Fuerza Puwersa Migrant Solidarity-Guelph

Alfredo, a migrant worker who worked for Topline/Armstrong Produce (Leamington, Ontario) and now lives in Red Deer Alberta, desperately needs our solidarity and support.

End the exploitation of migrant worker programs; status upon arrival! "After returning for 37 years to do back-bending work on three different farms in Ontario spending half his life away from his family in St. Lucia the 66-year-old migrant worker is anxious about his future. Eventually he’ll become too frail to do the work and too slow for his employer. Despite his long history here and devotion to his job, Stanio has always been just a guest in Canada. As a low-wage lab...ourer, despite his skills being in demand, he hasn’t been able to qualify for immigration. I used to carry my children’s photos with me to Canada because I wasn’t really there when they were growing up. Now I’m carrying my (five) grandchildren’s photos, said Stanio, sitting on a worn bench at the back of an old bunkhouse he shares with five Jamaican workers on a farm on the shores of Lake Erie. Many of us come back year after year to work on farms. It’s nothing temporary. Canadians just want us to do the jobs they won’t.

Migrant groups who were barred from the secretive-invitation-only-consultation converged in front of the Immigration building along 25 St. Clair Ave. East on Tuesday July 19 where the consultation was being held to protest to Immigration Minister John McCallum over immigration detention and in support of the hunger striking immigrant detainees. .. We know that the voices of 500,000 undocumented migrants across Canada will not be heard at this consultation. We know that the 100,000 of migrant workers will not be heard at this consultation. We know that the voices of the 1.5 million people with precarious status will never be at this consultation, said Tings Chak, organizer of the End Immigration Detention Network.