El Contrato; a review of the documentary by Min Sook Lee. by Tim Rourke.

There must be a better way for this country to grow its food than by bringing the poor of other countries here in indentured servitude, to do work that few Canadians would , for good reasons, tolerate.

On a warm summer evening, an audience of about 50 assembled in a classroom on the University of Toronto campus in central Toronto for a free film showing.

After the lights came back on, the documentary film's director, Min Sook Lee, and producer, Karen King-Chigbo, entered the room to enthusiastic applause. Their film is called El Contrato, Spanish for "The Contract." It seems it has been aired once or twice on publicly owned television, and seems doomed to be seen mainly in venues like this classroom.

There is a determined effort by the mayor of Leamington, Ontario, to suppress the film. And, likely, Min Sook's career as documentary film director. She pointed out with a wry smile that she is really only the director of the film, other people are also guilty; the producer, the editor, the sound recorder, etc. There were restrained chuckles around the room; many of the audience understood too well the feelings of Karen and Min Sook.

Whether a documentary gets 'air play' these days is under the control of broadcasters. Since anything really newsworthy is likely to aggravate powerful interests, and broadcasters generally want to avoid law suits from interests with deep pockets, the civil courts are perverted into a very effective system of censorship. And if any maker of documentary films gets known for making films that could generate law suits, her career as a film maker could be short.

What so offends the mayor of Leamington about this film is not clear. It is about "The Program" operated by the Canadian and Mexican governments since 1974, which brings 4000 Mexican workers every year to Leamington, the "Greenhouse capital of North America."

The film makes clear that these workers are a great boost to the local economy. A local merchant takes time from serving a shop full of Mexican customers to say that most of his business is during the eight month Tomato growing season.

The migrant workers buy their food and pay their rent, and pay Canadian taxes, employment insurance, and pension plans they cannot benefit from, out of their seven dollar an hour paychecks. They are dependent on their employers for medical services.

Of course, they can be deported very quickly if they get into the slightest trouble or if their employer fires them and they cannot find another 'owner' to work for immediately. They then have to pay their own air fare back to Mexico.

So, these workers are vulnerable to abuse and so are subject to abuse. Filming was done on two farms where the 'owners' gave permission. These were considered, and do doubt considered themselves to be, among the enlightened 'owners.' But workers talked of abuse on other farms; verbal bullying, and physical assault by 'owners' and their minions who are arrogant enough not to expect resistance.

But some of the 'owners' and their Canadian overseers say that the workers are less afraid than they used to be. A generation ago they had the attitude that they were "here to work."

Some of this could be due to the work of the Ontario farm workers union. Most of the audience were surprised to learn that it is illegal for farm workers to organize in Ontario and there are no health and safety regulations in the agricultural sector. Agricultural unions were legalized by the Bob Rae government, then delegalized by the Harris government.

The farm workers union continues nonetheless. They operated an office in Leamington, donated by the local Catholic church. They listened to the workers grievances, give advice, and often attempt intervention.

The Catholic church has a following in Leamington, and the local priests have often been concerned about the welfare of their mainly Mexican parishioners. However, by the time the snow had fallen that year and the Mexicans had gone south for the winter, the priest had been transferred elsewhere and the union office stood empty.

Prior to this, the union had a good go at trying to get the Mexican consulate to investigate conditions of Mexican citizens working abroad. The consul sputtered on camera that none of these workers ever complain; they keep coming back every year. It was explained to him that the workers do not come up here for a holiday. There is no work in their impoverished part of Mexico and the 4000 in Leamington have 4000 "behind them" frantic to take the same jobs.

The consul promised to consult with his government. Soon after he was replaced by another consul who refused to talk to the union or the media.

The film gives us an inside look at factory farming and how the tomato in the middle of your sandwich got there. The greenhouses are hot and humid places in which to work. The most disturbing thing is the reliance on pesticides, which the workers must spray without any protective gear at all. We eat these tomatoes. The 'capital intensive' factory farming methods which poison its workers, poison us.

Min Sook was asked why there are no Canadian workers available to take these jobs. The question is not as simple as it seems. First, Min Sook recalled what one member of a farm 'owner' family told her. This person's family was a generation up from immigrants who had arrived in the country as farm workers and become owners by luck and hard work. But even she said that farm work was not a prestigious occupation in Canada. Anything rural and agricultural is seen as 'dumb' and 'backward'. This is in the long term a self destructive attitude for any society to hold.

Second was the question of what has happened to all our family farms in Canada. The most impressive sequence of the film was the brief look at the farms and villages the Mexican workers returned to in Winter. These are people who still remember how to farm properly, without chemicals. The reason so many of them have to find work in Canada is that now in Mexico, as once in Canada, farmers are being bankrupted and forced off the land in the name of "efficiency."

One wonders what could be if, instead of bringing these people up here as indentured labor, they could be given small plots to farm, and could bring their families. Instead, the migrant worker comes back to his wife, and the camera catches them discussing his eight month absences from home. She asks him not to go back, "even if we have to live just on beans".

Another pointer from the audience was the warning the film gave to those who think it would be a good idea to 'legalize and regulate' the traffic in undocumented workers for the construction, restaurant, and other industries in the cities.

Finally, when asked what it is about the film that so annoys the mayor of Leamington, Min Sook said only that many of the 'owners' around Leamington seem accustomed to "writing their own narratives" .

Min Sook and Karen's 'other narrative' is available on disc from the National film board, www.nfb.ca. If you have a CD or DVD player, that is probably the best way to see it.