“I know there are citizens here who are worried foreign workers will come here with the virus, but I think the foreign workers are even more worried they will get the virus here,” says the owner of a strawberry patch in Île d’Orléans, near Quebec City.
Wearing masks over their worried faces, long-delayed migrant farm workers from Mexico climbed aboard buses waiting for them outside Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport on the weekend.
Their hands were sprayed with disinfectant soap and they were instructed to sit two seats apart from each other, to observe physical distancing rules. They then headed to farms across Quebec, where vegetable and fruit producers eagerly awaited their service.
For the next two weeks, the new arrivals are in quarantine, observing federal directives aimed at restricting the spread of COVID-19.
Guy Pouliot, who owns strawberry fields on Île d’Orléans, outside Quebec City, now has 110 workers in isolation, living in bunkhouses on the property.
He stocked fridges and pantries with groceries, and takes everyone’s temperature and checks for symptoms daily.
Once they are able to work, not much will change, he said. The farmhands will need to continue to stay two metres apart from one another — something Pouliot said shouldn’t be difficult in a strawberry field.
But he said many have already asked if they can avoid going into town altogether, for the duration of their stay.
“I know there are citizens here who are wo