Labour regulations handcuff industry, say officials

Worker recruitment Western Canadian officials say it’s difficult to recruit and keep temporary foreign workers

RED DEER — Agriculture is headed for a crisis unless solutions for a critical farm labour shortage can be found, says the owner of a southern Alberta farm and feedlot.

Rick Paskal said he has scaled back his livestock operation, which involves lambs, cattle and processing.

The business has held off buying lambs and cattle during the busiest times of the livestock-buying season until it can find more staff.

“This week, we had to go off the market on the lambs because we don’t have anyone to feed lambs. I don’t know what the producer is going to do with his lambs. Hopefully we can get our act together and be back in the market,” Paskal said Oct. 30 during the Agricultural Labour Summit in Red Deer.

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Paskal said he would not place an order for calves until 40 of his cattle pens are cleaned.

“We are very limited in the market in the last 10 days. Our order is not out there. I don’t have the help,” said Paskal, who farms near Picture Butte, Alta.

“I say realistically we are operating at 80 to 85 percent capacity right now.”

Paskal recently returned from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where he was looking for more workers. Three people have moved to southern Alberta, but he is still short at least 15 workers.

“I appreciate where the Government of Canada comes from and we’re recruiting as much as can here,” he said.

“We’ve done that. It is not realistic to only hire from Canada.”

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program once allowed packing plants to hire foreign workers, but changes in June have made it more difficult.

Paskal is worried Canadian packing plants will run out of workers and close.

“The result will be cattle going south out of Canada. These action will close plants down or lay off a shift,” he said.

“I have no idea what we are going to do. This is really scary.”

Paul Wannet, human resources manager with Cargill Meat Solutions in High River, Alta., said the latest changes in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has set the company back eight years in its search for workers.

“The renewal of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2007 provided us with an effective tool to meet the demand and hire qualified workers.”

Wannet said 651 of its workers have become permanent residents and only 45 have left the plant for other work. But that is no longer possible under the new rules.

Alberta pork producer John Middel said he faces a nightmare of paperwork when hiring workers for his central Alberta pork barn.

“I am working on this in the evening and trying to get it right,” said Middel.

There is no contact person at Service Canada to help with queries, and the government department shreds the application and forces him to start over if a mistake is found in the paperwork.

“What it does as a small business owner, it is telling me is, ‘we don’t want you to be growing if you are dependent on outside help,’ ” said Middel, the son of an immigrant.

Beekeeper Mike deJong said he doesn’t understand the logic that allows him to hire workers for only four years.

“Once here for four years, they must go home for four years. It doesn’t make sense. We can hire any other foreign worker, but not that guy.”

DeJong said he would like some of his temporary foreign workers to become permanent residents, but he only needs them for eight months of the year.

He has tried hiring Canadian workers for the busy beekeeping business, he added, but he either receives few applicants or they want a permanent job.

Bill Simpson, chief executive officer of Mushrooms Canada, said ending the ability to hire foreign workers has put Canada’s 50 mushroom businesses at risk.

“This has become an emotional issue as well as a labour issue,” he said. “We have now got absenteeism, nervous breakdown and workers requiring psychological help. We have people walking away from job and work.”

In a strange quirk of bureaucracy, mushroom farms are not considered agriculture, nursery or greenhouse and can no longer hire temporary foreign workers. They are also not eligible for seasonal agriculture programs because the mushroom harvest is year round.