Let's get the numbers right. The federal government has given $900 million. That's nearly $1 billion to agri-food businesses since March 15. Most of these employers make a profit of over $500,000, and the vast majority of them hire migrant workers. Therefore, it's not just $1,500 per worker for the quarantine period.
In that $1,500 there was no guarantee, for example, that food would be provided to migrant farm workers. That wasn't written into the rules. What has happened as a result is that we work with people where 13 workers got one bag of potatoes to eat for a week. Six workers got one carton of eggs and a loaf of bread, and that's legal. Therefore, the employers are using it to change quarantine conditions for people to social distance for two weeks, but then right after that, they ram them in at 40 people to a dorm, with access to one shower, or 35 people to four toilets. Also, the quarantine period isn't covered in the $1,500; it is not about it.
Actually, that $1,500 was just for the first 14 days. Those rules were not followed. However, the rules were bad and all of the problems have arisen right after the quarantine period. I think $1 billion has been given to big businesses. Most of these cases were in quarantine where workers weren't given food. The employers charged them for food. Thus, they're taking money from the government and they're taking money from the workers. We've documented 500 cases of that in the report that was released three weeks ago.