Temporary Foreign Worker Program | General manager at Alberta facility is now a Canadian citizen
RED DEER — The Temporary Foreign Worker Program isn’t just about giving employers access to foreign workers.
For the foreign workers, it’s access to a new life.
Christo Hurtado took a leap of faith and moved his family from Mexico to southern Alberta for work at a feedlot. It was also a chance at a better life and new job opportunities.
“I thought that Canada was a better environment for our family to grow and had the environment to do our best,” Hurtado told an agricultural labour summit.
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Hurtado’s wife had travelled to Canada as a teenager, and Canada was already on the couple’s radar when he came north for work.
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was “simple and real.”
“It was a door to get you to Canada,” said Hurtado, who studied veterinary medicine in Mexico.
Hurtado met Rick Paskal, a southern Alberta feedlot owner, while Paskal was on an agricultural tour in Mexico.
“For me it was very exciting and added to my desire to move there.”
He knew little about southern Alberta and worried that stores wouldn’t sell tomatoes or limes. He also wanted to know if snow was cold.
“It seems like simple stuff, but it was important for us.”
Hurtado, now a general manager for Paskal, said it’s important to share the workers’ side of the story.
“I don’t want to talk about my personal life. I am not used to that, but it’s important to see a face behind the program we’re talking about.”
Hurtado said it’s not easy coming to a strange place and not doing the equivalent work he was trained for in Mexico.
“I had to be humble,” said Hurtado, who started work at the bottom, shoveling out feed bunks and processing cattle. “I had to prove myself. That’s a challenge.”
Hurtado is now a Canadian citizen, owns a house and coaches his son’s soccer team.
Frank Novak of Sunhaven Farms, one of the largest hog operations in Alberta, said his company made a conscious choice to hire only skilled workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
“We have the most luck retaining people who genuinely want to ad-vance and not those looking for a paycheque,” he said. “We’re looking for people with real growth potential.”
Of the company’s 70 farm staff, 44 are from outside of Canada. Of those non-Canadians, 13 are now permanent residents and 31 are temporary foreign workers.
Novak said farmers need to be flexible and recognize the needs of foreign workers.
Workers are not interested in a two- week holiday. They require four or five weeks to travel home to visit family. It’s not easy to schedule that time off, but it’s important for workers.
“We’re talking about real lives and real families.”
