The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology offers six recommendations to the federal government in its Act Now: Solutions for Temporary and Migrant Labour in Canada report. The committee set out to study issues faced by both workers and employers in November 2022.

The Senate committee said in the report it had a broad mandate that included social and labour matters, immigration and citizenship and health and welfare.

Created in 1973, the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program was formed “as a last and limited resort to allow employers to bring foreign workers to Canada on a temporary basis to fill jobs for which qualified Canadians are not available,” the report said, but has become a “central component of the labour market in Canada.”

At a press conference, committee Chair Senator Ratna Omidvar said the current system falls short of serving anyone, staggering through 50 years of habit and inertia, requiring immediate federal government action to initiate change.

The committee said it welcomed perspectives from witnesses representing workers, employers, sector and industry experts and advocates, academics and government officials over the course of 14 meetings held in Ottawa.

Committee member Senator Rene Cormier of New Brunswick, said Canada’s TFW program is a victim of its own success, driving increased dependency on the program to address labour shortages while failing to develop a corresponding sense of responsibility and gratitude. “Foreign workers must navigate a compounding bureaucracy to get here, and when they arrive, they lack basic protections that all Canadians enjoy,” he said. At the same time, employers get tangled in bureaucratic battles, leading to the late arrival of their workforce.

“Strong leadership is required to bring order to the chaotic, wasteful and ineffective status quo. We envision a commission that would serve as a one-stop shop for migrants who need help asserting their rights, and for employers seeking support in navigating the labyrinth of red tape and even for government departments seeking to make their operations more efficient,” says Cormier.

Omidvar said migrant labour administration is an “alphabet soup of departments, agencies and organizations sending inspectors and inspections” to enforce various and overlapping compliance and enforcement regimes. She added not one witness could identify a particular organization or body responsible for ensuring standards were met.

Senator Flordeliz (Gigi) Osler, a member of the subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, said most employers provide safe and fair treatment to migrant workers, but the report shows that unaddressed mistreatment, deception, and threats leave migrant workers uniquely vulnerable. She likened sub-par practices engaged by unscrupulous employers to modernized indentured servitude.

The Act Now report proposes to phase in employer-specific permits with sector or region-specific work permits over three years. This would allow employees to leave abusive situations and give employers the flexibility to deploy workers where needed.

Omidvar said employers and migrant workers that support bad employers with disciplinary action against them have their TFW hiring capacity removed.

“That is not yet the case. Employers who are not up to the standard often are able to demonstrate that they are,” she explained, “and then get back into the mix.”

She believes this is exactly the kind of problem that a Migrant Worker Commission could resolve.

The committee said in the report it would like to see the development of an independent, arms-length tripartite commission to coordinate policy, respond to employers and migrant workers and recommend government policy reforms.

This would include a commissioner for migrant workers, a commissioner for employers and representation from the federal government through Employment and Social Development Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“No Canadian wants to determine that the product they are consuming is tainted by a labour chain that is exploited in any way,” she said.

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Federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough announced Nov. 27 the national commodity list (NCL) would be expanded to include seed corn, oil seed, grains and maple syrup — a move which allows farmers who produce those products to seek employees via SAWP.

The NCL helps determine eligibility and pay within the primary agricultural stream of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program. Access to SAWP and the TFW agricultural stream is limited to employers hiring workers for commodities specifically listed on the NCL.

SAWP is the stream most commonly used in Canadian primary agriculture; it provided 46,707 approved positions in 2019, with 12,858 coming from participating Caribbean countries and the rest from Mexico, the government said.

The NCL — which applies to both seasonal and non-seasonal work — already includes apiary products, fruits and vegetables, mushrooms, flowers; nursery-grown trees, greenhouse and nursery plants, pedigreed canola seed, sod, tobacco, beef and dairy cattle, swine, sheep, poultry and ducks, horses and mink among its other primary ag commodities.

SAWP employees and other TFWs were allowed to enter Canada in 2020 as essential workers under new federal limits on entry to Canada at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government reiterated in its announcement Nov. 27 that COVID outbreaks, which led to illnesses and several deaths among Canada’s TFW labour force during 2020, have since prompted moves to update the minimum requirements for employer-provided TFW accommodations.

Consultations on those proposals began in late October and run until Dec. 22.

The Canadian Seed Trade Association, for one, hailed Qualtrough’s expansions to the NCL, saying the inclusion of seed corn on the list gives companies in that sector “access to labour that is urgently needed.”

Seed corn companies “traditionally rely on local high school students to fulfil their temporary labour demands in the summer and have had difficulty accessing the number of workers needed, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CSTA said Nov. 30 in a separate release.

The CSTA said it expects access to labour will “remain a large challenge looking ahead to 2021.”

Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the government said employers and workers who use the TFW program or SAWP are “encouraged to apply early to avoid any delays.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Wednesday said officials are reviewing requests from employers to see which ones will qualify to have 100 per cent of their employees’ salaries covered under temporary expansions to the summer jobs program.

Decisions would be finalized soon, she said, but no specific date was given.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on April 8 announced changes to the Canada Summer Jobs program, aimed at businesses delivering essential services with fewer than 50 employees.

Those changes include increasing the wage subsidy so employers can receive up to 100 per cent of the provincial or territorial minimum wage per employee, and extending the end date for employment to Feb. 28 next year.

That move came shortly after the federal government deemed the entire food supply chain an essential service, meaning certain producers and food processors could apply to employ people under the expanded program.

“We will put a priority on those offering essential services,” Bibeau said, adding employers will be informed “shortly” of whether or not they will receive federal dollars from the program.

Concerns over labour shortages in the agriculture sector are mounting, as restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic makes the problems it already faced finding enough workers even worse.

“We are in a situation where we are facing an even greater labour shortage,” Bibeau said, adding there will be delays or a lack of foreign workers no matter what. “So we have to compensate and we know that we have a great number of Canadians who are unemployed right now.”

A little more than one million jobs were lost in March, with employment levels dropping by 5.3 per cent according to Statistics Canada. The unemployment rate now sits at 7.8 per cent and is expected to continue rising.

Meanwhile, it’s estimated there are only about 15,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada right now – well below the 56,765 that arrived in 2018. According to the federal government, producers have applied for a total of 10,181 positions through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) in 2020.

Approvals to hire temporary foreign workers were granted to 983 businesses for 9,113 positions between January and the end of March.

Bibeau said the rate of temporary or seasonal workers entering Canada is “a bit behind the curve” relative to other years while the industry continues to be challenged by transportation issues and isolation requirements for workers arriving in Canada.

Transfers planned for top-ups

The federal government has made it easier for employers to hire Canadian workers by offering to pay wages, but there has been no action yet to encourage unemployed Canadians to find work in agriculture.

To help employers in “essential” sectors keep workers on staff, the federal government on Wednesday announced it would work with provinces and territories to set up a new transfer program.

Under that proposed program, the two levels of government would cost-share a “temporary top-up” to the wages of any low-income workers deemed “essential in the fight against COVID-19” in those provinces and territories.

The top-up would apply to essential workers earnings less than $2,500 a month, such as front-line hospital workers, long-term care workers and “those working so hard to make sure that there that is food on our shelves and tables.”

Quebec and British Columbia, for example, have already set up direct wage supports for low-income workers in essential-service sectors, and the proposed transfer program would allow Ottawa to cost-share those supports. Further details are to be released “shortly.”

Farm work in particular has become increasingly reliant on imported workers, because it is generally work Canadians don’t want – or need.

“We are actually looking at ways to encourage Canadians to work in the food industry to work in farms and processing plants,” said Bibeau, later admitting that “it’s a challenge… but we still have to do even more to encourage (Canadians) to join the industry.”

The government on Wednesday also announced further tweaks to the Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), retroactive to March 15, that would allow people to earn up to $1,000 a month while also collecting CERB funds.

The changes announced Wednesday also extend the CERB to seasonal workers who have exhausted their regular employment insurance benefits and can’t yet undertake their regular seasonal work because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The CERB will also now be extended to other workers who have recently exhausted regular EI benefits and are unable to find a job or return to work because of COVID-19.

Those changes line up with proposals from a group of 22 senators who wrote to Bibeau on April 6, asking the government to consider allowing Canadians employed in positions typically filled by temporary or seasonal agricultural workers to continue receiving CERB funds while they do farm work.

The senators also suggested Canadians working on farms should continue receiving employment insurance benefits without having their earnings clawed back. As well, they asked the federal government to pay for accommodations for those who would usually live on a farm in a communal setting.

Industry associations echoed those calls.

“We’re trying to figure out if we can find a wider way to support a greater number of producers or if we will have to go through ad hoc… programs, which would be specific to one sector and another. So we are getting there right now,” Bibeau said.

“I know that our farmers deserve you know, more support,” she said. “And we’re working really hard on that right now. A variety of recommendations are coming from the different sectors right now. So we are sorting this out.”

Earlier this week, the government announced it is offering $1,500 for each temporary foreign worker coming to Canada, to help farmers, fish harvesters, producers and processors cover costs related to containing COVID-19.

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The federal government said this week that temporary foreign workers (TFWs) and workers coming to Canada under the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SAWP) will be exempt from the current federal ban on foreign nationals entering the country, imposed to limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Workers who enter the country will be required to observe a 14-day period of “supervised isolation,” she said Saturday, adding that all employers under those programs will be required to put that isolation period in place or may lose their TFW hiring privileges in the future.

“Every measure will be taken to follow necessary health requirements, including thorough pre-screening, supervised isolation upon arrival, and employee monitoring,” she said in a separate statement.

During a ministerial press conference Saturday, Bibeau said the next step will be to work with relevant countries to obtain authorization for flights, which would be chartered by the industry and paid for by the workers’ employers.

TFWs and SAWP employees “should be starting to come in in the next few weeks,” she said, facilitated by FARMS Canada — the not-for-profit group which processes SAWP requests — and various industries.

Ottawa’s role now, she said, “is to obtain the travel authorizations for these workers.”

Generally, the government said Friday, exemptions to current air travel restrictions will apply to “foreign nationals who have already committed to working, studying or making Canada their home, and travel by these individuals will be considered essential travel for land border restrictions.”

Those exemptions include SAWP employees as well as fish and seafood workers, caregivers and all other TFWs as well as international students who held a valid study permit or approval for a study permit when the travel restrictions took effect Wednesday.

To further streamline the process for TFWs, the government said Friday, “temporary modification” is being made to the labour market impact assessment (LMIA) process for agriculture and food processing employers. That change will wave the two-week recruitment period for the next six months.

The maximum allowable employment duration of one year for workers in the “low-wage stream” of the federal TFW program will also be expanded, to two years. “This will improve flexibility and reduce the administrative burden for employers, including those in food processing,” the government said.

“We are still reviewing the details and will be in close contact with all relevant departments and industry stakeholders over the coming days to ensure these workers arrive safely and on time, while responsibly adhering to all public health requirements,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Mary Robinson said in a separate release Friday.

“Today’s announcement will ensure both a robust response to addressing the spread of the virus, and that our farmers, fishers and other producers have the workers they need, when they need them, to strengthen Canada’s food security and provide other vital services,” Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said Friday.

Canada brings in about 60,000 temporary foreign workers per year for the agriculture and agri-food sectors, Bibeau said, describing them as “crucial to our food security and our rural economies.”

That said, she added, “there will always be opportunities available for Canadians interested in stepping forward to work on our farms and in food processing plants.”

During Saturday’s press conference, Bibeau thanked workers across the sector, including farmers, farm workers, processing plant workers, grocery store staff, food bank volunteers, truckers and others who continue to work despite their own concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now more than ever, everyone can appreciate just how essential they are to our society.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Canada’s labour-strapped farms rely heavily on nearly 60,000 temporary foreign workers (TFWs) to help plant and harvest crops such as fruit and vegetables. They also account for about three per cent of meat and seafood processors’ labour force.

Ottawa this week said it would close its borders to all foreign nationals, except U.S. citizens, prompting industry concerns about the potential damage to this year’s harvest.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters that “valid work and student visas to come to Canada will be respected… and that includes temporary foreign workers.”

Those individuals, like all persons entering Canada from abroad, will be required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival, she added.

Freeland’s statement echoed similar comments Wednesday from Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, who said TFWs, international students and workers with visas will be exempt from the travel ban.

Many of the workers come to Canada via the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SAWP). It allows farmers to hire workers from Mexico or certain Caribbean countries for a maximum of eight months, provided they can offer workers a minimum of 240 hours of work within a period of six weeks or less.

Farm groups said a lack of workers would challenge Canada’s agriculture supply chain.

In a notice sent on Wednesday, the groups sent a document to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet outlining suggested ways to get workers from countries whose borders or airports are shut to Canada, including the use of chartered flights, said sources with direct knowledge of the file.

The proposal laid out how farmers could maintain operational health and safety and ensure workers, who often live in close quarters on farms, could self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival, the sources said.

A senior government official told Reuters on Thursday all options were on the table and discussions with provincial counterparts were ongoing.

— Kelsey Johnson reports on Canadian economic policy for Reuters from Ottawa; additional reporting by Steve Scherer. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that effective Wednesday, foreign nationals from all countries except the U.S. would be temporarily prohibited from entering Canada, in response to the evolving COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

That ban was expanded Wednesday to include “non-essential travel” by U.S. residents for purposes such as recreation and tourism.

Canada’s agriculture groups and provincial officials since Monday have expressed concerns about the ban’s potential impact on the arrival of temporary foreign workers (TFWs), including those coming to Canada under the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SAWP), for work in Canada’s ag and agrifood processing sectors.

However, federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said during a press conference Wednesday that TFWs will be exempt from the travel ban.

“Temporary foreign workers — their work is important to maintaining our country and what they contribute — so they will be allowed to enter Canada as well, after observing a 14-day period of self-isolation,” Blair said.

Government officials confirmed shortly afterward that Blair’s comments apply also to arrivals in Canada under SAWP.

The exemption will also apply to international students and workers entering Canada on visas, Blair said.

Leading up to Wednesday’s announcement, farm employers of TFWs were “freaking out right now,” as Manitoba Beekeepers Association chair Mark Friesen put it in an interview.

Friesen said Manitoban beekeepers hire between 80 and 100 TFWs per year, adding that some operations will need those employees soon and that others may not need them until the end of April.

Ag groups said Wednesday it’s estimated Canada needs about 60,000 foreign workers for the agriculture sector, including about 45,000 under SAWP, which sources workers specifically from Mexico and 11 Caribbean countries.

Farms’ TFW needs include over 1,400 “specifically for oilseed and grain farming,” the Western Canadian Wheat Growers said in a separate statement Wednesday.

“All the same self-isolation measures should continue to be in place for any TFW coming into the country, similar to any Canadian that is returning to Canada,” WCWG Saskatchewan director Kenton Possberg said in a release before Blair’s statement Wednesday.

“The challenge is that many remote grain farms cannot operate without (TFWs) as a part of their crew. The importance of our food value chain cannot be underestimated for both our domestic or international markets.”

Citing an ag labour shortage in Quebec, Marcel Groleau, president of the province’s Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), said the presence of about 16,000 TFWs from Mexico, Guatemala and elsewhere is “essential” to that province’s ag sector, particularly in horticulture crops.

“Ontario alone is expecting approximately 20,000 workers to arrive in Canada in coming weeks to assist with spring preparation and planting as well as work in our processing plants,” the Ontario Federation of Agriculture said separately Wednesday. “Without these key individuals the production year and local processing capacity could be lost.”

— Reporting for Glacier FarmMedia by D.C. Fraser in Ottawa, Geralyn Wichers in Winnipeg and GFM Network staff.

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One of the requirements for farms hiring temporary foreign workers (TFWs) is that the farm provide workers with “adequate, suitable and affordable housing as defined by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.”

Said housing can be either on-farm, such as a bunkhouse, or off-site, such as a commercial hotel/motel.

Whether it’s on-farm or off-site housing, farm employers are required to provide proof it has been inspected by the appropriate provincial/territorial/municipal body or by an authorized private inspector with proper certifications.

Effective Jan. 1, however, housing for temporary foreign workers under the TFW program’s Primary Agriculture Stream will have to have been inspected within the eight months prior to the date when a farm’s labour market impact assessment (LMIA) application is received at Service Canada.

The new rule, which will also cover TFWs under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), requires that a farm’s submitted housing inspection report must have “all relevant sections completed,” with proof of inspection.

Inspection reports submitted to Employment and Social Development Canada will also have to indicate the maximum number of workers permitted per approved accommodation, the government said Thursday.

Farm employers also must now provide proof all issues listed in a housing inspection report have been “fully addressed” before they’ll be allowed to hire foreign workers.

Failure to meet the housing inspection report requirements without justification will result in a farm’s LMIA application being considered “incomplete,” the government said.

In British Columbia, farms also must use the British Columbia Agriculture Council’s (BCAC) housing inspection form and have the housing inspection done by a BCAC-sanctioned inspector who’s authorized for housing inspections.

Employers are responsible for any costs connected with having the housing inspected, the government said, and “under no circumstances” can those costs be recovered from a worker.

The government reiterated Thursday it will run more on-site inspections to verify firsthand that TFWs’ working and housing conditions meet program requirements.

“These new housing measures will help to ensure that temporary foreign workers in the agriculture industry have safe and adequate housing while working in Canada,” Patty Hajdu, the federal minister of employment, workforce development and labour, said in a release Thursday. — AGCanada.com Network

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