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33 
 

The Seasonal Moral Contract: The Legitimization 
of the Abusive Treatment of Caribbean Workers in 

Ontario 
Cecilia Saez 

 

Migrant seasonal farm workers have become a staple in the 
food production industry across rural Ontario. Under the Seasonal 
Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), more than 15,000 Caribbean 
workers arrive in Ontario each year to address the labour shortage 
(Faraday, 2012). Despite the "structural necessity" of importing 
labour (Basok, 2002), the legal conditions that surround farm 
workers leave them susceptible to abuse and completely dependent 
on their employer (Rosemblum, 2000). Under the intersection of 
current Federal and Provincial laws, these programs are 
"entrenching and normalizing a low-wage, low-rights 'guest' 
workforce on terms that are incompatible with Canada’s 
fundamental Charter of rights and freedoms, human rights, and 
labour rights" (Faraday, 2012, p.5). 

 Throughout this paper I will argue that the institutional 
construction of Caribbean workers as temporal and non-Canadian 
labour, has allowed abusive working conditions to be legitimized and 
normalized. Some of the historical and social factors that underlie 
the differences in the treatment of Canadian workers versus 
Caribbean workers in Canada will be explored. Furthermore, this 
paper will emphasize how the mistreatment of migrant workers is 
embedded within Canada's laws, which leads to an understanding of 
immigrants as "cheap, flexible labour" (Basok, 2002; Sharma, 2001). 
Underlying the "cheap" labour principle, this paper will also critique 
the "liberal and state-centered view of morality" applied to 
Caribbean workers (Bagchi, 2008, p. 200). Following this argument, 
this paper will emphasize how the creation of a new category of 
"non-Canadians" allows employers to strip migrant workers of most 
of the "human, civil and other 'rights' of citizenship available to 
'Canadians'" (Sharma, 2001, p. 419). 

 Historically, Canada's legislation has advanced to become a 
pillar of moral justice; the inclusion of the Canadian Charter of 
Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution indicated the commitment 
to the protection of human rights, freedom and equity. Despite the 
legal advances to protect human rights, many of the regulations have 



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34 
 

drawn a clear distinction on who is under the protection of the 
Charter of Rights and who isn't. This binary code of rights reflects 
how "moral order 'is an organized system of rights, obligations and 
duties in a society, together with the criteria by which people and 
their activities are valued" (Harre, 1983; as quoted by Krebs and 
Denton, 2005. p. 633).  

  Reliance on "temporary" workers has increased tri-fold in 
the last two decades (Faraday, 2012); and this reliance on foreign 
workers has allowed the Canadian state to "cheapen the labour" in 
order to stay 'globally competitive' (Sharma, 2001, p. 419). The 
differential treatment of Caribbean seasonal workers is emphasized 
through legislative reforms that maintain "racist and nationalist" 
(Sharma, 2001, p. 419) discourses that perpetuate the status quo of 
"foreigners" being unprotected from Canadian law. Under 
international agreements, Caribbean seasonal workers are hired to 
work for up to eight months each year in Ontario to meet planting 
and harvesting needs (Brem, 2006). Unlike skilled-worker 
immigration programs, seasonal workers are denied the possibility 
of applying for Canadian permanent residency (Faraday, 2012).  

 The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program was drafted to 
legally import foreign workers into Canada to meet the "temporary" 
seasonal needs of agricultural producers during peak harvesting and 
planting periods, when there are traditionally shortages of qualified 
Canadian workers (Rosenblum, 2009). Despite the "temporal need" 
of foreign labour, statistics show that between 70% and 80% of 
Caribbean workers come back to Canada year after year to work with 
the same employer (Faraday, 2012). A survey revealed that six 
hundred seasonal workers participate in the SAWP for seven to nine 
years, while nearly a quarter participate on the program for more 
than 10 years; some keep returning for more than 25 years (Faraday, 
2012).  

 By law however, seasonal workers regardless of "their long-
term attachment to the Canadian labour market, [...] do not acquire 
any rights to apply for permanent residence" (Faraday, 2012,  p.15). 
The inability of Caribbean labourers to become Canadian residents 
leaves workers under the 'temporary' category, permanently (Basok, 
2012). Social movements have challenged the notion, advocating that 
if they are "good enough to work here, they are good enough to stay" 
(Faraday, 2012). However, low-skill workers' characteristics seem to 



CARIBBEAN QUILT | 2013 

 

35 
 

evoke strong negative moral judgments based on the perceived 
threat that foreigners take jobs away from Canadians (Sharma, 
2001).      

 According the SAWP programme, only those who have 
worked in agriculture and are responsible for the economic well-
being of their households, while having experienced difficulties in 
finding other viable sources of subsistence within their country 
qualify as an Ontario seasonal worker (Basok, 2002; Brem, 2006). 
These criteria indicate that the workers selected for the program are 
skilled to work in food production in Canada for most of the year, but 
do not have the prerequisites necessary to apply under an immigrant 
program that would allow them and their families, to apply for 
Canadian residency. Under any other immigration category, 
individuals have the possibility to apply for residency after two or 
more years of Canadian employment. Additionally, under most 
categories, immigrants enjoy the protection of the laws served to 
ensure job security, health and safety regulations of Canadian 
citizens from the moment they arrive into Canada (Faraday, 2012).  

 The reality of Caribbean workers is much different under 
the rules governing the Seasonal Worker Program. While in Canada,  
migrants work seven days a week, averaging ten hours a day to a 
staggering 15 hours during harvesting season; workers are not 
entitled to vacation pay and are not eligible to overtime pay 
regardless of the hours worked (Brem, 2006). Workers earn slightly 
above the Ontario minimum wage, a quarter of their salary is taken 
by income tax, C.P.P., E.I. and other costs associated with their 
transportation (Brem, 2006; Faraday, 2012). Despite their 
contribution to Canadian taxes and other work related programs, the 
money discounted from their pay cheques is not reflected in the 
benefits they receive (Basok, 2002). Furthermore, due to the 
widespread  lack of information available to seasonal workers, most 
workers are not aware of their rights and do not claim the benefits 
accessible to them (Brem, 2006). 

 Work insecurity is a prevailing issue affecting migrant 
workers. Under the program, farm owners can send workers back to 
their countries indiscriminately; getting sick or challenging the 
bosses are seen as acceptable reasons to fire workers. If employment 
is terminated and the employee was not requested by name, the 
worker is responsible for covering relocation costs (Basok, 2002; 
Brem, 2006; Faraday, 2012). Critics of the legislation guiding 



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THE SEASONAL MORAL CONTRACT 

 

 

36 
 

migrant worker employment, argue that the program provides little 
protection to the employee and assigns a great deal of authority to 
the employer, leaving the worker in a state of work insecurity and 
uncertainty (Brem, 2006; Faraday, 2012). The rules that apply to 
foreign labour are in opposition to the laws erected to protect 
Canadian workers from exploitation and from physical and 
emotional distress. 

 By identifying seasonal workers as "non-Canadians", who 
would otherwise endure dire working conditions in the Caribbean, 
their exploitation in Canada is perceived as "a lesser evil" and thus, 
normalized and accepted. The institutionalization of regulatory 
measures that uphold differential treatment towards low-skilled 
workers in an effort to meet Canadian labour market's demands is 
not a novel notion. Between 1881 and1885, large numbers of Chinese 
immigrants were brought to Canada to work on the construction of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). As soon as the railways were 
completed, the Federal Government moved to restrict Chinese 
immigration (ibid.). Lester (2002) argues that Canadians felt 
threatened by "Asiatic people in general, allowing only that they had 
their uses as cheap labour" (p. 204). To this day, much of the same 
discourses are maintained at governmental levels. In 2008, Robert 
Ford, at the time a councilor for an Etobicoke ward, said "[t]hose 
Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are 
workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines. That's why they 
are successful in life. [...]. I'm telling you, the Oriental people, they 
are slowly taking over" (Ford, 2008). Expressions of foreign workers 
as individuals with an inherently higher level of resilience, that can 
work under conditions not acceptable for Canadians, has served to 
create the binary discourse of who is deserving of human rights and 
who is not within the Canadian work force.  

 Hence, the discourses that led to the creation of a new 
category of "non-Canadians" have been propagated at different levels 
of government. In a parliamentary debate on migrant workers 
applying for jobs that students and unemployed Canadians could 
enjoy, MP H.W. Danforth claimed: 

We need this labour…and these people are used to working in the heat. 
They are used to working in agriculture, and they are satisfied with the 
pay scale… Canadians do not want to work this job-many of them do not, 
and have expressed this feeling in no uncertain terms-then I say that the 
producers of this nation are entitled to offshore competent labour from 



CARIBBEAN QUILT | 2013 

 

37 
 

wherever it may come... if these people are willing to work under the 
conditions prevailing in Canada today and produce crops for Canadian 
consumers (as quoted by Sharma, 2001). 

This passage reflects the fact that addressing the abusive 
conditions of the farming industry is not a priority; the solution is to 
find "other" people that would accept these conditions. Sharma 
(2001) argues that "parliamentary practices [...] reproduce the 
ideologies of racism and nationalism that help to hold in place 
commonsensical notions about the 'natural' superiority/inferiority of 
differentiated groups of people (p. 432). 

 Resembling the importation of migrant workers to deal with 
the labour shortage for the construction of the CPR, the seasonal 
farmers program is a "temporary" worker program that attempts to 
respond to the lack of readily available manual labor in the Canadian 
agricultural sector. Sharma (2001) argues that "much of this 
'shortage' is qualitative" (p. 433) not quantitative since foreign 
workers are recruited for jobs Canadian citizens turn down because 
they are able to find employment that renders better pay, better 
living conditions and does not confine them to a specific employer 
for a set amount of time (Sharma, 2001). In her book Tomatoes and 
Tortillas, Basok argues that temporary workers are a "structural 
necessity" to the development and maintenance of the food 
production industry (2002, p. 12). Additionally, the author argues 
that the existence of the agricultural industry as we know it relies on 
"unfree workers", who are physically tied to their work at all times 
and who are unable to decline the demands of employers (Basok, 
2002). 

 In the documentary entitled "El Contrato" (2003) ("The 
Contract") Min Sook Lee, follows a Mexican worker through his 
journey to Canada, showing the abusive reality that workers endure 
while employed in Ontario farms. The film shows how farm owners 
housed ten men in a very small apartment, leaving the workers to 
share one bathroom and providing them with only the bare living 
essentials (Lee, 2003). From the point of view of Canadian 
employers however, Caribbean workers are better off in Canada than 
in their home country, transforming the abusive living conditions 
experienced in Canada as "better standards of living" (anonymous, 
National Film board, 2003); thus, acceptable to foreign workers.  



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THE SEASONAL MORAL CONTRACT 

 

 

38 
 

 Underlying the difference in perception for Canadian 
workers versus non-Canadian "temporary" workers, are the laws 
governing the immigrant seasonal program which differ greatly from 
those applied to protect "Canadian" workers. For example, under the 
SAWP program in Ontario, farmers have to provide workers with 
"acceptable" housing accommodation. However, the laws that guide 
the standards are bleak and very little control is exercised over the 
farm owners (Brem, 2006). Scholars have criticized the municipal 
timing of housing assessments as they happen before the workers 
arrive, leading to the invisibility of the conditions under which 
migrants actually live in (Basok, 2002; Brem, 2006).  

 It is the legalization of "unfreedom" that serves as the back 
bone of the seasonal program contract (Basok, 2002),a condition 
deemed illegal if applied to "Canadian" workers. Guided by economic 
principles of "cheap labour", the maintenance of the "non-Canadian" 
discourses have been necessary to craft laws that allow for the 
differential treatment. The research conducted for this study has not 
reflected a sense of moral conflict from Ontario farm owners based 
on migrant working conditions. On the contrary, employers 
understand the work opportunity they provide as "aid from the rich 
to the poorer states for rescuing the [...] desperately poor" (Bagchi, 
2008, p. 1).  

 After exploring the conditions forced onto foreign workers, 
one must question why Caribbean workers keep coming back year 
after year if they endure such abusive working conditions in Canada. 
The answer to this question is reflected on the selection criteria of 
the SAWP, as well as the conditions that keep the workers from 
defending their rights. According to Brem (2006), the opportunity to 
earn Canadian wages provides Caribbean workers with a viable 
approach to deal with the rising unemployment and 
underemployment from their developing country (Brem, 2006, p. 6). 
The poverty experienced makes foreign workers ideal candidates to 
participate in the SAWP, making them the most vulnerable 
population within the Canadian labour market and the least resistant 
to abusive situations (Sharma, 2001). 

 If a worker is "good", then under the 'naming' practice, an 
employer can 'request' a specific worker to return the following 
harvesting season "so long as they remain satisfactory to employers" 
(Brem, 2006, p. 4). However, due to the institutionalization of 



CARIBBEAN QUILT | 2013 

 

39 
 

abusive practices, the workers are, for the most part, unable to voice 
their concerns (Basok, 2002). For seasonal workers of the program, 
the implication of complaining or refusing to do what is asked 
implies being sent back or being "blacklisted" from the program 
(Basok, 2002; Brem, 2006). Faraday (2012), argues that this 
systematic deportation does not allow workers to fight their cases in 
court, which places employers above the judicial Canadian system. 
The fear of deportation prevents workers from making official 
complaints while in Canada (Brem, 2006).  

 In order to make "Canadian" wages, seasonal workers are 
forced to leave their families behind for extensive periods of time. 
Basok (2000) argues that Caribbean workers’ "traditional morality" 
illuminates how the cultural repertoires of gender can emphasize the 
importance of  males working to provide for their families despite 
abusive conditions. While working in Canada for most of the year, 
workers are bound by intense and inescapable proximity since 
workers live together and work together; the factory like settings of 
most greenhouses leave the workers with little to no alone time 
(Basok, 2001). The constant surveillance of supervisors and other 
workers, increases the feelings of being observed and leads to 
conformity to the rules.  

 There is no "Canadian" moral obligation towards foreign 
workers because nations do not act as moral entities. However, the 
Canadian state works at shaping people's consciousness around the 
boundaries of who is deserving of the laws enacted to protect 
workers. The organization of the category of immigrant workers 
normalizes the denial of rights and employment entitlements for 
people under the "temporal", "non-Canadian" category. The 
development of a binary discourse that clearly distinguishes between 
the rights of Canadians and non-Canadians delineates the 
development of a twofold code of morality.  

 It is this, the institutionalization of a new category of "non-
Canadians" (Sharma, 2001) that legitimizes SAWP abusive 
regulations. According to Fiske (1992) "different types of 
relationships and social institutions are guided by different 
principles of care and justice, different sets of rights and duties, and 
different criteria for moral evaluation which are reflected in different 
kinds of moral judgments" (Krebs and Denton, 2005, p. 634). The 
view of Caribbean workers as "others" and the financial drive to 
make profits legitimizes the systematic abuse of workers. In this 



CECILIA SAEZ 
THE SEASONAL MORAL CONTRACT 

 

 

40 
 

period of globalization and neo-liberalism, the laws that guide the 
importation of "cheap labour" allows Canada to offer a competitive 
market for national and international business that have seen the 
agricultural industry soar at the hands of Caribbean workers.  

 In this seasonal contract, hard work is expected from 
Caribbean workers for the opportunity to enjoy what is perceived as 
a "better" opportunity than that of their homeland employment. The 
lack of financial resources in their home country forces seasonal 
workers to abide by the rules and to return to Canada year after year. 
Seasonal employment allows workers to go back to home with some 
hard-earned money in their pockets and they do not return because 
they agree with the working conditions, they return because they 
have no choice.   



CARIBBEAN QUILT | 2013 

 

41 
 

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THE SEASONAL MORAL CONTRACT 

 

 

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