The Social Organization of Labour Rights in Ontario: Governing Migrant Agricultural Workers Through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act

This research study is an introduction to the understanding of how labour rights are socially organized in Ontario. It uses a combined method of Institutional Ethnography and Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis to locate the historical, social, economic and political events that shape how the labour rights of migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are governed. Migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are not protected under formal labour relations legislation. Their employment relationship is currently governed through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (2002) (AEPA). This study examines the legal structures of the AEPA and the provincial parliamentary debates leading to the legislation of Bill 187- The Agricultural Employees Protection Act. This investigation points to the discovery that the AEPA provides no adequate protection to migrant workers and sustains the current practices that exist in Ontario’s agricultural industry.