A seasonal workers' programme benefits
both Canadians and Mexicans, writes, Andrea Mandel-Campbell
Excerpted from the April 20 2001
edition of The Financial Times
Summit of the Americas
 Not
long after Paul Bosc started his vineyard, Chateau des Charmes,
on the southern edge of Lake Ontario in Canada, he thought
he would have to give it up. While the temperate climate was
ideal for growing grapes, it never occurred to Mr Bosc that
there would be no one to pick the fruit. Mr. Bosc could barely
convince workers to return the next day, never mind the following
season. "People were coming to
work drunk and by noon, half of them were gone," he
says. "It was the bottom of the
barrel."
Then, he heard about a little-known,
seasonal agricultural workers' programme employing Mexicans.
Fifteen years later, Mr. Bosc still employs several of the
same Mexican workers to whom he first taught the delicate
craft of pruning and grafting.
"I could not have done it without them," he says.
Slowly, Canada's southern neighbour,
the US, is coming to the same conclusion. After decades of
spending billions of dollars barricading the border while
reaping the benefits of cheap, illegal labourers, the US is
acknowledging that Mexican workers are vital for filling a
similar void in its labour market.
Spurred on by Vicente Fox, Mexico's
newly elected president, and his calls for a seamless border
under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the US and
Mexico have, for the first time, begun talking about a co-ordinated
immigration policy.
In February, Mr Fox and US President
George W. Bush announced the creation of a cabinet-level task
force. After a meeting in Washington this month, the two sides
will meet again at the Summit of the Americas, which started
on Friday in Quebec City.
There is unintentional symbolism
in the choice of Canada to host the hemispheric meeting. In
the onerous negotiations coming up over regularisation of
some 3m Mexicans living illegally in the US and an increase
in work visas, Mexico is touting the Canadian programme as
a "new model for co-operation".
"It is a launching point for the
US," says Carlos Obrador, Mexican vice-consul in Toronto,
who is responsible for the programme. "It
is a real model for how migration can work in an ordered and
legal way."
Introduced by Canada in 1966 to bring
temporary workers from the Caribbean, the programme became
the single largest source of workers after Mexico entered
in 1974. But unlike the US, where legal seasonal workers often
face the same abuses as illegal migrants, the bilateral agreement
features built-in guarantees of working conditions.
Workers are assured of the minimum
wage and have the right to free healthcare, accident insurance
and a pension. Free housing, which includes a kitchen and
television, must be approved by local authorities and is also
subject to inspection by Mexican officials. For Artemio Sabino,
who has worked as a mojado or illegal in the US, there is
no comparison.
"They
describe the US as this great place but as mojado it is no
fun at all," he says. "I
am better off here, where I am free."
Returning to Chateau des Charmes
for the past 11 years, Mr Sabino saves some C$15,000 (US$9,600)
during his annual eight-month stint. He has used the money
to build a house, buy a small plot of land and put his two
daughters through private college.
The two governments also claim success
- 80 per cent of workers are repeat hires and very few have
stayed on in Canada illegally. There is even talk of expanding
the programme to include the construction and service sectors.
Even so, US bureaucrats remain sceptical.
To start, they say, the Canadian
programme is relatively easy to control as Canada does not
border Mexico, while the lack of a significant Mexican community
there discourages seasonal workers from overstaying.
More important, while the programme
has grown an average of 20 per cent annually, this year's
estimated 11,000 workers is minuscule compared with the 350,000-plus
mostly illegal Mexicans who cross into the US every year.
Managing a programme on that scale would mean a "huge
bureaucratic increase", they say.
Even now, the Mexicans warn that
if the Canadian programme gets much bigger they will have
to find new ways to share the administrative burden. Workers
and Canadian farmers also complain of bureaucracy and the
cost of providing housing; Mr. Bosc spent C$35,000 this year
to make room for 12 new workers.
Still, there are lessons to be learned.
Bilateral co-operation measures, from the certification of
Canadian farms to the selection of Mexican workers, stand
in sharp contrast to the hundreds of Mexicans who die each
year trying to cross the US border illegally or the thousands
who are exploited once they get there.
"It
is not a panacea but the programme is rich because it proves
the value of negotiation in obtaining advantages for both
sides," says Enrique Escorza, director for Canada at
Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry. "It
is mutually beneficial."
For Mr. Bosc, an immigrant himself,
the benefits are undeniable, particularly compared with the
alternatives. "I'm not American,
but if I was, I would be all in favour of something like this."
|
