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ABSTRACT
With the support of CERIS Ontario Metropolis Centre and the Public Health Agency of Canada, this research identifies the myriad of health risks for international temporary migrants in agriculture, and characterizes the factors that may increase their vulnerability. Based on a quantitative survey of nearly 800 temporary migrants in agriculture, carried out in partnership with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, this research points to three important realities: 1) temporary migrants are a vulnerable population due to largely structural factors, 2) there are transnational health implications of temporary migration, such that, when temporary migrants become ill, they are unlikely to receive adequate treatment and thus return home with the illness unresolved, and 3) risk, vulnerability and transferability are compounded for this group and consequently, concerns regarding migrant health, particularly with respect to communicable/infectious, food-borne and water-borne disease, need to extend beyond the individual worker to both to migrants' home communities and Canadian communities.
As employment of temporary migrants in Canada increases in response to employer demand, it is important to recognize that health and safety of temporary migrants impacts health and safety across Canadian workplaces and Canadian communities. Moreover, temporary migrants, particularly those in lower-skilled jobs, may be more vulnerable to health risks than are resident workers. In addition, temporary migration, by its circular nature, has transnational health risks and implications for migrants, families and communities in sending and receiving countries.
Canadian temporary labour migration has reached a historical high, with 192,519 temporary migrant workers admitted in 2008, and 251,235 temporary migrant workers present in Canada on December 1st, 2008. The number of temporary migrants entering Canada's lower- skilled occupations was 65,801 in 2008 (CIC 2009). Combined with those already working in Canada, there are sizeable numbers of temporary migrants in lower-skilled occupations (nearly 100,000), many of whom have entered Canada under the new Pilot Project for Occupations Requiring Lower Levels of Formal Training (NOC C and D)1 (referred to as the "NOC C and D Pilot"). In lower-skilled occupations there was a 122% increase in employer requests for temporary migrant workers between 2005-2007, resulting in a jump from 29,281 confirmed temporary worker positions in NOC C and D levels in 2005 to 66,014 positions in 2007 and 101,917 by 2008...