This year, Ontario will open its borders and welcome in more than 18,000 agricultural workers from other countries.
These men and women will toil in our fields and orchards, in our greenhouses and barns.
They will endure scorching suns, freezing winds, driving rains, mud, dirt, dust and bad odours.
They will pick our fruit, vegetables and tobacco; they will care for our chickens and hogs.
They will feed us. They will enrich our economy.
And they will achieve this by working for pay and under conditions that the vast majority of Ontarians would disdainfully reject.
These labourers and temporary residents in Canada will do much for those of us lucky enough to call this place home.
In return, beyond seeing they are properly recompensed before we send them home, we have a responsibility to ensure they are safe and protected when they are in this country.
Sadly, at a Perth County crossroads on Monday afternoon a week ago, it increasingly appears that the people of Ontario did not live up to this responsibility.
Eleven people died in the hamlet of Hampstead when a van filled with migrant workers failed to stop at a stop sign and was struck by a transport truck.
The driver of the 15-passenger GMC van was not certified to be at the steering wheel of this kind of vehicle. He lacked the proper licence to be ferrying people in a kind of van that has been described not just as unstable and difficult to handle but as a death trap.
Moreover, he had worked hard all day vaccinating chickens before starting to take a crew of migrant workers back home to Kitchener.
These two facts alone raise important questions, not only about what happened in this terrible crash but about how well our laws and safety standards are being enforced when it comes to Ontario’s temporary workforce.
In addition, it now turns out that the three survivors of the collision are not covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, even though temporary foreign workers with a valid work permit can be eligible for such a necessary benefit.
“This crash did not have to happen. These lives did not need to be lost,” Ontario Provincial Police Chief Supt. John Cain said at a news conference last week.
He’s right.
But beyond learning more about this specific incident, we need to know if our laws are strong enough to protect this large, foreign workforce that is here legally. Are the rules governing their transportation strong enough? Do we need to do more to ensure they are properly covered by our health insurance system?
We owe this much to so many who do so much for us.
An editorial from the Waterloo Region Record.