The number of foreign workers has risen sharply in the last few years in Quebec and there are more and more of them suffer injuries, whether at work or not. Although many get care to which they are entitled, their temporary foreign worker status poses significant limitations. How to combine an accident or an illness with such a status? What to do when the body does not heal in time for the visa to expire? Today: loneliness and impasse after a serious accident.
Henry Medina Barrios is buried up to his shoulders, the pressure of the earth on his rib cage and his stomach makes his breathing very difficult. At the bottom of the trench where he was changing a pipe that allows water to flow from a field, he will suffocate under the earth of the wall that has just collapsed on him.
Just before fainting, he has time to think that he should be dug up with the digger rather than a simple shovel.
This accident occurs on September 3, 2022, when he has been under contract for three years for the Bryhill dairy farm, in Montérégie. “I really thought I was dying,” he said almost eight months later, seated at the CHSLD in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, in Montérégie. He lives there in convalescence, to follow his rehabilitation there, but also because he has nowhere to go. At the dawn of his 40th birthday, the man from Guatemala is a temporary worker and should therefore in principle leave Quebec as soon as his employment is interrupted.
However, he has sequelae to the body from this serious accident, which are not temporary.
When he regained consciousness a few minutes after the wall collapsed, his boss and his son pulled him out of the hole. He tells them that his pelvis hurts and they take him under a tree.
Henry Medina remains on the ground, in pain, until he no longer feels his legs. An hour later, his Guatemalan colleague brought him to the local Berrie Memorial Hospital, from where he was rushed to Montreal.
This is what the report of the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) mentions, but without attributing responsibility to anyone: “About one hour later the decision is made to send him to the hospital […] »
His employer, David Bryson, of Bryhill Farm, Ormstown, declined to give his side of the story or comment. “It was very difficult,” he said when we contacted him.
The CNESST inspector went to the site four and a half months after the accident, i.e. on January 16, 2023, and at no time did he collect the words of the worker himself.
His report, obtained by The duty under the Access to Information Act, nevertheless confirms several elements raised by Henry Medina. Information is redacted and it reads first that the worker is buried up to the waist, then that the earth has in fact crushed him in the sternum, a bone located at the level of the thorax rather than the waist, which agrees with Mr. Medina’s version.
The injured worker “has not received any specific training” to perform this task and nothing prevents the trench from collapsing. “Following the accident, no particular measures were taken by the employer,” continues the CNESST report.
loneliness in trial
After his transfer to the Montreal General Hospital, the medical team informs Henry Medina that he must be operated on because he has a major pelvic fracture caused by his accident. Part of his bones will be replaced with a piece of metal.
He signs the forms which state the risks of the operation. “Do you have someone to accompany you?” the masked staff asks the Guatemalan. “No, I’m alone,” he replies.
He is afraid of dying alone on the operating table, far from his family. “When I woke up, I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I thought I was never going to walk again. »
Eight months later, when The duty visits him, he always travels with crutches. He wears a canary yellow sleeveless top that reads “gate [porte] 619” and “YUL”, two references to the Montreal airport. A sad irony when you know that his wife, Paola Mileny Morales, applied for a tourist visa last November to finally be able to visit it.
He recounts days without joy, where waiting is his main companion in his room with a single bed, the smell and decoration of a hospital.
“I would be so happy to work, but not for the same company. I came to work, […] that I live far from my family,” he says. His wife and two children rely on him to support them. He sent them money “at each pay”, payments that have stopped.
In April, his wife finally received good news from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC): her visitor visa had been approved. She could therefore theoretically come to Quebec to finally hug him, but the monetary obstacle now stands. “How are we going to pay? Where are we going to live if she’s here? worries Mr. Medina, which suggests his current difficulties.
Housing is indeed the most pressing issue for him. Migrant farm workers are housed by their employer, at a cost of $30 per week. But when they are no longer employed, they must also leave their accommodation.
The man receives benefits from the CNESST, but they are calculated on the minimum wage he was earning and therefore insufficient to accommodate him properly in his situation. For the moment, the CHSLD has agreed to keep him in internal accommodation, because otherwise he would have to find an apartment adapted to his condition.
And after ?
“It’s all well and good to be recognized as the victim of a work accident by the CNESST, but what do we do afterwards for temporary workers? explains Michel Pilon, coordinator of the Migrant Agricultural Workers Assistance Network of Quebec.
This organization has supported Mr. Medina since his accident. In particular, Mr. Pilon is trying to argue before the CNESST that housing adapted to his functional limitations must be part of the rehabilitation plan and therefore be covered.
A temporary foreign worker, whether he earns a high or a low salary, pays the same taxes and the same contributions as a Quebecer; he is therefore entitled to Quebec health insurance, but “on the day he no longer works for his employer, we [le Canada] says he has to leave”, expresses the coordinator.
The “closed” work permit held by Mr. Medina is indeed linked to his employer; his presence in Quebec is therefore conditional on this job, which he no longer holds because of the after-effects of his injuries. It therefore falls into a veritable administrative cul-de-sac. There is no specific program to obtain or extend a visa for a case like his.
Since 2019, the creation of an open work permit for vulnerable workers allows migrants linked to a given employer and who are victims of violence or who are at risk of violence, to obtain authorization to work for other employers. . Among the accepted criteria related to physical abuse are “conditions hazardous to physical health,” the IRCC description reads. However, this program is of no use to Mr. Medina.
“Having an open work permit doesn’t help if you can’t work,” summarizes Jill Hanley, professor at McGill University and scientific director of the SHERPA University Institute. She adds that obtaining a status, whether temporary or permanent, is in no way automatic.
“I am asked when I will return home. It’s awkward, because I don’t have a home here. If I leave, I will not be able to carry out my complaints”, says the father of the family. He contacted both the CNESST and Services Canada for his working conditions, compliance with his contract and the consequences of his accident.
“He won’t walk like before, that’s for sure. It is clear to us that he will have losses. It would be very difficult for him to find a job in a country like Guatemala,” says Pilon.
These people “so injured that physical work is no longer an option” can normally try to train to return to another equivalent job or another field. “But several options offered to Quebec workers do not work for them,” says Ms.me Hanley, first because of the language. However, francization courses do not count as a rehabilitation measure in the eyes of the CNESST, she gives as an example.
They ask me when I will return home. It’s awkward, because I don’t have a home here. If I leave, I will not be able to carry out my complaints.
Mr. Medina could try to obtain permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but he needs a registered immigration consultant or lawyer to file an application. The timelines currently posted for IRCC processing are also 21 months.
“It’s not impatience, but my papers expire soon. It’s very difficult to wait without doing anything, ”he laments.