It’s a simple matter of supply and demand for Lee Townsend.
Beekeepers need workers during the summer and there are people from Nicaragua and the Philippines who want to work at apiaries in Alberta.
Yet, considering that some of those foreign employees have worked in Alberta for five, 10 or 15 years, it’s hard to comprehend why the hiring process is so torturous, said Townsend, a beekeeper from Stony Plain, Alta.
“For the Philippines program, generally, you have to apply six months in advance. As soon as the workers go home you have to apply for next year,” said Townsend, Alberta Beekeepers vice-president.
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Unfortunately for beekeepers in Canada, the process became more complex in 2011 when the federal government changed the rules and regulations governing temporary foreign workers.
Bruce Podolsky, a beekeeper from Ethelbert, Man., said the changes ground the process to a halt.
“Service Canada, (and the) temporary foreign worker program, doesn’t know what all the changes are right now. So all our applications are being held up.”
Western Canadian beekeepers hire foreign workers because it’s difficult to find Canadians to work at apiaries over the summer.
Podolsky has a core of local and loyal employees, including First Nations people, cattle farmers and students, but it’s not enough.
“The farming families in the countryside are gone. It’s all big farmers so there are very few young people around,” said Podolsky, who plans to hire 12 foreign workers in 2012.
It’s a similar story for beekeepers across the Prairies.
Podolsky estimated that temporary foreign workers represent 50 to 60 percent off all apiary employees in Western Canada. The percentage is even higher in Alberta, said Townsend, probably 65 to 75 percent.
“We’re not hiring these foreign workers because it’s cheap labour,” said Townsend, whose employees are all foreigners. “When it comes to the cost of the workers, it costs more for industry to hire foreign workers than to hire Canadians.”
Prairie beekeepers would struggle to produce honey if they couldn’t hire a sufficient number of foreign workers, he added.
In Podolsky’s case, he submitted his application to hire foreign workers in September. Earlier this fall, government officials told him there were errors in his application, but they couldn’t explain how to fill out the form correctly.
“We’re very frustrated because they are the ones changing the program and they don’t have the answers,” he said.
“They say it (the answers) will be up on the website… maybe in January. So we’re all stressed out.”
Townsend said the federal government requires beekeepers, or any business that wants to hire a temporary foreign worker, to follow a particular protocol when it comes to advertising the job, applying to hire the workers and paying an appropriate wage for the job.
“It’s very difficult to get these (wage rates) on time from HRSDC (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada),” Townsend said.
Beekeepers and other agricultural sectors are also unhappy with a change that won’t allow foreign workers to be granted a work permit for four years after their initial four-year permit expires. The change comes into effect April 1.
While Townsend said this “four and four” rule makes sense for year-round industries such as the hospitality trade, it makes little sense for a seasonal business such as agriculture.
“For beekeepers and other farmers that have workers from Nicaragua, the Philippines and other countries … they’ve had (those workers) for 15 years. You’re not going to want to start over and train and lose that experience.”
Greenhouse operators, vegetable farmers, dairy farmers, feedlot operators and beekeepers have banded together to lobby the federal government on this regulation.
“We’re looking for an exemption for agriculture,” Townsend said. “All indications are there will be changes, but what those changes (will be) we have no idea.”
A Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokesperson said the government isn’t considering an exemption.
Beekeepers could hire workers from Mexico and Caribbean countries that are eligible for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program because it isn’t subject to the “four and four” rule, the spokesperson added.
Tow nsend said that is true but many beekeepers prefer to hire people from the Philippines and Nicaragua because they already have experience and are more likely to speak English.
BEE FACTS:
•there are approximately 7,000 beekeepers in Canada, who operate 600,000 colonies of honeybees
•about 475,000, or 80 percent, of those colonies are in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba
•twenty percent of beekeepers maintain 80 percent of the colonies
Source: Canadian Honey Council
