'It’s a fantastic conclusion to a hard fought battle': Local migrant farm workers compensated 10 years after illegal DNA sweep

It's compensation a decade in the making.

In London, Ont. Sunday, migrant farm workers were given their $7,500 settlement cheques after recently winning a 2015 Human Rights Tribunal case against the OPP and the Ministry of the Solicitor General.

“It's been a long journey with bit of blood, sweat, tears and patience,” said Junior Modeste, a migrant farm worker from Trinidad who has been in Canada for the past 25 years.

Modeste was one of 54 migrant workers from Vienna, Ont. in Elgin County who were illegally coerced by police into providing their DNA during the search for a violent sexual assault suspect in 2013.

“It’s traumatizing,” said Modeste. “When I go places, and I see the cops show up, I look around and wonder what are they here for now?”

Human rights lawyer Shane Martinez has been working the case since 2015, and was in Victoria Park to hand out the cheques to 33 workers.

A migrant farm worker works in a field in this undated image. (File)

“It’s a fantastic conclusion to a hard fought battle,” said Martinez. “This is something these workers have stayed collectively fighting for the past decade, and shown if you come together you can win, even against significant adversaries such as the OPP and the provincial government."

The settlement follows the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario’s ruling that the OPP racially targeted 54 migrant workers as they searched for a sexual assault suspect.

The woman told investigators her attacker was Black, male and in his mid-20s. She also believed he was a migrant worker. Modeste said workers were told to either cooperate with police, or risk not getting their job back the following year.

In November 2013, police arrested Henry Cooper, a migrant worker who pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and uttering death threats, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

More than 100 migrant workers from Windsor to Toronto gathered to celebrate not only the financial settlement, but making the OPP and the province destroy the DNA profiles of 96 migrant farm workers that were obtained during the investigation.

The group Justice 4 Migrant Workers (J4MW) are also advocating for the workers' futures.

Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with the advocacy group Justice 4 Migrant Workers speaks to a worker at Victoria Park in London, Ont. on July 30, 2023. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)“We have multiple fronts we are fighting as a result of the tight closed work permit system,” said Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with J4MW. “The fact that workers don't come to Canada as permanent residents, and we’re also discussing issues around access to employment insurance, workers compensation, housing and employment standards.”

Even though they have been awarded money and had their DNA samples destroyed, advocates for migrant workers believe their recent victory is just the tip of the iceberg.

“One of the things we actually uncovered was that the police had been maintaining a database through the Centre for Forensic Sciences of DNA profiles on behalf of not just these migrant farmworkers in this case, but from thousands of other Ontarians through event investigations that had been carried, out,” said Martinez.

“Now that's the subject of a class action,” he added.

Modeste hopes to one day have an open, equal justice system for migrant workers in Canada.

“Our goals are still a long way ahead of us,” said Modeste. “But I hope by the grace of God we get to that place.”