Labour Minister Errol McLeod visited Canada last week to have a first hand report on the farm workers program through which Trinidad and Tobago citizens find seasonal employment in Canadian farms.
Mc Leod was impressed with the program and suggested that it should be expanded.
McLeod visited farms in Ontario and Alberta to assess the country’s participation in the program. He said the management of the Canadian farms told him that they are impressed with workers from Trinidad and Tobago, describing them as some of the best.
The minister said he now has a new and "very deep" appreciation for the contributions nationals are making in the programme. He said he was encouraged by what he saw. “It told me that if our people are properly and effectively motivated and if they are made to feel and in fact see there is appreciation for what they do."
Mc Leod added, "We will have a totally different and very positive response in the journey to building Trinidad and Tobago into the society that we can have.”
He admitted that not everything is perfect. However he said in meeting and talking with the workers from Trinidad and Tobago he heard that most are satisfied with the way things have been going.
“The farms are successful because management and workers are subscribing to one objective—the viability of the particular enterprise because if the enterprise fails, there will be no need for any workers,” McLeod said.
Mc Leod said the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is committed to having the participation of as many able-bodied men and women of Trinidad and Tobago as can be accommodated by the farmers in Canada.
He said Trinidad and Tobago could increase its present contribution of 1,000 workers annually to the program. he said that would ease the problems of unemployment in Trinidad and Tobago.
"Our people come up to Canada to work on these farms to the extent that we have unemployed people in Trinidad and Tobago who are ready and prepared to work,” McLeod said.
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Jai & Sero
Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai
2 comments:
What vacuous nonsense on the part of the Minister. All simply waffle in an area where no comment was even warranted.
Caribbean workers heading north, whether to Florida or to Ontario, or all points in between, are doing so because the indigent populations will not do it. It is considered generally to be hard work and poorly paid. Caribbean workers have no such scruples as it is certainly better paid by far that similar work in the Caribbean.
That said, I find some irony in the fact that Cubans, Chinese and others are and have for some time been streaming into T&T to do work f a similar nature and on a similar basis, i.e. the locals don't want it.
Of more causer for deliberation, in my opinion, is the fact that most or all of these Caribbean imports, in this instance to Ontario, are in all likelihood reliable and hard workers in Canada, but many would most likely not show comparable diligent efforts "at home" in T&T.
T&T is, once again, somewhat preoccupied with talk about increase in pay for it's workers. Yet as is customary most places, with little or no consideration of whether those workers could and should be of more value to their employers.
In my experience, which is considerable and relevant, the median performance level of T&T workers, tends to be equal in reliability, timekeeping, output, etc, no better that (and possibly even worse than), one might expect from recalcitrant children and those mentally challenged.
Is it not interesting to see the changes in both attitudes and output, between T&T workers "at home" and the same people when they journey or emigrate elsewhere?
If nothing else it tells me that many whilst working in T&T deliberately and knowingly deliver, "below par". Forgive me if I tend not to be too concerned when I hear these same "workers", (HAH!), demanding more pay.
It is, once again the old situation of standing in front of the wood stove and saying "Give me some heat, and then I'll think about putting some wood in you".
What vacuous nonsense on the part of the Minister. All simply waffle in an area where no comment was even warranted.
Caribbean workers heading north, whether to Florida or to Ontario, or all points in between, are doing so because the indigent populations will not do it. It is considered generally to be hard work and poorly paid. Caribbean workers have no such scruples as it is certainly better paid by far that similar work in the Caribbean.
That said, I find some irony in the fact that Cubans, Chinese and others are and have for some time been streaming into T&T to do work of a similar nature and on a similar basis, i.e. the locals don't want it.
Of more causer for deliberation, in my opinion, is the fact that most or all of these Caribbean imports, in this instance to Ontario, are in all likelihood reliable and hard workers in Canada, but many would most likely not show comparable diligent efforts "at home" in T&T.
T&T is, once again, somewhat preoccupied with talk about increase in pay for it's workers. Yet as is customary most places, with little or no consideration of whether those workers could and should be of more value to their employers.
In my experience, which is considerable and relevant, the median performance level of T&T workers, tends to be equal in reliability, timekeeping, output, etc, no better that (and possibly even worse than), one might expect from recalcitrant children and those mentally challenged.
Is it not interesting to see the changes in both attitudes and output, between T&T workers "at home" and the same people when they journey or emigrate elsewhere?
If nothing else it tells me that many whilst working in T&T deliberately and knowingly deliver, "below par". Forgive me if I tend not to be too concerned when I hear these same "workers", (HAH!), demanding more pay.
It is, once again the old situation of standing in front of the wood stove and saying "Give me some heat, and then I'll think about putting some wood in you".
October 26, 2010 9:13 AM
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