"$500m lawsuit seeks to expose history of racial injustice against migrant workers in Canada,"

The proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against the federal government on behalf of migrant workers who were employed in Canada over the past 15 years. 

According to The Toronto Star, the case deals specifically with farm workers and alleges that the reasoning used to justify their employment is fundamentally racist.

The conditions of migrant farm worker employment through Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) tie migrants to a specific employer, unlike an open permit which authorizes people to seek work elsewhere...

the lawsuit utilizes “historical records to argue that employer-specific work permits were imposed on Black and Indo-Caribbean farmworkers because of their race and that it was motivated by overtly racist policy objectives.”

Consequently, Goldblatt Partners, in conjunction with Koskie Minsky and Martinez Law, are seeking $500 million in restitution for employment insurance paid out by migrant workers despite them being ineligible for benefits if they lose their job, The Toronto Star reported.

Chris Ramsaroop, a representative of the volunteer-run political collective Justice For Migrant Workers, told Now Toronto that Canada’s food system has profited significantly from “the blood, sweat, sacrifices and tears of Black and Brown workers from the global south.”

“Our farms are propped up by a system of indentured labour that is based on systemic racism and the belief that farm workers should never be treated as equals in our society,” Ramsaroop said in an email statement on Monday.

“Tied work permits reinforce asymmetrical power imbalances between migrant farm workers and employers by denying migrants labour and social mobility,” he continued...