CFA says changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program have hit the sector hard
OTTAWA — Farm operations differ from coast to coast and commodity by commodity, but a significant labour shortage is affecting them all, said delegates to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture annual meeting.
New Brunswick dairy farmer Reint-Jan Dykstra said he has watched workers leaving his province for Alberta’s oil patch, which was a more lucrative option, at least until recently when the falling price of oil slowed the industry.
“It does mean that my supply of labour is zero to none,” he said.
“What we hear is there’s all kinds of work. Unfortunately, there is no farm labour because nobody wants to work for x amount of dollars and y amount of hours.”
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CFA second vice-president Marcel Groleau said Quebec’s horticulture industry estimates it has lost $40 million because of problems with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
“They need solutions for the very next season,” he said.
And in Alberta, the CFA’s first vice-president, Humphrey Banack, said grain farmers like him also have trouble finding workers. He said the problem is real: one in eight Canadian jobs are tied to agriculture and a significant chunk of gross domestic product is tied to the industry.
“How do we meet our labour needs?” he asked federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz. “How do we get the people trained?”
Ritz said Ottawa is working with the provinces to try to bring in temporary foreign workers more quickly but agreed there has to be a longer-term solution.
“There are all kinds of things being talked about,” he said.
Changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program have hamstrung agricultural operations because of caps on how many an operation can employ and restrictions on how long they can stay.
As well, agricultural processors require highly skilled workers, who the program doesn’t always provide.
Liberal deputy leader Ralph Good-ale said the program, which is actually a series of programs, worked well for about 30 years, but complaints began after the government started tinkering with it a few years ago.
Problems uncovered in other workplaces such as fast food restaurants and financial institutions led to more extensive changes last summer.
“The government has come forward with a very extreme response, and the net result of it is creating very significant problems in some sectors, like agriculture,” he said.
“There’s a very high degree of training and competence required. There needs to be a more sensitive calibrated response to the TFW issue.”
Goodale said that starts with accurate labour market data.
An ongoing project at the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council and Conference Board of Canada is looking at where jobs are unfilled by commodity.
Farm Credit Canada president Mike Hoffort told the meeting that 74,000 agricultural jobs are expected by 2022, but one-third won’t be filled.
Meanwhile, University of Guelph professor Sylvain Charlebois said March 4 that rural Canada will be hit hard April when changes come into effect.
“Since Canadian agriculture em-ploys well over 50,000 foreign workers to support farming and processing facilities across the country, losses to this labour force will be considerable and are really coming at the wrong time,” he wrote in a commentary.
Changes to the rules in 2011 mean foreign workers are limited to four-year work permits. They have to leave and then wait four years to reapply. Charlebois said some have been in Canada for more than 10 years.
He said many Canadians don’t want to work in the sector because of the physical labour and long hours required. And even if they apply, they will require extensive training.
Charlebois instead urged the federal government to change the program to allow temporary foreign workers to become residents.
