Canada’s colonial past puts the vulnerable in a different set of chains

OTTAWA—“Slavery was 400 years ago. Get over it,” and “slavery didn’t happen in Canada, so why bring it up?” are both popular white proverbs to deflect from the fact the transatlantic slave trade was the world’s first bite at globalization, with Black bodies becoming the first internationally traded good. The scale and duration of this exercise in foreign relations generated benefits that white, wealthy, western countries used to build their economic and political power. African bodies built the West, not ingenuity. For a country like Canada that prides itself on human rights, multiculturalism, and diversity, it is quite a slap in the face to see its hypocrisy on full display. On Sept. 6, United Nations special rapporteur Tom Obokata called the government out on its two-faced policies around its foreign labour programs and their effects: “Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs are a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” The UN Human Rights Special Procedures’ Twitter account (I refuse to acknowledge the platform’s new name) supported Obokata’s statement: “Canada must do more to address modern slavery by protecting workers' rights and tackling discrimination that enables exploitation.” Stop the music. I thought slavery was over and that my Black self—a descendent of slaves—was divisive and racist by bringing it up (another white proverb). And guess who are among the most likely to become enslaved? Why, the usual suspects, of course, because anti-Black racism is more than just the n-word. Anti-Black racism is the structural, economic, and political conditions that continue to deny Black people equality and equity within frameworks stemming from slavery designed to exploit them. That’s right, there is a straight line from slavery to the disproportionate outcomes Black people face today. Don’t argue with me, go argue with your mama. “During his visit, Obokata … drew links between Canada’s colonial legacy and the disproportionate impact of contemporary forms of slavery on Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, who reported that law enforcement is often unresponsive to these concerns,” said a release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In other words, Canada has formed, implemented, and continues to administrate a repressive structure that has allowed and encouraged the exploitation of vulnerable people stemming from its colonial past. Because these structures and systems are already in place, it’s not difficult to expand and refine them. And that’s what Canada has done. Last year, Jamaican temporary foreign worker Garvin Yapp was killed at Berlo's Best Farm in Norfolk County, Ont. Jamaican farm workers in the Niagara region penned an open letter to “Jamaica's Ministry of Labour requesting more support in the face of what they call ‘systematic slavery,’” according to CBC News. This letter was written days before Yapp’s death. In addition to Jamaicans, workers from the Philippines and Mexico face the following conditions and treatment, as documented by the CBC: “Workers described housing conditions as so poor that rats eat their food. They live in crowded rooms with zero privacy with cameras, and lack dryers to dry their clothes after it rains…On working conditions, workers wrote they're ‘treated like mules’ and punished for not being quick enough.” They described fear of retaliation, usually through deportation, from their employers if they spoke out. And they weren’t wrong to be afraid. On Aug. 22, CP24 reported that “Jamaican migrant workers were sent back to the Caribbean from a farm in Ontario earlier this month after holding a one-day strike in protest of their workplace conditions.” As is often the case, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government did nothing. What else is new? However, the Temporary Foreign Workers program is federal, even if health and safety of the workplace is provincial jurisdiction. And that’s where the federal government needs to be held to account, especially when it uses the descendants of slavery in its marketing and political ads to separate itself from a growing right-wing movement. This is also a program that is closely linked to the Canadian immigration system, which is already virulently anti-Black from top to bottom, flowing through the rectum of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Naturally, the administration of the program is as strong as tattered lace, having reliance on IRCC, the Canada Border Services Agency, and Bill S-211, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, which passed earlier this summer. This bill is nothing more than a reporting exercise with zero teeth to ensure enforcement. In the words of the Library of Parliament's legislative summary, “entities must report on each of these items but do not necessarily need to make other policy changes. Instead, the bill again relies on transparency to encourage responsible business practices.” What a make-work joke that plays with peoples’ human rights. The fact that those being targeted are darker-skinned makes this whole situation racist and exploitative. And all this do-nothing government can do is ask pretty please for co-operation from those committing human rights violations. How this government is bewildered as to why a lot of people don’t like, or respect, it is beyond me. Erica Ifill is a co-host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast. The Hill Times