Activist gets new post at University of Guelph

Gabriel Allahdua, a migrant worker activist, is the University of Guelph’s first activist-in-residence at its Grounded and Engagement Theory Lab (GET Lab).

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“It’s an emerging approach in our areas of study, and our goal is to advance it,” said Monique Deveaux in a U of G release. “We hope to foster community, knowledge sharing and research collaboration by engaging in research methods that centre the voices of members of justice-seeking communities.”  

Collaboration is at the heart of GET Lab research methodology, where researchers and students listen to those in communities engaged in struggle, like the migrant worker community, said Deveaux, a College of Arts philosophy professor and lab co-founder.

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Why it matters: The activist-in-residence position merges academia and activism in efforts to support communities’ struggle for social justice. 

“We want him to help us plug into the communities we are looking at in our research,” said Deveaux about Allahdua. “He’s also going to help us establish a network in Ontario that’ll bring researchers together with activists working on common issues around migrant workers and justice for migrant workers.” 

Born and raised in St. Lucia’s rural Mabouya Valley, Allahdua has a general agriculture diploma from the Guyana School of Agriculture and was a beekeeper before enrolling in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2012. He worked in Leamington’s greenhouse sector for four years before seeking permanent residency and turning his full attention to activism. 

Now he’s an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers and an outreach worker with The Neighbourhood Organization, which provides services to migrant workers. Allahdua has also written an autobiography, Harvesting Freedom, about his experience as a migrant worker, that is scheduled for release March 7, 2023. 

“Canada prides itself on being a place of diversity and inclusiveness. The truth is there are a lot of justice movements in Canada (and) lots of people seeking justice,” Allahdua said. “Migrant farm workers are just one of those groups.” 

Deveaux said Allahdua focuses on improving agricultural migrant worker situations like on-farm living conditions and also on structural issues, like a clear path to permanent residency.

He anticipates the Guelph program will increase his efficacy. 

“When we see what’s happening on the ground, then our whole impression will change, our whole perception will change, our beliefs will change,” Allahdua said. “Our whole understanding will change and our whole attitude will change.”

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He has already introduced workers from Trinidad and St. Lucia to a class, said Deveaux. Additionally, there’s a January summit of researchers and activists in the works to discuss methods for quicker response to political issues such as undocumented workers in Canada.

“Many of the researchers we want to bring to the summit are writing academic papers, but they’re also writing policy papers,” Deveaux said. “But the future network we’re trying to create could also do … pubic-facing advocacy where we speak from our collective expertise as migrant worker activists, as well as researchers.”

Allahdua said this is an opportunity to invest in and influence future leaders to build a healthy, sustainable and just system. 

“That is what activism is about.”

He plans to cultivate contacts among agricultural sector decision-makers and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in Guelph.

“The truth is in the current agricultural system, it is legal to exploit the soil, exploit the environment, exploit workers,” said Allahdua. “At the end of the day, it’s all in favour of the employer and the worker is tied to that employer – it’s a high power imbalance.”

He said the profit-before-workers system exploits migrant workers through fear of deportation, which keeps workers silent. The government could eliminate that by standardizing open work permits, which put the onus on employers to create conditions to attract workers and provide them with the same status opportunities granted to others entering Canada.

“The fact that I’m tied to the employer, where’s the burden? Where’s the pressure? My hands are tied, my mouth is tied. The pressure is on the worker.”

Allahdua said the government’s Band-Aid solution of an emergency open work permit does nothing to alleviate the power imbalance or burden on workers because it’s limited to a maximum of one year at the officer’s discretion.

Providing status on arrival isn’t new in Canada. It’s offered to Europeans when they enter the country. 

“The most impactful way to get an open work permit is status. There is no other way. That is why we set status upon arrival,” Allahdua said. “This is something that Canada has done. This is not new. That card is available to them; it’s part of their stack of cards. But they don’t want to play that card (for migrant workers). They play the race card.”

Deveaux and Candace Johnson in the political science department co-founded the GET Lab in 2022 and have secured enough funding to run another activist-in-residence session after Allahdua’s.

“We don’t know if we’ll be able to keep funding it,” said Deveaux. “I’m in the process of applying for grants to try to keep it going.”