Webinar: Health care barriers for migrant workers in Canada
Unhealthy and unsafe migrant labour and housing are well documented in Canada, yet migrant workers, in particular those with closed work permits, face numerous barriers to accessing health care and are afraid to access health care or take sick leave, fearing that reporting an illness or injury could jeopardize their stay in the country.
Join the launch of a report, Excluded from care: Health care barriers for migrant workers in Canada, published by the the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre and the Canadian Health Coalition, on November 18, 2026.
Thursday, November 18
12:00 PM ET | 11:00 AM CST | 1:00 PM AT
Joining the Canadian Health Coalition’s Anne Lagacé Dowson to discuss what can be done to eliminate the disparities in health care access for migrant workers are:
Y.Y. Chen is is an Associate Professor in the Common Law Section of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, where he holds the Dean’s Research Professorship in Migrant Health Equity. A lawyer and social worker by training, his research examines legal, policy, and ethical issues at the intersection of health systems and international migration, principally through the lenses of constitutional and international human rights law. His work has addressed such subjects as migrants’ right to health, public health-related border regulation, and cross-border health care. In 2025, he represented the Canadian Health Coalition and the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre in their joint intervention before the Supreme Court of Canada in Quebec (AG) v Kanyinda. He is currently co-counsel for the Canadian Health Coalition and several other organization intervening jointly in Toussaint v Canada (AG).
Susana Caxaj is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Western University. She is also a Principal Investigator on Migrants’ Intersecting Experiences with Housing in Agriculture Project. Her research is focused on exploring underserved populations’ access and navigation of health and multi-sectoral services with a particular focus on racialized, migrant and Indigenous populations.
Lindsay Larios is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Larios is an interdisciplinary critical policy researcher. She studies citizenship and immigration in the Canadian context, in particular, as it intersects with family and reproductive politics and policies. Her most recent work focuses on the politics of pregnancy and childbirth and precarious migration as an issue of reproductive justice.
Alicia Carty is a migrant worker and advocate based in Ontario. Alicia organizes with Justicia (Justice for Migrant Workers), Injured Workers Action for Justice, and is a board member of the Industrial Accident Victims’ Group of Ontario Community Legal Clinic, a legal aid clinic serving injured workers in Ontario. She is the 2026 recipient of the Nell Toussaint Award for Universal Health Care.
Stacy Neish is a New Brunswick-based migrant worker and member of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change. She champions her daughter’s access to health care.
Tracy Glynn is a co-author of the report, the National Director of Projects and Operations of the Canadian Health Coalition and a founding board member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre. She was also a researcher on the Temporary Foreign Workers in the Maritimes research project. She is an assistant professor at St. Thomas University where she teaches sociology of health.
Lutfunnessa Tania is a co-author of the report, a Masters student in the Migration and Diaspora Studies program at Carleton University. In 2026, Tania completed a placement with the Canadian Health Coaliton and the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre. She was also the research coordinator of the Madhu Centre during the summer of 2026, helping to set up the Madhu Centre’s Fellows for Migrant Justice program.
For more information, contact Tracy at tglynn@healthcoalition.ca.
