August 20, 2007
Canada-Mexico Guestworkers Program Under Fire
Frontera NorteSur
For some rural Mexicans, working in Canada is a viable alternative to the low pay of Mexico's
northern borderlands, or the dangerous crossing into the United States. Similar to the old Bracero Program between the United
States and Mexico, Mexican farmworkers sign temporary contracts to work legally in Canadian agriculture. According to a Mexican
congressional report, an estimated 15,000 Mexicans labor as agricultural guestworkers for up to eight months a stint in Canada.
Now, the attractiveness of the Canadian option might be fading too.
Amid growing reports of abuse, a group of Mexican
legislators is demanding that President Felipe Calderon raise the issue of working conditions when he talks with Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper as part of the North American Leaders' Summit in Canada this month.
"We know that in
October 2006, while he was president-elect, President Calderon expressed his disposition to expand the guestworker program
for Canada to the service and construction sectors," said Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, a representative for the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the lower house of the Mexican Congress. "Before (President Calderon) does this, he should
analyze how our countrymen our treated."
Recently touring Ontario, Quebec and other parts of Canada, a group of Mexican
legislators encountered complaints related to the working and living conditions of guestworkers.
Federal Congressman
Camerino Marquez Madrid, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), charged that isolated workers lack access to the
Canadian health system, worker's compensation and interpreters. He said workers were subject to firings without proper recourse.
Legislators also found that sending remittances from Canada was both difficult and costly.
Congressman Ramirez contended
that Mexican consulates in Canada are negligent in upholding the rights of their citizens, functioning instead like “a
giant immigrant smuggling operation" in recruiting and contracting guestworkers.
Reminiscent of the old Bracero
Program, reports indicate that the official Canada-Mexico program serves as a cover for deceitful labor contractors and extra-legal
relationships. Last June, for instance, a group of indigenous Mexicans from the municipality of Tlapa, Guerrero, agreed to
work in Canada without a contract.
In the run-up to the tri-national Canadian summit, the PRI and PRD representatives
in the lower house of the Mexican Congress urged President Calderon to discuss the treatment of guestworkers with his Canadian
counterpart.
Sources: El Universal/Notimex, August 12, 2007. El Sur/Agencia Reforma, July 2, 2007.
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Frontera
NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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(Reprinted with authorization
from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)
Translation FNS
