The federal labour minister wants meat processors to connect with First Nation communities as a potential source of workers.
“Unemployment is staggering for our indigenous peoples, and it doesn’t have to be,” MaryAnn Mihychuk told Growing the AgriWorkforce, an agri-food human resources conference held mid-March in Winnipeg.
Mihychuk, who represents a riding in north Winnipeg, is taking action to get indigenous people working in the agri-food sector.
She reached out to the Sandy Bay First Nation in Manitoba to see if residents are interested in working at the Hylife pork processing plant in Neepawa, Man.
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“I just phone the chief and said, ‘are (residents) employed at Neepawa? It’s an hour to get to the plant,’ ” she said.
“He indicated they had a lot of folks that would be interested in employment.”
Sandy Bay Chief Lance Roulette, who attended the agri-food labour conference, said the reserve is working with Hylife on a recruitment plan. It is talking about bus transportation to Neepawa and the possibility of a training or introductory meat cutting program on the reserve.
“The interest … is really, really high,” he said. “We had about 52 women that applied specifically for that (program).”
Hylife representatives confirmed they are collaborating with Sandy Bay, but plans are in the early stages.
Mihychuk said she’s heard from many people about the critical labour shortage in the agri-food sector, including the message that the industry needs more foreign workers because Canadians don’t want to work at meat plants.
However, she believes farmers and food processing companies can do more to hire domestically.
“I’ve heard from indigenous leaders and labour unions … that there are opportunities for Canadians … to take those positions.”
Mark Chambers, senior production manager for Sunterra Farms, which has hog barns in Ontario and Alberta, wasn’t impressed with the message.
“We listened to the minister this morning (saying), ‘try again. Maybe it didn’t work last time so try again,’ ” Chambers said.
“I can’t count how many times we tried with individual employees, again and again and again.”
Chambers said Sunterra has provided workers with rides or vehicles and offered attendance bonuses. However, such efforts rarely convinced an employee to stay because most Canadians don’t want challenging jobs in rural areas.
Sunterra is short about 20 people at its pork processing plant in Trochu, Alta., and doesn’t have enough employees to produce value added pork products.
“Right now we’re throwing food away … because we don’t have people to process it.”
Sunterra has attempted to recruit indigenous people but those efforts didn’t go anywhere, Chambers said.
“There is a huge workforce there, but the problem is they’re specifically located where industry is not around,” he said.
“So they have to be bused. Is that real? Are they going to sit on a bus for an hour an a half to work at farm or a meat plant?”
Roulette said 20 Sandy Bay residents work at the Hylife plant and commute in car pools to Neepawa. He hopes to increase that number to 75 to 100 because unemployment is chronic in Sandy Bay, which has a population of 6,500.
“We have 1,134 people … basically on the welfare system (and) 708 of those people are between the ages of 18 and 40.”
robert.arnason@producer.com
