Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Within the context of globalization, workers-particularly from the global South-are encouraged to be mobile and flexible in their labour market participation. Over the past few decades, the share of migrants moving from developing countries in the global South to participate in low-wage work in the global North has grown dramatically. Through cross-national trade agreements, the Canadian government supplies a steady stream of transnational workers to Canadian employers who demonstrate labour shortages through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TWFP). In western Canada, Manitoba is a critical hub for a large population of migrant workers. In southwestern Manitoba, aggressive recruitment campaigns by the hog-processing industry (targeting would-be migrants from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia), have driven population growth in smaller urban centres and towns. The town of Neepawa and the city of Brandon are prime examples of communities that employ a large number of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), usually with limited English or French language ability and possessing limited rights and protections under the current TFWP. In particular, work permits tie TFWs to a single employer, leaving them vulnerable to employer abuse and the under-reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses due to the threat of deportation. As 'non-citizens' of Canada, migrant workers often work under conditions that would be deemed unacceptable to Canadian workers. For this reason, WHO has emphasized the need to draw linkages between migration, health and human rights. This is especially relevant within the context of the Canadian prairies where we know little about the health problems facing transnational migrants. For this reason, I propose to conduct an ethnographic study to explore the health problems and health services utilization patterns of migrant workers in Neepawa and Brandon, Manitoba.