Workers allege program rooted in racial discrimination locks them into exploitative conditions
A class action challenging the federal Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program just cleared a major hurdle. Justice E.M. Morgan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified the case brought by Kevin Palmer and Andrel Peters — two former SAWP participants who say the program's employment restrictions violate their Charter rights.
The certified class covers every worker employed under the SAWP since January 1, 2008. The federal government has already identified exactly 74,785 people who fall within that group.
Tied to one employer, housed on the farm, sent home at season's end
The SAWP allows foreign nationals from 12 countries — 11 Caribbean nations and Mexico — to work on Canadian farms for up to eight months a year. Every worker signs a standard, government-imposed contract that ties them to approved employers, requires them to live in employer-provided housing, and forces them to leave Canada when the season ends.
Unlike other temporary foreign workers, SAWP participants cannot extend or renew their work permits from within Canada.
The plaintiffs argue these restrictions violate their rights under sections 7 and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — curtailing their freedom to choose where to work, where to live, and leaving them vulnerable to employers who hold significant power over their continued stay in the country.
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has previously observed that "the structure of the SAWP is such as to create one of the primary conditions of vulnerability" for workers — a point the court referenced in its analysis.
Archival memos reveal the program's origins
The evidentiary record includes an affidavit from Professor Victor Satzewich of McMaster University, who compiled decades of internal government documents showing that the SAWP was designed not just to fill labour shortages, but to keep racialized Caribbean workers from settling permanently in Canada.
A 1955 memo from the Director of the Immigration Branch stated explicitly that "it has long been the policy of this Department to restrict the admission to Canada of coloured or partly coloured persons."
A 1966 internal memo dismissed the idea of allowing Jamaican workers into factory settings, warning that introducing "Jamaican males into the plants and provide accommodation adjacent to that used by domestic female labour could create social difficulties."
The court found that the totality of Professor Satzewich's evidence "supports his conclusion that the SAWP was built in the 1960s and 1970s around the stereotyping and prejudice held against racialized workers from the Caribbean, and the stereotyping and exploitation imposed on workers from Mexico."
Paying into EI but locked out of benefits
The case also takes aim at the requirement that SAWP workers pay Employment Insurance premiums — even though they are structurally unable to collect benefits. Because workers must leave Canada when their contracts end, they cannot meet the EI requirement of being available for work.
The plaintiffs allege that Canada permits workers to collect EI while residing in the United States, but not in Mexico or the Caribbean.
The court found this unjust enrichment claim to be tenable, noting that "the EI policy requires workers whose job has terminated to be available for new work, while the SAWP policy requires workers whose job has terminated to leave Canada at the end of their visa term."
Why the Ontario action moves forward despite Quebec overlap
The Crown argued that a broader national class action already authorized in Quebec — covering all temporary foreign workers since 1982 — should take precedence. But Justice Morgan found the Ontario case is narrower and more focused. Both parties concede the Quebec class potentially numbers in the hundreds of thousands or even millions, while the Ontario action targets a known group of 74,785 SAWP workers with program-specific claims, including the EI premium issue, which is entirely absent from the Quebec proceeding.
The case will now proceed to a common issues trial.
