The Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre is marking May 1, International Workers Day, with a film screening and new report on migrant workers in New Brunswick.

In the film, Chaos and Control, migrant workers share stories about deplorable housing conditions and employer retaliation and intimidation.

What: Chaos & Control: a film about migrant workers in New Brunswick. Film screening to be followed by panel discussion.

When: May 1, 2024 at 7:00 PM

Where: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Queen St., Fredericton

Who: All are invited. Admission by donation.

The short documentary directed by Amy Floyd and Drew Gilbert shines a spotlight on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in New Brunswick, drawing attention to the exploitation migrant workers face because of the closed work permit system. The film is a series of interviews with migrant workers whose identities are protected as they share their stories.

“The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is legalized exploitation. Like the workers in the film say, this is effectively modern-day slavery,” says Amy Floyd.

“If you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, I will return you to your country,” says a migrant worker in New Brunswick in the film.

According to Floyd, this was an effort to provide a platform to migrant workers to tell their own stories.

“I hope New Brunswickers watch this film and hear what migrant workers have to say and understand that our struggles are linked. The migrant workers are looking for solidarity,” says Floyd.

“As governments blame migrant workers for the affordability crisis facing our communities, it is important to remind people that like everyone else in our communities, migrant workers are victims of a system that puts profits above the needs of everyday people,” she said.

The report released today, with the support of the Catherine Donnelly Foundation, is focused on the housing of migrants in New Brunswick. Migrant workers report living in overcrowded and unsafe conditions. International students cannot find affordable housing. Meanwhile, the undocumented, those without status to be in the country, are vulnerable to exploitation by employers and landlords, more likely to live in substandard housing, and less able to exercise their rights.

The report makes a series of recommendations aimed at ensuring the housing rights of migrant workers, international students and the undocumented are respected.

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Migrants are calling for action as Immigration Minister promised permanent resident status for undocumented people in the Spring, and immigration programs for care workers and international students are set to expire

WHEN: Sunday, March 17, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM.

WHERE: Conserver House, 180 Saint John St., Fredericton

WHAT: Waffles and solidarity. Migrant workers will be joined by community members to discuss the importance of permanent resident status for all migrants.

WHO: Family members, community members, workers and advocates. Migrant organizations and migrants will be available to speak with the media.

VISUALS: Signs, banners, music, posters, waffles, and speakers.

March 17-- Fredericton is joining eight communities in six provinces in actions this weekend to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination as immigrants and refugees are scapegoated for the affordability crisis and to launch #MigrantSpring, calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to deliver on regularization and permanent resident status for all migrants.

Actions are taking place in Charlottetown, Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, St. John’s, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and more. See details of all the cities here: https://migrantrights.ca/events/mar16/.

Background

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination takes place on March 21. Spring is set to begin on March 19, and Parliament will rise for two weeks following the week starting on March 18, 2024.

Why #MigrantSpring launch to mark International Day for Elimination of Racism:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller pledged to bring regularization to the Cabinet in the Spring. #MigrantSpring calls for a program that ensures permanent resident status for all undocumented people without exclusions.

Thousands of care workers are at risk of deportation due to expiring programs or have already been excluded because of excessive requirements. #MigrantSpring calls for permanent resident status for all care workers, without unfair language and education requirements.

Landlords, grocery monopolies, and governments are scapegoating migrants, blaming us for the housing and affordability crisis and perpetuating racism and division. #MigrantSpring pushes back against xenophobia and calls for decent work, housing, and universal services for everyone, including migrants.

The federal government has capped permanent immigration. International students and their family permits have been restricted. Visas have been imposed on Mexico. Sudanese and Palestinian refugees face exceptional hurdles unlike Ukrainian refugees. The 20-hour work limit is set to be placed on international students on April 30th. These caps and exclusions mean that bad bosses can exploit migrants more, and racialized migrants are denied rights. #MigrantSpring demands equality and justice for all.

The Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre was proud to participate in the International Women’s Day March in Fredericton on March 8, 2024, organized by the New Brunswick Common Front for Social Justice, the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity and Regroupement féministe du Nouveau-Brunswick. This year’s theme was resistance.

Last month, we joined many organizations including CUPE and the Canadian Health Coalition to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Nell Toussaint, a tireless advocate for health care for all regardless of immigration status. Like so many other migrant women, Nell encountered systemic barriers in Canada related to her immigration status. In her case, those barriers proved fatal.

The migrant women we work with face similar difficulties as a result of their immigration status. Some, excluded from health care because of the kind of immigration status they have, who cannot afford prenatal care or abortions. Others, who find themselves in New Brunswick believing false promises about spousal sponsorships or employer-tied pathways to permanent residence, only to be stranded with no access to social assistance because of their immigration status.

International Women’s Day is about celebrating how far we have come, and recognizing how much there is still to do to achieve true equality for all.

Krysta Cowling, chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity, said, "It's unacceptable that in 2024, women still earn less than men for work of equal value and sometimes, for the same work. Our society relies heavily on women-dominated jobs that are too often undervalued, underpaid, and increasingly occupied by a disproportionately racialized workforce."

This year, let us resolve to build a New Brunswick with a living wage and 10 paid sick days for everyone, with pay equity in the private sector, with access to abortion services and health care regardless of immigration status, and with schools that are safe spaces for trans youth.

Poltiques sexistes, résistances féministes!

The Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre welcomes today's news about the end of the contract between the Government of New Brunswick and Canada Border Services Agency to use provincial jails to imprison migrants.

The province had notified the federal agency in June 2023 of its intent to end the contract in 2024.

"This is a long overdue step, and we are pleased to see New Brunswick join so many other provinces in finally ending this inhumane practice," said Tracy Glynn, founding board member of the Madhu Centre.

Research from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch has shown that Canada's practice of incarcerating immigrants in provincial jails has violated human rights law.

"One by one, the provinces have been clear. They want no part of this practice. It is time Canada ended immigration detention altogether," Glynn said.

This week’s announcement that New Brunswick will receive 5,600 spots for international students is spreading more confusion than calm, service providers and advocates say.

This is after a recent federal government move to reduce the number of study permits next year, a decision taken, ostensibly, to prevent rents from rising even further in Canada.

In New Brunswick, however, the NB Coalition for Tenants Rights and the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre say the federal government’s measures against international students is effectively scapegoating a vulnerable group instead of addressing the real perpetrators of the housing crisis.

“International students are not the ones buying up rental properties and increasing rents,” said Nomaan X, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

New Brunswick saw the highest rental inflation in Canada between October 2020 and October 2023 at 28.7%. It is one of just two other provinces without rental control protections.

“This decision is entirely the result of a government desperate to be seen doing something,” said X.

The NB Coalition for Tenants Rights has been drawing attention to investor strategies of forced appreciation in real estate for the last three years.

“If more students moved to New Brunswick from Nova Scotia or Ontario, I doubt very much we would be trying to limit the number because of housing,” said Matthew Hayes, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

International students are also frustrated about the decision. “Migrant workers that we work with, including international students, are victims of the housing crisis, not perpetrators of it,” said Aditya Rao, a spokesperson for the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

New Brunswick added almost 5,000 housing units each of the last two years—more than enough to absorb the full international student population.

“The housing market is not building new rental apartments that are affordable for most students, let alone international students. And investors are buying up more affordable rentals and repositioning them,” said Hayes. “The alternative here would be to protect affordability through rent control, and return short-term rentals to the long-term rental market.”

The Coalition has also called for more funding to build co-op and non-profit housing to address affordability, which are not sufficiently funded through the federal government’s National Housing Strategy.

“It is incredibly alarming that elected officials in Canada are blaming immigrants for a housing crisis that is 40 years in the making. It is especially alarming that this political strategy is rolling out at a time when fascism, racism and xenophobia are being mobilized in new ways across the Global North” said Tobin LeBlanc Haley, a spokesperson for the Coalition.

“The sole focus on supply and demand completely misses how large corporations are reorganizing housing,” Haley continued. “Focussing on temporary foreign workers and international students is a complete misunderstanding of this issue and will only perpetuate hate.”

“It is not international students who are taking our affordable housing,” said Rao. “It is investors, and conservative governments who refuse to do anything to protect us from them.”

The Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre joins migrant advocates from across Canada in calling on the federal government to rethink new rules imposed today on international students coming into Canada.

The announcement lays the blame for the housing crisis at the feet of international students, while saying nothing about speculative investment, financialization of housing and the lack of tenant protections in most parts of the country, including in New Brunswick.

A new callous rule prevents the spouses of international students in undergraduate or college programs from being able to work in Canada. With increased costs of living, not having the ability to work will force international students into family separation as spouses remain back home.

"International students must already struggle with isolation when they arrive in Canada. This new rule will make life even more difficult for the people we work with," said Aditya Rao, Board Member of the Madhu Centre.

Another rule prohibits students victimized by private colleges from being able to obtain a Post Graduate Work Permit, thus penalizing the students instead of holding unscrupulous private colleges accountable.

"Landlords are raising rents and investors are gambling with housing. International students are a convenient scapegoat for a government that refuses to hold the real perpetrators of the housing crisis accountable," Rao said.

The Madhu Centre joins the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in calling for stronger protections for international students, an end to immigration precarity and status for all.

Following Radio-Canada’s report this week about the closure of Raymond O'Neill and Son Fisheries in Escuminac, the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre mourns the job losses from the plant’s closure and the impact this will have on the local economy.

This closure happened off-season when migrant workers had not yet arrived. It is not known how many migrant workers were counting on being able to work at this plant next season to provide for their families.

Last season, one plant in Grand-Anse laid off dozens of workers with weeks remaining in their contract mid-season.

These workers have closed work permits which restrict them to work only for one employer. When they lose their jobs, even through no fault of their own, they are not allowed to get another job unless they pay additional unaffordable fees to get a new work permit. If they do not get a new permit, they are forced to return home.

Migrant workers often take out huge loans to come to New Brunswick to work and support their families back home. Losing their job, therefore, forces many to work under the table to make ends meet, putting those workers at further risk of exploitation.

“The Escuminac plant closure highlights, yet again, the importance of ending the use of closed work permits,” said Aditya Rao, Board Member. “When an employer closes shop, Canadians take for granted the freedom to try and find another job or receive unemployment benefits. Migrant workers have no such freedom.”

Accessing unemployment benefits is not easy for migrant workers who pay into the system, but are required to be “available for work in Canada” despite only being able to work for the employer from whom they became unemployed in the first place.

Researchers have already shown that migrant workers in New Brunswick live in unsafe conditions and are routinely at risk of workplace injury and exploitation. The closed work permit system, which has been linked to the risk of human trafficking, was recently described as “modern-day slavery” by a UN expert on the subject.

“Report after report, study after study have all been clear. The closed work permit system is exploitative by design. The government could fix this easily by ending the use of closed work permits and giving migrant workers the freedom of labour mobility that everyone else takes for granted,” Rao said.

More cause for concern than for celebration on Refugee Rights Day, the organizations say

Amnesty International Canada is joining the Atlantic Human Rights Centre and the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre on Refugee Rights Day to raise the alarm about the lack of refugee law legal aid in New Brunswick.

Refugee Rights Day in Canada is celebrated every year on April 4 to commemorate the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1985 Singh decision which extended the protection of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to refugees, including to refugee claimants.

In New Brunswick, however, there is more cause for concern than for celebration today.

Since late February, the federal government has transferred over 150 refugee claimants from Quebec, where there is legal aid support for refugee law, into New Brunswick where there is none.

The New Brunswick Refugee Clinic is the only legal clinic in New Brunswick that takes on refugee claims. It is staffed by just one person, and relies on a volunteer roster of just a handful of lawyers. Over a month since the transfers began, the refugee clinic has received no new funding, and there has been no federal or provincial commitment to deliver any emergency funding – a delay that advocates are calling inexcusable.

“Given the intricacies of the complicated legal process that individuals must go through to receive refugee protection, including a hearing before a judge, access to legal counsel is critical.” said Julia Sande, human rights law and policy campaigner at Amnesty International Canada.

“Without access to legal representation, refugee claimants are at risk of failing a claim and being deported, even if they are in need of refugee protection. Failing a refugee claim in part because of lack of legal representation can mean life or death,” Sande said.

Dr. Christina Szurlej, director of the Atlantic Human Rights Centre agrees: “Canada is at risk of violating its obligation to uphold the principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee law. This is the obligation to not remove a refugee claimant to a country where they may face the threat of persecution,” she said.

The three organizations sent a letter to the federal and provincial ministers of immigration on March 24, 2023, calling on them to immediately provide funding to ensure that refugee claimants have access to legal aid. Only the provincial minister responded, but made no commitment to fund refugee law legal aid despite the urgency.

“There is a human rights crisis unfolding in the province,” said Aditya Rao, lawyer and founding board member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre in New Brunswick. Rao has met directly with two unrepresented claimants to answer questions about the refugee claim process through a settlement agency tasked with providing services to claimants in Fredericton.

“The settlement agencies are doing everything they can, but they cannot provide legal assistance for refugee claims. And for these individuals, everything hinges on the success or failure of their refugee claim. In my view, by relocating refugee claimants to a jurisdiction where they have no meaningful access to legal counsel, the federal government is knowingly putting lives at risk,” he said.

The refugee claimants are in hotels in Fredericton and Moncton under a program managed by a federal government subcontractor, Xpera. A recent news report has raised concerns about the company pressuring refugee claimants to complete their refugee claims with no access to counsel and preventing a lawyer from meeting her client in the client’s hotel room.

While no new money has been provided for legal aid, the report notes that Xpera received $4.5 million for their work in Atlantic Canada in February.

Advocates at the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre are sounding the alarm about the exploitation of migrant workers in New Brunswick following a new report released today by researchers from Dalhousie University and St. Thomas University.

The report, which the Madhu Centre reviewed an earlier draft of, paints a dire portrait of the situation through the pandemic. Low wages, overcrowded housing, long work hours, few breaks, and generally exploitative working conditions.

Workers also described paying high fees to recruiters to be able to work in New Brunswick, with one worker having paid $11,000 for their contract. New Brunswick does not have protections against unscrupulous recruitment practices like Nova Scotia and PEI do.

“Employers are behaving in ways that are not just unconscionable, but also illegal – such as threatening workers with deportation if they stand up for their rights, and forcing evictions on workers through relocations,” said Aditya Rao, a board member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

“These findings confirm what we have been hearing directly from workers,” he added. The Madhu Centre raised concerns earlier this month that migrant workers are being denied access to public healthcare, which is also a finding of the report.

The temporary foreign worker program is exploitative by design.

The Madhu Centre joins the authors of the report in their recommendations to the provincial and federal governments in calling for immediate reform. These include ending the use of closed work permits, guaranteeing permanent residence on arrival, granting Medicare on arrival for temporary foreign workers and enhancing worker protections.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Premiers meet in Ottawa for a First Ministers’ meeting on health care on February 7, migrant rights groups in the Maritimes are calling on provincial governments to extend Medicare coverage to everyone in their provinces regardless of immigration status.

Public health care advocates want strings attached to federal health transfers to the provinces to ensure accountability and access to health care. Migrant rights groups in the Maritimes say one of those strings should be Medicare on arrival for temporary foreign workers and Medicare for all regardless of immigration status. The groups want the federal government to extend the Interim Federal Health Program to temporary foreign workers while the provinces work to change provincial legislation on health care coverage.

Quotes:

Aditya Rao, Founding Board Member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice in New Brunswick:

“We want Medicare on arrival for temporary foreign workers in New Brunswick like in the province of Quebec. Migrant workers with six to eight-month work permits are often precluded from ever being eligible for Medicare because of the province’s one-year residency requirement. While employers are required to provide private health insurance to workers until they are eligible for Medicare, we know these private health plans are far from comprehensive and does not cover primary health and laboratory fees. It is unacceptable that migrant workers, many of them earning well below a living wage, must pay out-of-pocket for health care. It violates the principles of universality, accessibility and comprehensiveness found in the Canada Health Act.”

“Migrant workers face numerous barriers when attempting to access health care. Many workers do not access health care and take sick leave when they should, fearing it could jeopardize their status in the country and future renewals of their contracts. Workers have told us employers are playing doctor, diagnosing and dissuading them from accessing health care. Furthermore, temporary foreign workers in New Brunswick are concentrated in rural regions with inadequate public transit, making it especially difficult to access health care. All of these barriers make extending Medicare to all migrant workers important.”

A temporary foreign worker employed in a lobster processing plant in New Brunswick who wishes to remain anonymous to avoid reprisals as told to Niger Saravia Arevalo, an Organizer with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in Miramichi:

“When we come here to work, we do not get any information about how to get health care in New Brunswick, So when someone gets sick and goes to the doctor, we have to pay $30 per visit. Employers do not share any information on how to apply for a Medicare. Most of the workers don't even know what is Medicare or how to access those services.”

Kerian Burnett, a cancer patient and former migrant farm worker who is advocating for health coverage for migrant workers in Nova Scotia:

“There are lots of Jamaicans here and other migrant workers here, which they come here for work. Nobody wants to be sick, but eventually you get sick. Now we are working for the minimum wage. There is no way if you get sick, and you have a bill at the hospital, how are we going to pay these bills? Actually, I’m not really doing this for myself alone. I’m doing this for every farmworker that doesn’t have access to public health care here in Canada.”

Stacey Gomez, Manager of the Migrant Workers Program, No One is Illegal – Nova Scotia:

“In Nova Scotia, migrant workers must have a one-year work permit to have access to public healthcare coverage. Migrant workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program can only be in Canada for up to a maximum of eight months of the calendar year, though many come year after year. They and other migrant workers are systemically excluded from public health care coverage. Health care is a human right and everyone should have access.”

Ryan MacRae, Program Coordinator for Cooper Institute in PEI:

“To receive Medicare in PEI, international workers must have a valid work permit entitling them to work in PEI for over 183 days. Many workers do not meet this threshold, forcing them to rely on the emergency medical insurance required to be purchased by their employer. The coverage under these plans is similar to travel insurance and requires workers to pay for medical services out of pocket to be reimbursed in the future. We have seen workers turn down medical attention because it would require them to pay nearly $900 at the ER. Such thresholds result in workers not receiving the medical attention they deserve.”

Rebecca MacDonald, an Organizer with the Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network in Sydney, Nova Scotia:

“International students do not qualify for MSI in Nova Scotia until they have been here for 12 months; they are required to purchase health coverage at a high cost through their designated learning institution which provides basic overall coverage, yet does not cover everything. For example, a student who gets pregnant and delivers their child before their MSI takes effect can end up thousands of dollars in debt to the public health care system (tens of thousands if there are any complications with the birth). Yet, if a student's spouse has an open work permit, they can obtain MSI and then claim their partner as a dependent, resulting in MSI coverage before the 12 month waiting period. The various requirements for students to gain access to MSI in Nova Scotia has left many without access to the care they need and deserve, and has left others indebted, often in scenarios where they cannot afford to pay. International students deserve access to health care upon arrival to Nova Scotia.”