Leamington celebrates first Migrant Worker Day in appreciation of thousands of workers

The smell of Jamaican and Mexican cuisine wafted through the air in Leamington's Seacliff Park on Sunday as a local band played live music to celebrate the region's first ever Migrant Worker Day. 

In appreciation of the thousands of migrant workers that come from abroad to work in southwestern Ontario's agriculture industry, the region celebrated the workers with sounds and smells from their hometowns.

While Sunday marked the first time this day has been recognized, the municipality of Leamington announced that going forward Migrant Worker Day will be annually celebrated on the first Sunday of summer. 

"This event, Migrant Workers Day festival, is a reconnection with their culture, with their food, with their music, with something that they need in Canada," said Francy Munoz, who helped organize the event. 

Munoz works at the Windsor-Essex Bilingual Legal clinic and she is also a lead on the C. A. R. E. for International Workers Program. 

"Sometimes [the workers] feel isolated, specifically after COVID, it has been a hard time for them, so now after COVID it's a pleasure for us to have this kind of event offered to them," Munoz said. 

About 1,200 workers showed up to enjoy the festivities throughout the day, according to Munoz. 

"This is amazing. For them, they feel 'My country is in Canada,' they feel another representation of my country here and 'Canada is offering me some part of my country.' You can't believe it, but this is really really amazing for them and for us," she said. 

Adelaida Bishop brought her catering services to the event, where she cooked traditional Filipino food for workers to give them a taste of home. 

"It means really a lot to me because every culture, every nationality, they always want to eat something like from their home, their country, so when I cook something like for example the lumpia, the spring rolls, it brings back the memory from where we're from, so that's why it really means a lot to me," said Bishop, adding that cooking for the workers and watching them eat her food was an "overwhelming" experience.

Every year, between 8,000 and 10,000 migrant workers come to Windsor-Essex to work in on farms or in greenhouses. 

On Sunday, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) released its annual report on migrant farm workers. The 2022 report lists 20 "urgently required" recommendations to improve the working environment. 

Of these recommendations, 12 are directed to federal leaders and eight are aimed at specific provinces. 

Some recommendations include: