It’s been a few days now since I read the article “Temporary Worker Abused by Employer Seeks to Regain Status” by Sarah R. Champagne, and I still feel ashamed thinking about it.
This article, published on Wednesday, September 18 in The Dutyreports that Maxime Beaudry, co-owner of the Les Vergers de la montée Covey Hill farm in Franklin, pleaded guilty to criminal charges of assault causing bodily harm to Josué (fictitious name), a temporary Guatemalan farm worker.
Why am I ashamed? First, because this brutal attack was committed against a temporary worker who left Guatemala to come and toil in our fields and orchards, where he did work that Quebecers do not even deign to do. That in itself is enough to make me ashamed of us.
But my shame grows when I think about the sequel, or rather the non-sequel, of this affair and this for three reasons.
First: The punches that Maxime Beaudry delivered to Josué, some of which were delivered while he was lying unconscious on the ground, opened a hole in his cheek requiring five stitches and broke his nose. Even today, two and a half years later, Josué still has difficulty breathing. According to several doctors, his nose needs to be reconstructed.
However, Josué was unable to undergo the necessary surgery. Why? Because as a temporary worker, Josué only has a temporary health insurance card that expired before the scheduled consultation could take place. He had to wait for another work permit, still temporary, to apply for another temporary health insurance card and wait for it to be issued. Once again, once issued, this new card expired before he could receive the required care.
How is it that Josué, an innocent victim of a Quebec employer, cannot have his nose reconstructed so that he can breathe normally? Is the life of a foreign worker who came to work from dawn to dusk to produce the apples, zucchini and maple syrup that we so delight in worth so little that our social and medical system does not bother to repair the damage inflicted on him by one of us, namely his employer?
Second: How come Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) did not sanction Maxime Beaudry’s company? Yet, it is this federal government body that gives employers the green light to bring in temporary agricultural workers. According to immigration regulations, ESDC can prevent an employer from hiring if it finds that it “has not made sufficient efforts to ensure that the workplace is free from mistreatment, sexual assault or psychological violence.”
However, although the attack was reported to ESDC, neither Les Vergers de la montée Covey Hill nor the numbered company registered in Maxime Beaudry’s name appear on the list of “non-compliant” employers, i.e. the list of employers who are no longer allowed to hire temporary workers. How is it that the fact that Maxime Beaudry was found guilty is not enough to prevent him from bringing in temporary workers from outside the country?
Third: Maxime Beaudry gets off with a sentence of 175 hours of community service and two years of probation. In the name of what justice does he deserve only a slap on the wrist?
Meanwhile, I repeat, for two and a half years, Joshua has continued to live with a broken nose that has never been repaired and which gives him great difficulty in breathing properly.
How did we fall so low as a society?
Would there be specialists in the health system who would be generous enough to reconstruct Joshua’s nose? The question arises. Will there be someone to answer it?