¿Fuera del Contrato? Possibilities and Impossibilities of Unauthorized Employment in Canadian Agriculture

• In Event: Migrations, Precarities and Illegalizations in the Americas, Panel I

Abstract

Agricultural migrant workers have experienced increasing job insecurity in the last few decades in Canada. Threatened with repatriation and replacement by other workers, migrants feel that their employment in Canada is precarious. In response to this form of precarity, some migrants choose to live and work in Canada without authorization, thus trading one form of insecurity for another. While mobility between legal and “illegal” statuses has been recognized by many researchers, it is important to recognize the limits of this mobility. In this article we compare two rural communities, one in Quebec and one in Southwestern Ontario. We argue that in the community situated in Quebec, similar to many other communities in Canada, it is virtually impossible to live and work without authorization due to extensive surveillance by employers and the lack of infrastructure that makes it possible for unauthorized workers to find employment, housing, and social support. By contrast, in the community situated in Southwestern Ontario, such an infrastructure started emerging in the first decade of the 21st century. Yet, as we argue, even there, the infrastructure of “illegality” was not sustainable. While immigration control and deportations played an important role in the demise of this infrastructure, the availability of easily exploitable and compliant temporary agricultural workers from a variety of countries made the unauthorized labour force redundant. We therefore argue that a well-greased machinery of “temporary migration” has made escape from “unfreedom” untenable.

Author

• Tanya M Basok, University of Windsor