According to a report from Global News, Miller said employers may need to start offering higher wages to Canadian workers while speaking to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Wednesday.

The comments come following several recently-announced reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program by the federal government. Recent rules limit the number of TFWs employers may hire in areas with low unemployment and last week, a 20 per cent increase to hourly wage for TFWs came into effect.

Per the Global news report, Miller specifically pointed to agriculture as a low-wage sector in which “there are exploitative relationships that exist.”

More reductions and limits on the TFW program would likely mean more pressure on Canadian producers to hire local labour.

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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 and Workforce Development Minister Randy Boissonault last week launched a three-year pilot meant to “help to address labour shortages and reduce the administrative burden for repeat employers participating in the (TFW) program who demonstrate a history of complying with program requirements.”

The pilot program, dubbed the Recognized Employer Pilot (REP), was telegraphed in the federal budget in April last year with a funding envelope of $29.3 million over three years.

Canadian employers who want to import TFWs must today fill out labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) every year, documenting an employer’s need for a TFW and that no Canadians or permanent residents are available to do the job in question.

Under the REP, however, eligible employers would have access to LMIAs valid for up to 36 months, and would also get a simplified LMIA application if they need to hire additional workers from the same occupation during the pilot.

Recognized employers under the REP would also get a Job Bank designation that confirms their “recognized” status to prospective workers.

It’s expected the pilot “will help employers better plan for their staffing needs and reduce the number of different LMIAs they need to submit over three years,” the government said in a release Aug. 8.

Under the first phase of the REP, employers in the TFW program’s primary agriculture stream can apply starting in September this year, in time for the 2024 production season. All other employers will be eligible to apply in January 2024. The window for all employer applications for REP would close in September next year.

In short, Boissonault said, the REP “will cut red tape for eligible employers — those who demonstrate the highest level of protection for workers — and make it easier for them to access the labour they need to fill jobs that are essential to Canada’s economy and food security.”

“It is vital that Canadian employers, including farmers and food processors, are able to hire the workers who are critical to food production and food security in Canada,” federal Ag Minister Lawrence MacAulay said in the same release, adding the REP should cut the “administrative burden” for eligible ag employers “while ensuring the safety of workers.”

An employer’s eligibility for REP would be assessed and determined by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the government said.

To take part in the REP, an employer would need to have at least three positive LMIAs for the same occupation over the past five years, from a list of occupations designated as “in-shortage” as per Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS) data.

If an employer doesn’t get recognized status under REP, he or she will still be eligible to use the TFW program and the department would continue to assess his or her LMIA.

‘Long been asking’

Several ag groups have since hailed the launched of the REP. Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada president Jan VanderHout said the pilot “brings us one step closer to our goal of reducing the administrative burden faced by Canadian growers.”

Bill George, chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association labour section, said last Thursday that group’s members “have long been asking for a streamlined application process for employers with a strong history of program compliance, which makes this announcement a particularly welcome step forward.”

Chronic labour shortages in the past several decades have left some farms reliant on TFWs, “many of them working with the same people for years, if not decades, on end,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Keith Currie said last Thursday in a separate release.

“While we look forward to getting further details on the program, this program looks like it will reduce the administrative burden on those farmers who can demonstrate a history of compliance and years of reliability as employers.”

The REP plan follows the launch in April of a new online portal as the “primary method” for TFW employers to submit LMIAs. Moving that process online “will further improve processing and is helping employers address their labour market needs quickly,” the government said last week. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Employment and Workforce Development Minister Carla Qualtrough announced what’s called the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program Workforce Solutions Road Map, which the government said “marks the next step in an ongoing effort to adjust and improve the TFW Program to ensure it continues to meet the labour market needs of today.”

Starting “immediately,” the government said Monday, the length of a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) — the document an eligible employer has to obtain, to show that the use of TFWs in a given workplace won’t affect the Canadian job market, and that both the employer and the specified job are legitimate — will be doubled.

Where before the COVID-19 pandemic, LMIAs were valid for six months, and were later extended to nine months, they will from now on be valid for 18 months, the government said.

Also effective immediately, the maximum term of employment for workers in the “high-wage” and “global talent” streams will be extended to three years, up from two.

“This extension will help workers access pathways to qualify for permanent residency, enabling them to contribute to our workforce for the long-term,” the government said.

Also, to better handle seasonal peaks, the number of low-wage positions that employers in seasonal industries — that is, sectors such as fish and seafood processing — can fill with TFWs will no longer be limited, making permanent the seasonal cap exemption that’s already been in place since 2015. The maximum term for those positions will also be increased to 270 days a year, up from 180.

Later, starting April 30, eligible low-wage employers will be able to hire a maximum of 20 per cent of their full-time equivalent workers at a given worksite, up from the current 10 per cent, until further notice.

Also starting April 30, in seven sectors with “demonstrated labour shortages” — including food manufacturing, accommodation and food services, wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, construction, hospitals, and nursing /residential care — the cap will be raised to 30 per cent, for one year.

Also, in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher, where the TFW program now won’t process applications in the accommodation/food services and retail trade sectors, that “refusal to process” policy will be eliminated starting April 30.

LMIAs in such regions “must still demonstrate the clear need for foreign workers,” the government said, but the policy change is expected to help employers in areas where “severe labour shortages have persisted” despite higher unemployment.

Overall, the government said Monday, the Canadian labour market is tighter than before the pandemic and the job vacancy rate reached an “historic peak” in the third quarter of 2021, with much of the unmet demand is in low-wage occupations.

Out of all foreign workers coming to Canada as TFWs, over 60 per cent — about 50,000 to 60,000 per year — are agricultural workers, the government said.

“Currently, thousands of jobs are vacant in food processing plants,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in Monday’s release. “By facilitating the entry of foreign workers and extending their stay, our government aims to enable businesses to operate at full capacity and access new markets, increasing demand for our agricultural producers.”

The Canadian Meat Council, for one, hailed Monday’s announcement. “Our sector went from 1,700 to 10,000 empty butcher stations in the past few years,” the council’s senior vice-president for public affairs, Marie-France MacKinnon, said in a separate release Monday.

“The temporary foreign worker cap was a cap on our processing capacity and our sector’s growth potential. Today’s announcement allows our meat processors to hire temporary foreign workers, but there’s nothing temporary about our jobs; they are full-time and permanent.”

Canadian food and beverage manufacturing generally is facing an “escalating labour crisis,” the council said, with some companies reporting vacancy rates of 20 per cent or more, and some “forced to limit production and/or stop producing some products altogether.”

However, the Toronto-based Migrant Workers Alliance for Change on Monday panned the government’s planned changes. Alliance executive director Syed Hussan said the government “keeps making it easier for employers to hire migrant workers without ensuring migrants have basic rights and protections that can only be accessed by those with permanent resident status.”

Canada does not have a “crisis” of labour shortage, Hussan said Monday in a release, but rather a “wages and work conditions crisis” to be solved by “decent work and full immigration status for all.”

Low-waged essential workers, Hussan said, “should be able to come to Canada with permanent resident status instead of on employer-controlled permits with few rights.”

The government said Monday that its ministerial roundtable on TFWs, a consultative forum announced in December last year, will hold its first meeting this June, focusing on housing standards for TFWs.

Meetings of the roundtable, which will have up to 25 members and will be chaired by Qualtrough, are to be held twice each year for the next three years, each focusing on a different topic. Members are to include representatives from “stakeholders, employers, labour organizations and migrant support worker organizations.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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On Jan. 15, Canada’s minister responsible for vaccine procurement, Anita Anand, said the country’s supply of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine was experiencing a temporary delay because the company was taking time to scale up its production capacity.

“This expansion work means that Pfizer is temporarily reducing deliveries to all countries receiving vaccine manufactured at its European facility – and that includes Canada,” said Anand.

The delay isn’t expected to impact Canada’s long-term vaccination timeline, which aims to have everyone who wishes to be vaccinated by September. A little less than 400,000 doses have been received in Canada so far.

Close to two million more doses were originally expected to arrive in February, but that is no longer guaranteed.

Provinces are responsible for rolling out the vaccines at their own discretion, based on guidelines provided by the federal government.

According to those guidelines, people who are a high risk of dying from the virus or are “most likely to transmit COVID-19 to those at high risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 and workers essential to maintaining the COVID-19 response” should be prioritized.

To date, there is no indication temporary foreign workers or people employed in meat-packing facilities have received the vaccine anywhere in Canada.

There also appears to be few plans in place from governments to ensure they receive the vaccine.

Hundreds of employees at meat-packing plants and temporary foreign workers have tested positive for COVID-19, causing temporary shutdowns at some facilities.

Manitoba and Alberta didn’t respond to questions directly asking about their plans to provide vaccines to temporary foreign workers; but with limited supplies, provinces are focusing on immunizing health-care workers.

Details on what the second phase of those provinces’ vaccine rollout plan will look like are not available.

Saskatchewan’s government said in a statement that it is using the federal recommendations to determine who gets priority for a vaccine, but offered no specific plans for how temporary foreign workers would be vaccinated.

“Saskatchewan’s vaccine delivery plans for the first phase to focus on immunizing priority populations who are at a higher risk of exposure to the virus or more at risk of serious illness — health-care workers, elderly residents in care homes, seniors over 80 and residents in northern remote communities. Immunization will occur as vaccine is delivered to the province.”

Quebec’s preliminary proposed order of priority groups for a vaccine lists 10 steps, but none speak specifically to temporary foreign workers. The province’s first three phases focus on vulnerable people in long-term care homes and health-care workers.

They then plan on vaccinating people in isolated communities, elderly people and younger adults with chronic diseases before vaccinating the remaining population.

British Columbia has details for its first two phases of a vaccine rollout, but neither addresses when temporary foreign workers will receive their doses. The province’s second phase, which includes vaccines for people who are homeless or in a correctional facility, is expected to run from February to March.

Ontario has three phased approaches for its vaccine rollout. The second phase of that province’s rollout plan will give vaccines to front-line essential workers, including those in the food-processing industry. That tranche of people is expected to be included in a mass delivery of vaccines taking place from March to July.

Near the end of 2020, the Canadian Meat Council (CMC) said essential meat workers need to be a priority group of workers to receive the vaccine.

“We are urging the government to prioritize the COVID-19 vaccination for those working in the meat industry, following first responders, health-care workers, those in long-term care facilities and other front-line workers,” said Chris White, president of the Canadian Meat Council (CMC) in a statement. “Our efforts are working, but access to vaccines remains the most critical tool to protect this critical workforce and ensure that Canadians can always find meat on the shelves at their grocery store.”

CMC was joined by 13 other associations supporting agri-food workers being a priority to get vaccinated.

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents thousands of front-line workers, offered a similar sentiment.

The group said in December that after health-care employees, “workers in the food retail and manufacturing, meat-processing, long-term care and home-care, and security industries should be considered priority recipients as part of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.”

In the United States, meat-packing and poultry-processing workers are expected to be next in line for vaccines, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control advisory committee’s guidelines.

Those recommendations differ from Canada’s in that they place meat-packing workers ahead of some senior citizens and younger Americans with medical conditions that make them a high risk of infection.

But like Canada, the federal government is only providing guidelines and U.S. states will establish their own prioritization plans.

A Chicago-based report released in January by a group of labour rights groups argues workers in food distribution, production, and logistics employed by temporary staffing agencies or subcontractors should be prioritized for early access to the vaccine, alongside other food system workers.

Advocates for the report say ensuring these workers can access the vaccine is an issue of racial justice, because most of the workers they are speaking about are Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC).

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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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Outbreaks of coronavirus infections have killed three people and infected hundreds more on farms in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, in recent weeks.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said she had heard stories about the treatment of migrant workers that “would curl your hair,” and the way some farms treat them now is “a national disgrace.”

Hajdu added that she was working with Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough “on how to reform the temporary foreign worker program” but gave no details on what those reforms might look like.

Canadian farmers rely on some 60,000 temporary foreign workers, predominantly from Latin America and the Caribbean, to plant and harvest crops. Many live in crowded bunkhouses where the virus can spread quickly.

“All the PPE (personal protective equipment) in the world will not protect you if you are sleeping in a bunkhouse that is housing 12 to 15 people that may not have any ability for distancing, certainly no private washrooms or kitchen,” Hajdu said when asked whether Canada would consider providing migrant workers with PPE upon their arrival in Canada.

Migrant farm workers are considered a vulnerable population and need to be supported should they fall ill, Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters on Thursday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also said Canada must do more to protect migrant farm workers, who are considered essential workers.

Earlier this week, an Ontario official said the province would allow some people who have tested positive for COVID-19 but do not have symptoms to immediately return to work, provided precautions were in place.

— Kelsey Johnson reports on Canadian economic issues for Reuters from Ottawa.

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The decision came after a coronavirus outbreak in Ontario hit at least 17 farms, killing two Mexican workers aged 24 and 31, and prompting the testing of about 8,000 migrant farm workers.

Canadian farmers rely on 60,000 short-term foreign workers, predominantly from Latin America and the Caribbean, to plant and harvest crops.

This year, Mexico’s Temporary Agricultural Workers Program (PTAT) has sent more than 16,000 people on short-term contracts to Canada, including 10,600 people since the pandemic began, the labour ministry said.

The program was halted only from March 19 to April 9, restarting after Canadian authorities said there were proper health conditions.

Workers planning to travel to farms that have had coronavirus outbreaks or do “not have a strategy of prevention and care for workers” will be reassigned, the labour ministry said in a statement.

Ken Forth, president of Canada’s Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS), said Mexico is looking for assurances that workers will be safe.

“No additional workers will go to the farms where there’s an outbreak until they can demonstrate to the Mexican government that they’ve done all the protocol for the new workers to come,” Forth said.

CNN and Canadian media earlier reported that Mexico had put the program on hold while it reviewed Canadian health policies and procedures, citing Mexican embassy officials in Ottawa.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he expressed condolences to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a recent call.

“We are going to make sure that we’re following up,” Trudeau said, citing living conditions and labour standards as areas that must be considered.

— Reporting for Reuters by Daina Beth Solomon and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

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The federal government said Tuesday it will, effective “immediately,” temporarily waive its rule requiring a TFW to receive federal approval for a new work permit before he or she starts at a different new job.

Up against “new challenges in a rapidly changing job market” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many TFWs with employer-specific work permits lost their jobs this spring, the government said in a release.

Of those, some have already left Canada; others can’t yet leave due to international travel restrictions or unavailability of flights. But under the normal process for a TFW to switch to another eligible job, he or she must first apply for a new work permit, then wait for that permit to be approved and issued before he or she can begin work.

The new temporary policy allows a TFW who is already in Canada and has secured a new job offer — “typically backed by a labour market test” — to get approval to start working in the new job, even while the work permit application is being fully processed.

The temporary policy will shorten a process that “can often take 10 weeks or more, down to 10 days or less,” the government said.

The decision comes as “many employers in sectors that have ongoing labour needs and who provide critical goods and services to Canadians, such as agriculture, agri-food and health care, find themselves with urgent needs for additional employees,” the government said.

“Today’s announcement builds on all the work we have been doing since the moment COVID struck to ensure our agriculture sector, particularly our horticultural producers, can count on their workforce and that they can ensure their safety,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said Tuesday in a separate statement.

To be eligible for the shortened process, a TFW must be in Canada with valid status and an employer-specific work permit — or must have been working under a work permit exemption — and must have submitted an application for a new work permit with a valid job offer, under either the TFW program or the International Mobility Program.

The work permit applicant must then submit a request to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The request will be reviewed “within 10 days,” the government said, and if approved, authorization for the worker to start at the new job will go to the applicant via email.

An employer eligible for the new process still must have or get a valid positive labour market impact assessment (LMIA) from Employment and Social Development Canada, name the worker in a position on the LMIA, and notify Service Canada.

In an “employer-specific, LMIA-exempt” situation, an employer must submit an offer of employment through the International Mobility Program employer portal.

“While there will always be jobs for Canadians who choose to work in these sectors, these changes help support our economy by ensuring that temporary foreign workers already here can contribute during these extraordinary times,” federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said in the government’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The provincial government on Tuesday updated a mandatory order under its pandemic state of emergency to restrict TFWs from entering the province. The new restriction doesn’t affect the status of TFWs already in New Brunswick, the province said.

With “so many serious outbreaks” of COVID-19 in surrounding jurisdictions, the province’s borders must stay closed for now, Premier Blaine Higgs said in a release.

As of Thursday evening, New Brunswick’s total COVID-19 caseload remains the second-lowest among the 10 provinces, with 118 cases and zero deaths to date. Of those 118, 114 are deemed to have recovered and four cases are active, with none hospitalized.

“Under normal circumstances, we welcome foreign temporary workers as they play an important role in New Brunswick’s continued economic growth,” Higgs said. “But right now, the risk of allowing more people to enter the province is simply too great.”

In a separate release Thursday, the province said it plans to launch a “virtual job-matching platform” on Monday (May 4) to connect New Brunswick residents with “positions that, in the past, have been filled by temporary foreign workers.”

It’s expected there will be up to 600 such jobs in sectors such as agriculture and aquaculture, the province said.

However, in a joint statement Tuesday, the National Farmers Union in New Brunswick, the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick and farmer co-operative Really Local Harvest said they “strongly disagree” with the province’s decision.

The groups said they want to see measures taken “to hold our promises to the workers that have been assured employment as well as the farms that are awaiting the arrival of employees on which they depend.”

“This is cutting the means by which we have to produce,” Strawberry Hill Farm co-owner Tim Livingstone said in the groups’ release. The province “want(s) us to increase vegetable production but want(s) us to hire people who may leave at the drop of a hat or before our season has finished.”

Strawberry Hill, for one, has invested in training TFWs for over four years and relies on those workers’ “expertise to supervise (the farm’s) local employees,” the groups said.

TFWs “cannot simply be replaced with another worker from another sector,” the groups said, and “our integrity as employers and as a province that has signed contracts with people to ensure our food production and supply, are at stake as we consider breaking these agreements.”

If TFWs who haven’t yet arrived aren’t allowed to enter the province, “we, collectively, still owe them, and the families they support.”

The federal and provincial governments “have moved mountains in the last months to ensure these workers are still able to come to Canada and that precautions are taken to ensure the safety of all,” the groups added.

Specifically, farm groups and several provinces’ officials in March pressed for, and received, a federal exemption allowing TFWs to enter Canada, in the wake of Ottawa’s pandemic-related prohibition on foreign nationals entering the country.

Ottawa later also pledged financial support to TFWs’ employers to allow arriving employees to self-isolate for 14 days before starting work.

Under the province’s new ban, “it would be difficult if not impossible for farms to hire TFWs or any other workers mid-season,” the New Brunswick groups said.

“Even if employees from other sectors or students are put in their place, when the other jobs re-open and school starts, no one will be there to bring in the harvest.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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