Saint Lucia-born activist Gabriel Allahdua is party to a class-action lawsuit against the Government of Canada, challenging a closed work permit policy.
The lawsuit challenges part of Canada’s temporary foreign worker programme as unconstitutional for restricting participants to working only for their sponsoring employers.
Allahdua, now a Canadian citizen, spent four years as a seasonal migrant farm worker in Canada, and published a book exposing the injustices workers face and highlighting measures to improve the situation.
He told St. Lucia Times that a Montreal group called The Rights of Household and Farm Workers filed the class-action lawsuit last year.
Last week, a Quebec court gave the green light to the legal action.
Allahdua asserted that Canada’s closed work permit limits migrant workers’ rights.
He hoped that the court action would result in a ruling that it is unlawful, unethical and violates human rights.
According to the migrant worker rights activist, in 1982, Canada signed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, pledging equal rights.
However, Allahdua declared that the closed work permit constitutes a human rights violation.
“We are hoping that instead of getting a closed work permit every migrant worker would get an open work permit, helping them to accept lots of the things they are denied and excluded from,” he told St. Lucia Times.
Byron Alfredo Acevedo Tobar, the designated class action member, came to Canada on a closed work permit in 2014 to work in a poultry-catching business.
The Toronto Star reported him claiming he was required to work an average of 12 hours a night with only three 10-minute breaks, catching up to 40,000 chickens a night, at a rate of five chickens in each hand for every catch.
Tobar also said he was frequently underpaid or paid late.
According to the Toronto Star, he alleged that he feared complaining could lead to being fired, threatening his status in Canada and his livelihood.
Gabriel Allahdua acknowledged greater awareness of the plight of migrant workers since his book detailing their situation and agreed that fear prevents those affected from speaking out.
“Canada has a culture of silence. Nobody speaks about it,” he lamented.
He asserted that there have been ‘band-aid solutions’ that do not get to the root of the problem.
“The more people become aware of the problem, the more they can apply pressure on the politicians,” Allahdua stated.
He recalled that the United Nations Rapporteur, in a report, described the policy of tying migrant workers to their employer as a breeding ground for modern forms of slavery.
Regarding a time-frame for the conclusion of the class-action lawsuit against the Canadian Government, Allahdua could only admit that the court system is very slow in every country.
Nevertheless, he hoped the process would not take very long.
