CAHRC weighs in | Reduced labour force, increased bureaucracy likely
A federal government redesign of the Employment Insurance program to encourage unemployed Canadians to take available local jobs is giving agricultural employers a headache, say industry leaders.
“We think it will have a net negative effect on agriculture,” Mervin Wiseman, chair of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council, said before appearing at a parliamentary committee to explain the agriculture industry’s employment challenges.
“I think the net effect will be to reduce our available labour force and add to the bureaucracy needed to bring in workers that we need.”
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The CAHRC has said tens of thousands of agricultural jobs remain unfilled and the number will grow because local workers are uninterested in farm work and access to temporary foreign workers is limited.
Wiseman, a former farm leader in Newfoundland who uses foreign workers on his fox farm, complained that the federal government announced changes without consulting with agriculture, one of the major employers of seasonal or temporary workers.
At its core, changes to the EI system announced May 24 will require unemployed workers to apply for available jobs before they can continue to qualify for employment insurance.
There will be tiers of requirements for unemployed workers, depending on their frequency of EI use.
When she announced the changes, human resources and skills development minister Diane Finley said the changes will help agriculture fill the tens of thousands of jobs that the CAHRC says will remain unfilled.
“Canadians want to work and we want to connect them to jobs,” said Finley, who represents an agricultural riding in southwestern Ontario and is a former Conservative agriculture critic.
“So if it’s an agricultural job and there are everything from low skill or no skill to very advanced skills, if someone is unemployed in an area and has the skills that match the requirements of that particular agricultural job, then yes, they will be expected to apply for it.… And they will be expected, if offered, to take it. We want to redress the balance right now so that Canadians get first crack at jobs before we bring in foreign temporary workers.”
However, she said it will not impede the ability of farm operators to bring in foreign workers.
“As long as the employer has demonstrated that he or she has tried out the local market and within reason, then they will not be barred from bringing in temporary foreign workers,” she said. “We need those people.”
Finley said under the program reforms, unemployed workers on EI will receive more frequent e-mail updates about available local jobs and will be expected to respond.
Wiseman said a survey of the council’s 300,000 agricultural members shows that there is a lot of uncertainty about the proposed impact of the EI changes.
He said many temporary foreign workers have been coming to Canada for years and have the skills required and a work ethic.
Forcing local unemployed workers to apply for jobs could mean a workforce that needs to be trained, does not want to be there and will leave shortly, requiring more training for new workers.
