t have ways to integrate migrant farm workers with the larger community and the workers are often the same from year to year and they work at the same farms and shop in the same communities, typically from April through to autumn. Yet they remain mostly isolated from the Canadian mainstream and are unlikely to integrate, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Of the 600 Mexican and Jamaican farm workers surveyed by Prof. Hennebry, the average worker had spent seven to nine seasons working in Canada. They work long hours, often don t speak the language and have little opportunity to connect with the communities they re working to build, according to the study. Less than 1 per cent of those surveyed said they worked alongside Canadians. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.