Let me tell you a story.
Last summer, a colleague in the
non-profit group I was working for organized a Sportsfest, where caregivers, temporary foreign workers (TFWs) and supporters from the community were invited to compete in basketball,
volleyball, and badminton. The event attracted a huge number of participants.
Elimination games were played every weekend, and by the time the finals rolled
in, everybody knew everybody else by first names, and permanent friendships had
been forged.
A group of young men who were working in the Fraser Valley
of British Columbia came down to Vancouver and competed under the name Javita
Superstars. They were extremely fast and fit and they played good basketball.
The boys became a hands down favourite among the girls and they got the biggest
applause in every game. They lost on the points system but they won everyone’s
hearts.
The Javita Superstars were TFWs. They were chicken catchers.
The word ‘chicken catcher’ sounded funny at first, nothing serious, but
something that inspires jokes, or even an idea for a sit-com.
As the media person for my organization, my job is to
research and write about things that we do regularly. I interviewed the chicken
catchers to find out more about them. This was the first time I have talked
in-depth with a group of TFWs and heard about their stories. First I realized
that there was nothing funny or easy about chicken catching. These men work all night, going from barn to
barn across the Fraser Valley, braving the cold and the rain, until they have
caught and sent off at least 30,000 chickens to the processing factories. Then
they go home to their dormitory to sleep all day. They wake up in the early
evening and set out to do the same thing that night. In between breaks, some of
them will get out their phones to connect with the outside world, by texting or
by Facebook.
The amazing part is the quality of these chicken catchers’
education and their work experience from back home, the Middle East or Asia. One
of them ran an internationally-funded NGO in a farming belt in the Philippines,
helping farmers switch to ecologically sustainable agriculture; another one was
an IT expert who established and maintained the computer networks in his
workplace in Taiwan; one had a business degree and had supervised a meat processing
factory in Japan, and swore he could pluck, cut and bone a chicken in seconds.
My list goes on.
What this group has in common with every TFW who came to
Canada is their desire to change their future, their willingness to work menial
and low-skilled jobs in exchange for the chance to become landed immigrants
here. They are equally ambitious, highly educated, and hardworking. Being ready
to be chicken–catchers, and being good at this job, are good signs. They’re not
afraid of hard work. These are the people who could make this country a great
one, and even better, an economically powerful one.
My personal research on Filipino
TFWs has indicated that almost everyone who came to Canada is over-qualified
for the job they’re currently doing, like these chicken catchers.
Yet not everyone who come here to work get to stay. I
compare getting a provincial nomination to apply for landing in Canada to
winning a game of roulette. If you are a temporary foreign worker, the
odds are rarely on your side. Firstly, the number of nominations are limited,
and secondly, how does a worker get noticed, then nominated by the employer in
the first place? There is no hard and fast rule to this one. Mostly, you go
home after four years, your dreams and your qualifications
notwithstanding. I’ve met a few jobless
TFWs who fought tooth and nail to stay in Canada after their contracts weren’t
renewed, but who eventually gave up and went home defeated.
I rage regularly against the unfairness of the TFW process
and I have never stopped looking for ways to make it work for the thousands of
workers who leave for home disappointed and broken, year after year. Things
have to change.
But how do you telegraph this fact to the federal
government? How to make the decision makers understand that these workers
aren’t just numbers, but individuals, with individual capabilities,
qualifications and specialties that they can contribute towards making Canada a
better place?
Gear up!
All set!
Get catching!
(Photos by Anne Lee)
(Photos by Anne Lee)
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