OPP racially targeted 54 migrant farm workers while searching for a rapist, Ontario tribunal rules

Provincial police racially targeted 54 migrant farm workers during the hunt for a suspected rapist in 2013, forcing dozens of workers to hand over DNA samples despite "obvious" physical evidence they didn't match the suspect's description, according to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. 

The recent decision is the first time the provincial rights watchdog has ruled on the way law enforcement agencies conduct DNA sweeps and, perhaps most importantly, how police interact with migrant farm workers — a population the adjudicator called "a vulnerable, easily identifiable group" who are "clearly differentiated from the predominantly white community." 

The 64-page decision also highlights the gross power imbalance between migrant farm workers participating in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), their Canadian employers and the police, according to Shane Martinez, the Toronto-based human rights lawyer representing the workers in the case. 

"The decision holds quite a bit of weight for us in terms of vindicating these 54 workers for an experience that was nothing short of egregious in terms of police misconduct," he said.

"The OPP is aware of the decision and is currently reviewing it," OPP Sgt. Carlo Berardi, acting co-ordinator of media relations, said in an email Thursday to CBC News. "It would be inappropriate to comment any further at this time."

While investigating the violent sexual assault of a woman living alone at her home in rural Elgin County in 2013, OPP discriminated against dozens of migrant farm workers  "because of race, colour and place of origin," Ontario Human Rights Tribunal adjudicator Marla Burstyn wrote in a decision published Monday.

The woman told investigators her attacker was Black, male and young; and in his mid-20s. He was between 5-foot-10 and 6 feet tall. She also believed he was a migrant worker with what she thought was a Jamaican accent. 

Based on that information, the OPP started cavassing the five nearest farms and eventually decided to seek voluntary DNA samples from workers, something the tribunal notes none of the officers had any experience doing.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Leon Logan, a migrant farm worker from Jamaica, described being driven by his employer to police officers waiting in unmarked vehicles on the farm property.

His boss explained there had been a rape and that Logan needed to give officers a DNA sample to clear his name. If he didn't, the farmer told him, he would no longer be allowed to work and would likely be sent back to Jamaica.

"What we saw in this case was that the police actually exploited the employer-employee relationship by going to the migrant workers' employer and getting them to assist them in gathering up the migrant workers," said Martinez. 

"If they did not comply with the police investigation, if they did not provide their DNA to the police, then they would not be brought back to the farm to work."

Over the course of a few days, 100 farm workers on five Elgin County farms went through a similar experience and, like Logan, 96 provided DNA samples, while four refused. 

At no time was Logan or any of the 99 other migrant workers offered a phone, the adjudicator noted, "to call a lawyer, or anyone else for that matter, to discuss the police request."