Gabriel Allahdua

Biography

Gabriel Allahdua is a Toronto-based activist who advocates for the rights of migrant workers. A speaker and organizer with Justice For Migrant Workers (J4MW) since its founding in 2015, Gabriel also works as an outreach worker with the Toronto Neighbourhood Organization (TNO), providing support to migrant workers.

A former migrant farm worker himself, Gabriel came to Canada in 2012 from St.Lucia under the auspices of the federal program known as the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). A series of global economic events and environmental disasters led him to seek employment in the program. These include the devastating impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) policies on St.Lucia’s exports, followed by the global financial crisis, and the infestation of varroa mite in bees (his family’s source of income) and Black Sigatoka in St.Lucia’s main export crop of bananas. The last nail in the coffin came in 2010 when hurricane Tomas dealt the knockout punch to the local economy that swept the carpet under me, exactly one year after he became self-employed.

His dire economic situation forced him to become a migrant worker. The first and only opportunity that came his way was becoming a migrant farm worker under what he later discovered is an ultra-exploitative program: the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP).

Having the lived experience of participating in the SAWP for four seasons, Gabriel has dedicated his life to fighting for all migrant workers to be treated with decency, equality, fairness and with dignity in Canada — a country that prides itself on diversity and inclusiveness, and on the world stage, as a champion for human rights.

Gabriel recently published a book about his life as a migrant worker and why he became an activist: Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada (written with McGill historian Edward Dunsworth). It has been released by Between the Lines Press in March 2023.