The death of a migrant agriculture worker in Windsor-Essex due to COVID-19, is the first known death of its type in Canada.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) reported two additional deaths on Monday morning, a woman in her 80s and a man, a migrant worker in his 30s with no pre-existing health conditions.
Spokesperson for the group Justice for Migrant Workers, Chris Ramsaroop says steps need to be taken to protect farm workers.
"This hasn't happened at either the provincial level or the federal level," he says. Recently at the municipal level we have written an open letter to the public health office to demand changes and at the same time we need the province and the federal government to step up."
Ramsaroop believes this death and the 400-500 cases of COVID-19 in migrant workers across the country were preventable.
"If the necessary steps were taken to protect farm workers and not protecting the bottom line of the industry.”
When it comes to improvements, Ramsaroop says he would like to see the strengthening of health and safety protections.
"We need to see that what other industries, service industries or construction and the protections that they have under health and safety, are extended to agricultural workers,” he says. “Health and safety, employment standards for farm workers are the least protected, they provide the least amount of protections as opposed to workers in other industries."
To date, of the 970 confirmed cases of COVID-19 locally, 175 have been among farm workers representing 17 farms. These numbers include both migrant workers and community workers.
As of Monday morning, there are 970 cases of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex, 65 deaths and 496 cases resolved.
— With files from AM800's Teresinha Medeiros