RESEARCH-ACTION
DTMF leads and takes part in collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects on the evolution of Canadian and international legal norms affecting care workers and farm workers, as well as the impact on the exercise of their rights in practice.
Current research project
Employer-tied vs Open work Permit: Impact on Fundamental Rights? (2021-2025)
Empirical research project under the research program Access to Rights of the CRSH university-community research partnership PARTEMP, coordinated by the Research Chair of Canada on Global Migration Dynamics at Université Laval. The preliminary results of the project were presented in May 2022 at the symposium Regards sur les situations des immigrants à statut précaire dans les régions du Québec during the 89th ACFAS conference.
Final report publication – Spring 2025!
Selected current research collaboration
Network of research on Immigration, Integration & Intercultural Relations in Quebec (RQ3I)
In 2024, DTMF joined the RQ3I, Quebec’s first dedicated research network focused on immigration, integration, and intercultural relations. The RQ3I network establishes a platform that encourages collaboration among experts, bridging the gap between academic research and public policy, and will serve as an important space for disseminating critical research that can inform future decisions and initiatives.
Impacts pré- et post-migratoires de la crise climatique sur les travailleurs agricoles temporaires au Québec (2024-2026)
School of Public health – Université de Montréal
Employer-tied foreign workers employed in the agro-food sector in Quebec: Access to decent nutrition? (2022-2025)
School of Public health – Université de Montréal
Migrant workers in Quebec: Mental health issues (2024-2027)
Department of Industrial Relations – Université Laval
Agricultural migrant workers in the area of Quebec city: Forced family separation and paternity issues (2024-2027)
School of Social work – Université Laval
Sélection de projets de recherche complétés
Band-aid on a bullet wound: Open work permits for employer-tied migrant workers facing workplace abuse (2021)
This research evaluates the effectiveness of the Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers (OWP-V), introduced in 2019. The study reveals that the policy does not eliminate the structural barriers preventing workers from changing employers and that access issues complicate its use. While improvements are possible, the report concludes that the OWP-V cannot compensate for the inherent risks of exploitation associated with closed work permits.
Regulatory and
Policy Developments in
Canada’s Temporary
Foreign Worker Programs (2020)
This research examines the major changes made to Canadian immigration programs for migrant workers in 2019. It aims to inform migrant workers and the groups that support them about these changes, with a particular focus on their impact on the right to change employers.
Migrant Care and Farm
Workers, Canadian
Law, and Unfree
Labour (2018)
This study examines Canadian policies that tie migrant care and farm workers to their employers through the lens of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution Act, 1867. Drawing on Canadian and international case law, it demonstrates that these policies violate the fundamental rights of workers and should be declared invalid.
Reconnaître le véritable statut de travailleuse aux aides familiales : état des droits et mobilisation (2015)
This research, conducted by several labour and advocacy organizations, provides an overview of the rights and working conditions of caregivers in Canada. It aims to support mobilization for Canada’s ratification of ILO Convention No. 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers.
Read the report (only available in French)
Selected analyses from our members
- Realities of Precarity in Canada’s Seasonal Fields: Struggles, Advocacy, and Restricted Spaces and Voices (Dominica Patterson 2024)
- Families, Immigration Law, and the Denial of the Right to Family: Impact on (Im)Migrant Workers and Society (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier 2024)
- No or conditional access to permanent status: Infringement on the Rule of Law/(Im)migrant workers’ right to access justice (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier 2023)
- Canadian Borderlands: Equality Rights for Temporary Migrant Labourers Under Section 15 of the Charter (Seth Gordon 2023)
- Band-Aid on a Bullet Wound—Canada’s Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers Policy (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, Hannah Deegan & Catherine Berze 2022)
- State restriction of workers’ rights to equality, liberty, security and access to justice through employer-tied labour (im)migration programmes: The Canadian example (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, Hannah Deegan & Marie-Eveline Touma 2021)
- Feminist Consitutionalism in Defense of Migrant Domestic Workers (Lauriane Palardy 2020)
- Le recrutement des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers en vertu du programme des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers : Étude des conditions de recrutement des travailleurs et travailleuses provenant du Mexique (Gabrielle Morneau El-Hajal, 2020)
- When governments create unfreedom: rehumanizing migrant domestic workers (Myriam Dumont-Robillard 2019)
- Geopolítica de las Emociones: masculinidades y subjetividades de los trabajadores agrícolas transmigrantes mexicanos y guatemaltecos que laboran en Quebec (Lina Maria Campos-Flores 2019)
- Employer-tied labour migration vs migrant workers’ right not to be held in involuntary servitude: Lessons from the UK, Isreal, and USA (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier & Hannah Deegan 2018)
- Labour Migration Program Declared a “Modern Form of Slavery” under Constitutional Review: Employer‐Tying Policy Impact vs Mythical “Harm Reduction” Measures (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier 2018)
- L’obligation de résidence chez l’employeur imposée aux travailleurs agricoles et domestiques migrants au Canada : une atteinte à leur droit constitutionnel à la liberté (Lissia Vathi 2017)
- Moving the Temporary Labour Migration Debate to the Fundamentals: Employer/Agent-Bonded Migrant Workers as Victims of State Violations of Human Rights (Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier 2015)
- Accès à la justice pour les travailleuses domestiques migrantes: une illusion? (Myriam Dumont Robillard 2015)
DTMF | RHFW
Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers
info@dtmf-rhfw.org
514-379-1262