For All Who Feed Us: A Thanksgiving Sermon
Rev. Diane Rollert
Unitarian Church of Montreal, 8 October 2023
Querido Jesús,
Dear Jesús,
I’m calling you Jesús, because we never did exchange names, even though we spoke multiple times. We laughed and chatted in Spanish after we both figured out that you weren’t really that comfortable in French, and spoke no English. I was grateful that you had a Spanish language radio station playing that day when I came to pick up my vegetables from my neighbour’s organic farm. It was enough of an opening to begin a conversation.
—Esta programa, ¿de donde viene?
—¡Usted habla Español!
And so it began…
We were both sad when my neighbour decided to retire and sell his farm. You’d been coming every summer to work for him for several years. I asked you if you thought you’d return to Quebec. You told me yes, that you’d keep coming every year that you could, and that you’d have to look for another employer. And, no, you said, you had no interest in staying through the winter.
I don’t know where you ended up this past summer. I want to imagine that my neighbour treated you well, and that you found a new, equally just and kind employer. Living in farm country, I assume the best of my neighbours, but I don’t know the conditions you’ve had to endure. I’ve been incredibly naive.
Frankly, I don’t know the conditions of the other migrant farm workers I’ve met over the years, who come from Mexico like you, or Guatemala, and who seem pleased to meet someone who can converse in Spanish. I’ve probably deluded myself too often, thinking that if I treat migrant workers with respect as people who are as worthy and as important as me, that that’s enough. We laugh, we joke, we tell a little story or two about our past lives. But we don’t really talk about the present. If you are suffering, you would never tell me.
Once upon a time, your people were able to provide for themselves. There was work in your homeland for your family or your ancestors. Then something changed. The conquistadors, colonial powers and settlers came to disempower you. They took your land, because you had no system of legal papers, no deeds to show that the land was yours.
They created a system that never gave you status, that left your people dependant on work far from home. They said, “Sure, you can come here and work as long as your stay is temporary. We need your labour, but we can’t possibly afford to make you a permanent resident, let alone a citizen. We’ll make our people fear that immigrants want to take away their jobs, but then we’ll let you come in through a temporary backdoor. It’s a good deal for us. Your labour is cheaper and we won’t have to provide so much in return.”
Canada, this country that proclaims itself to be a champion of diversity and human rights, benefits from a global reputation that paints us as a just, caring and loving country. But this hides the ugly reality. Canada doesn’t offer you the status you need to be secure and safe. Instead, you are recruited as a temporary labourer, as a migrant with no real rights, except to work for the employer whose name is on your temporary work permit.
Even with the new open work permits, you can’t easily change employers. Meanwhile, what are you supposed to do to feed and shelter yourself?
They say that all workers in Canada have basic rights that we all enjoy. We cannot be forced to work overtime, or on statutory holidays. We have a right to rest periods, sick leave and workmen’s compensation. But for you, the temporary worker, none of that is true. There are exemptions, lots of exemptions, to make you work unbearable hours, to deny you minimum wage, to force you into debt to your employer, to live in substandard conditions, to keep you captive, to make you work while Canadian citizens enjoy all the human rights you are denied.
Jesús, how did I not know all of this? Silence, they say, is part Canada’s culture. We don’t talk about where our food comes from. We don’t talk about the temporary workers, the migrants, who live in fear of being deported if they speak out or file complaints about their conditions. We don’t talk about the migrants who are taking care of our children or our elders, or the migrants who are toiling in the fields.
I remember when my neighbour decided it was time to retire. It was during the pandemic. On the worst of those days, going to pick up my farm basket was the highlight of my week, the one outing we were allowed. Choosing from that week’s vegetables was my greatest joy. Saying hello to you and my neighbour, through the protection of our masks, was one of the few limited personal interactions that I experienced during that time.
But my neighbour said it was just too hard. The pandemic had delayed your arrival during the most crucial month of the season, Jesús. Without you, the work was too much. You and all the other temporary workers who had been so invisible to us were suddenly renamed “essential”. The way you were described was changed, but your status and treatment remained the same. Essential temporary workers took the brunt of Covid-19 and we did nothing for them.
There’s this poem I want to share with you. Maybe you can relate to it. I’m still reeling from the power of these words.
The poem is by Gabriel Allahdua, a former agricultural farm worker who was forced by a hurricane to migrate from St. Lucia, and who is now a migrant labour advocate and an author.
[This is from the excellent podcast “Essential but Disposable Labour: Migrant Workers Exploited in Canada,” produced by the Collaborative Network to End Exploitation, cnee.ca. I recommend listening to the whole series.]
Gabriel writes, “I am…”
a God
from my surname, Allahdua, a Muslim name for God;
from my ancestor on my father's side, an indentured
worker from India
an Angel
for my given name, the Angel Gabriel; from Christianity,
a religion imposed on my ancestors; colonization;
they've made me an angel because my labor is used to
create somebody else's heaven
a Slave
like my mother's ancestors, exploited for my labor, far
away from home
a Half Human
denied basic human rights; second-class under Canadian law
a Lab Rat
in the grand employment experiment. Everything that has
been introduced into the Canadian workplace — short-term,
contract, “flexible” employment — has been tried
on us for 57 years.
What they try on migrant farm workers, they'll try on
you next.
Gabriel Allahdua says that if he could, he would go to every house in Canada and tell his story. Maybe you would want to do the same.
Gabriel says:
“The way it is packaged to the Canadian public, it is packaged in such a nice way. It is packaged as buy local. And I love to buy local. When you buy local you're buying freshness. You're supporting the local economy. And buying freshness means more nutritious food, healthier food. The real story, the hidden story, is the hands that really go into the production of your food. The people who are planting it; the people who are caring for the crops. The people are picking it. The people are packaging it; the people who are processing it; the people who are distributing it. And when you go to the restaurants, most of the people who are preparing our foods, they are people of colour… And that is what COVID did. It exposed the people who are really in the front line, marginalized people.”
Canada says, “Send me your people of colour, send me people who don’t really speak English or French, who will be ignorant about human rights and labour laws. That way they will be submissive. They will be afraid to lose their jobs, and no one will say anything.”
It’s the whole system that keeps the colonized, the Global South, and developing nations in debt to global financial institutions. These are the people who are forced to work elsewhere. With climate change, the imbalance is only getting worse.
Canada has a long history of unjust labour practices that have exploited Indigenous and migrant people of colour. But we don’t talk about that.
Jesús, what I would tell you, if we ever meet again, is what I’ve learned from the angel Gabriel. He says that as unjust as this system may be, there are some rays of hope. There are migrant workers who are speaking out and advocating for their rights. Labour unions are starting to see that all worker’s fates are tied together.
And maybe, people like me, other Canadians, have started to question the system that is keeping migrant workers in bondage. I can only hope that we will not forget the lessons of the pandemic and the importance of all our essential workers. I can only hope that we will start to really pressure our provincial and federal governments to open more just and equal pathways to immigration for all kinds of workers, not just favouring white and so called “skilled” office workers, but also those who do the most essential and necessary work with their hands, so that your status is more than temporary, and your human rights are protected.
Querido Jesús, gracias para todo. I want you to know how grateful I am to you. But I also need to apologize. You have contributed to the heaven on earth that I experience, and I am only beginning to recognize how much I owe you for that. May I no longer remain silent.
Blessings on your path. Vaya con Dios.
In humility, gratitude and solidarity,
Diane