Scotlynn Farm and CEO plead guilty to COVID-19 related charge

Scotlynn SweetPac Farm, one of Canada’s largest migrant worker employers, and its CEO Scott Biddle have been convicted of breaking a workplace safety law.

Biddle and the company pled guilty to one count of failing to take all reasonable precautions to protect a worker and agreed to pay a $125,000 fine plus a 25 per cent surcharge.

In September 2021, the Ontario Ministry of Labour laid 20 COVID-19-related charges against the company and Biddle regarding a May 2020 COVID outbreak where 199 workers tested positive and Juan Lopez Chaparro, a 55-year-old father of four, died.

According to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), this is the second COVID-19 related prosecution of an employer under Ontario’s occupational health and safety laws.

“While Scotlynn gets a slap on the wrist, these kinds of exploitative working conditions remain common across the country because migrants can only come to Canada with precarious and vulnerable immigration status,” said Syed Hussan, MWAC executive director, in a release.

He said that Canada failed to protect migrant workers who fed the nation during the pandemic. Hussan added that Canada needs to give migrants equal rights to protect themselves by providing permanent resident status, “instead of making it easier to hire precarious, temporary migrants.”

 “The fine will go to the municipality, but Juan’s family, Gabriel and other workers will receive no reparations; there is no justice done here,” he said. “Scotlynn is a multi-million-dollar, multi-national corporation, and these fines are just the cost of doing business to them.”

Gabriel Flores, one of the initial workers who became ill, alleged workers were subjected to labour exploitation and substandard housing and were denied testing despite being sick. He was fired days after speaking to the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star while in quarantine. In November 2020, the Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered Scotlynn to pay Flores $25,000 in lost wages and damages.

 Flores implored other foreign workers to speak out about dangerous workplace conditions and said the charges levied against Scottlyn Farms were insufficient.

 “There needs to be systemic changes to the laws to make sure workers can safely defend themselves against bad employers,” said Flores in response to the charges. “That change begins with permanent status on arrival for all so that migrants can access the same rights, protections and essential services as anyone else.”

MWAC’s media release said following his stand against Scotlynn’s workplace conditions, Flores secured a one-time vulnerable worker open work permit but returned to Mexico after he could not renew his permit. “After everything we did, everything remains the same. Without permanent residency, we still have no options to protect our families,” he said in the MWAC release after hearing the court’s decision. “Now, I can no longer return to Canada.

“For the employer, nothing has changed; he can continue to exploit the workers. This ‘justice’ is just a show.”