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More on Ontario’s seasonal worker program
We continue our conversation with Ontario vegetable farmer Ken Forth. He is president of a group of farmers in Ontario who have operated a seasonal agricultural worker program for 48 years.
The Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Service (FARMS) is contracted with the governments of Mexico, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad-Tobago and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to bring in 16,000 seasonal farm workers every year. The workers will be in Canada anywhere from 8 weeks to 8 months depending upon the job they are hired to do. The farmer applies to have workers and they pay for the transportation. While in Canada, the workers are paid at least the Provincial minimum wage, they are covered by the Canadian health care system and they pay into the Canadian retirement plan which they will get paid upon retirement no matter where they live.
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