Press release: Workers’ compensation report falls short regarding injured migrant workers in Nova Scotia

Halifax, Nova Scotia (September 3, 2024) - On August 30, 2024, the Workers’ Compensation Review Committee released a report, which identified priorities for improving the province’s Workers Compensation Board (WCB), including for Temporary Foreign Workers.   

“Thousands of temporary foreign workers come to Nova Scotia each year, including more than 1,500 individuals who support the provincial agriculture sector. These workers may not have experience with workplace safety or the workers’ compensation system, although they are working in a sector with many health and safety risks. Temporary foreign workers may also face language barriers in understanding their rights and responsibilities related to workplace injury and/or in communicating with the WCB,” reads an excerpt from the report.

The report highlights the need for educational materials, which are “focused on the unique needs of these workers and their rights and benefits through the workers’ compensation system, and delivered in languages other than English (e.g., Spanish).”

The Centre for Migrant Worker Rights Nova Scotia (CMWR NS), which presented to the Workers’ Compensation Review Committee in 2023, educates migrant workers regarding their right to workers’ compensation and supports them in the claims process.

“While we welcome the report’s acknowledgement that more needs to be done to address the needs of injured migrant workers, it only scratches the surface. We have supported dozens of injured migrant workers with WCB claims, including workers permanently disabled from working on farms in Nova Scotia. We’ve seen that they face barriers to access WCB in every step of the process. From our experience, employers routinely fail to report injuries to WCB and instead may send injured migrant workers back to their countries of origin without getting the medical attention they need or benefits they may be entitled to. In addition, WCB’ current communications channels are generally not accessible for migrant workers,” said Stacey Gomez, Executive Director of the CMWR NS.

According to the Government of Canada, there were 4,150 migrant workers employed in Nova Scotia in 2023.