THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 24, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met with videoconference this day at 11:32 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on such issues as may arise from time to time relating to social affairs, science and technology generally.
Senator Ratna Omidvar (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Ratna Omidvar, and I am a senator from Ontario and chair of this committee.
Let us briefly go around the table to introduce our Senate colleagues, starting with Senator Bovey.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey from Manitoba.
Senator Osler: Flordeliz Gigi Osler from Manitoba.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
Senator Moodie: Rosemary Moodie, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues.
For our first panel, joining us by video conference, we have Derek Johnstone, Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada; and representatives from the Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group, Anelyse Weiler, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, accompanied by her colleagues Janet McLaughlin from Wilfrid Laurier and Leah Vosko from York University. Thank you for joining us today.
I now invite the witnesses to provide opening remarks. I remind you that you have five minutes allocated for your opening remarks, to be followed by questions from our members. Mr. Johnstone, the floor is yours.
Derek Johnstone, Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada: On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada, I would like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to share our perspective today and also for the work of the committee on this important subject.
The UFCW is the voice of Canada’s food workers. We are one of the country’s largest unions, and we are proud and privileged to represent over a quarter million hardworking people in over 600 communities from coast to coast. The vast majority of our membership works in food-related sectors, but UFCW members can be found in more than 20 different industries on the front lines producing the goods and services that Canadian families rely on every single day.
For more than three decades, the UFCW has also served as a leading advocate for migrant food workers and for primary agricultural workers in particular. Over that time, we have watched the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program expand into the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and other streams, and in recent years, it has grown exponentially in terms of scale and scope and now involves much of the country’s food system.
Every year for the past 20 years, UFCW has published an annual report that details our fieldwork on behalf of migrants. It identifies the abuses they have long endured and provides a set of recommendations that are reflective of the life experiences of migrants. It frustrates me to say, senators, that every year over the past 20 years, those recommendations have been largely ignored.
For us, for the union that has been helping migrants over three decades and food workers in general for over a century, the solution to doing something that would significantly reduce precariousness and vulnerability is clear. Migrant workers with real representation do not become headline news. Migrant workers with real representation do not become the victims of human trafficking. Migrant workers with real representation do not go home with disfigured bodies and the emotional baggage of being tormented by a horrible employer.
The UFCW knows this because in the meatpacking sector, our union has and continues to represent thousands of migrants. Unlike what we see in primary agriculture, migrants in the meatpacking sector do not have to worry about their labour and health and safety rights being disregarded. In the meatpacking sector, the union is positioned to ensure that migrants are treated with the respect that all front-line workers deserve. In the meatpacking sector, unlike primary agriculture, migrants also have a real chance to become Canadian. A key part of that reality is the result of the union working with major employers to leverage provincial nominee programs and other streams and to create pathways for food workers and their families. I should also add that Canada’s meatpacking sector has long been a main pillar of the agri-food sector, and for many decades, it has been very competitive in global markets.
Long story short, representation by the union would go a long way to addressing many of the issues that have long plagued Canada’s migrant worker systems, yet we have yet to encounter a federal government that is serious about putting representation at the centre of a reform program.
In fact, Ontario, where I believe more than 40% of all migrants are situated, excludes agricultural workers from mainstream collective bargaining regimes — despite the fact that migrants are so vulnerable, despite the fact that joining the union would make a world of difference and despite the fact that Canada, finally, in 2018, ratified the International Convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining.
With that, senators, I would like to thank you on behalf of Canada’s food workers for shouldering this important work. I would also like to take this opportunity to join other members of the global labour movement and our progressive allies in calling for Canada to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. This, too, is long overdue.
I’m happy to take any questions that the committee might have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Johnstone.
Anelyse Weiler, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group: I’m an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Victoria. Today, I’m speaking on behalf of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group, a network of scholars and health care providers. Collectively, we have decades of research and front-line experience in migrant agricultural worker health.
I am going to begin by briefly describing some background on agricultural streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and then I will highlight our recommendations on how to address what we see as three core threats facing migrant farm workers: physical and mental health, housing and labour and human rights.
For a bit of background, the most fundamental barrier facing migrant farm workers in terms of accessing their rights is the precarious nature of their work and immigration status in Canada. While they are employed in Canada, their work permits are tied to a single employer who can terminate them without a grievance process. Once terminated, they typically face immediate repatriation along with a loss of contractually provided housing, health care and legal authorization to work in Canada. Research shows that workers face pressure to fulfill stereotypes of “being an ideal worker” because they know employers could repatriate them at any moment, decline to rehire them the next season or give them a negative end-of-season evaluation. This means that the worker-employer relationship is highly skewed toward employers’ interests.
The first core threat I will mention relates to physical and mental health. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program makes farm workers vulnerable to a variety of chronic and infectious diseases, high-risk working conditions, sexual and reproductive health issues and mental health risks. Sick and injured migrant farm workers in Canada encounter numerous barriers to accessing provincial health care and workers’ compensation even though they are legally entitled to both.
The second core threat is housing. Employers are required to provide housing for migrant farm workers, which varies widely in quality and is often inconsistent. Many accommodations are unsanitary, overcrowded, dilapidated and poorly ventilated. Studies have uncovered a range of heightened health risks from on-farm housing, including insufficient handwashing and toilet facilities, inadequate food refrigeration and storage, proximity to pathogenic microorganisms and a lack of access to safe drinking water.
The third core threat is labour and human rights. Canada’s treatment of migrant agricultural workers has attracted international concern regarding labour and human rights. In particular, farm workers in Ontario cannot unionize and bargain collectively on the same terms as workers in other provinces. Many workers report that their employers restrict their freedom of movement and ability to, for example, welcome visitors during their off-work hours. The open work permit for vulnerable workers program really offers limited effectiveness in addressing abuse because it places the burden of proof on victims.
Turning to our recommendations, at minimum, six fundamental things must change so that migrant farm workers can access the same health, safety and dignity owed to any worker in Canada: one, access to open work permits and permanent residency upon arrival; two, proactive federal enforcement of labour standards pursued through coordination with provinces; three, in all jurisdictions, agricultural workers must be granted equal rights to organize and bargain collectively; four, access to the full suite of provincial employment standards without exemptions or special rules; five, full access to employment insurance; and six, improved independent access to health care and workers’ compensation systems immediately upon arrival and for the duration of a worker’s illness or injury.
Several other members of the expert working group, Leah Vosko, Janet McLaughlin and Stephanie Mayell, are here with me and are happy to answer questions based on our distinct areas of expertise. These include food security, housing, employment standards, gender and family, workers’ compensation and employment insurance.
Thank you so much, and we look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Weiler.
We will go to questions from our colleagues. As always, my colleagues will have four minutes for their question and their answer. Before asking questions, I will request all of you to kindly refrain from leaning in too closely to the mic or removing your earpiece if you do so. This will avoid any sound feedback that negatively impacts the committee staff in the room.
The first question will go to the committee deputy chair, Senator Pat Bovey.
Senator Bovey: I would like to thank our witnesses.
I am picking out a theme and probably going on a bit of a tangent. You both talked about immigration and the precarity of the immigration of migrant workers, and I’m aware of the Agri-Food Pilot project that was launched in May 2020, and which, as I understand, expires in May 2023. Rather than get into details on numbers, I would like to ask if this pilot project is going to go forward. What measures should the federal government use to determine whether to make the pilot project an ongoing pathway to permanent residency?
I was quite surprised when I read in an article from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture that there are some migrant workers who return to the same farm and have done so for 40 years. My question is this: What is their pathway to permanency and citizenship?
Mr. Johnstone: Thank you for the question, senator.
The UFCW is quite familiar with the Agri-Food Pilot. In fact, in many ways it is a product of the very lengthy consultation that the government has had on this issue over the past few years. We welcomed its announcement several years back. We have found that there are some structural issues with that pilot. It has a lot of potential. For starters, there are a total of, I think, 2,750 spots.
We have been calling for a federal nominee program for years. We think it is really crucial. There have been some provincial nominee programs around for a long time. We had a lot of success with those, actually, in the meatpacking sector where our local unions worked with the provinces and migrants to successfully put hundreds if not thousands of migrants on pathways to citizenship. Ontario has always been a problem. We are very keen to have this.
Long story short, we have learned that despite there being 2,700 or so positions there, while we are having a hard time getting this data, we think maybe a quarter of the positions have been filled. It is heavily underutilized. Most of those positions were slotted for food processing and meat processing, really not focused on primary ag, but there is still a lot there.
It boils down to this. There are a number of obstacles here, and if policy doesn’t work on the ground, then it doesn’t work. What we are finding on the ground is that there is a requirement for folks to have a high school diploma from their source country. There is a requirement for migrants to have level four English. Those are major obstacles especially when you look to primary agriculture where most of the individuals who work there come from rural parts of Latin America. There are often literacy issues in their own native tongue, let alone English. The obstacles there have been insurmountable for folks.
We have been calling upon the government. This pilot has not had a fair shake, to be honest with you. I know that it is coming up to the end of its term, but it really has not had a fair shake because of those obstacles, and we call on the government to give it a good, fighting chance and to remove those obstacles that are really preventing it from doing something special.
In the grand scheme of things, it is 2,700 spots. Really, in terms of immigration numbers, it is very small. There is an opportunity here for the government to do something a little bold and out of the box. Maybe bring in a partner like the trade union movement to play a significant role. We’re pushing for those things and we’re hopeful about it, but to date it hasn’t lived up to its potential.
Senator Bovey: Is Manitoba part of this?
Mr. Johnstone: Manitoba has its own provincial nominee program, and based upon our experience at the UFCW, it is actually one of the more successful jurisdictions in Canada. We have had excellent results with the provincial nominee program in Manitoba for the meatpacking sector, and we would love to see some of that success replicated.
Senator Kutcher: My questions are to Mr. Johnstone but, first, I want to acknowledge that the UFCW, as I understand it, has been advocating on behalf of agricultural temporary foreign workers for some time now, including the right to have representation. I want to be on the record to acknowledge its hard work and that they have done it all with their own resources. I want to acknowledge that from the beginning.
As I understand it, federal and provincial labour codes are not necessarily harmonized, to say the least. The federal government does not have jurisdiction to tell provinces how to run their labour codes. There are two questions here. First, I wonder if you think that, in terms of the temporary foreign workers, such harmonization should be a recommendation from this committee. Second, I understand that creating union representation for temporary foreign agriculture workers would be not just an important but an essential step forward so that they would have the ability to deal with all of these structural problems that are getting in the way of their health and everything else, so would that also be a recommendation that you would make to this committee?
Mr. Johnstone: Thank you for the question, senator, and thank you for the recognition of UFCW’s efforts on this. Yes, it has been about 30 years since we started our advocacy for migrant food workers in Canada and migrant farmworkers in particular.
We are constantly reminded that collective bargaining is the jurisdiction of the provinces, especially when we are discussing Ontario. Nevertheless, as I mentioned in my opening comments, the international convention on collective bargaining is something that countries started to sign in 1949. We were late to the party. We signed it a few years ago. We have made it an obligation as a country to respect these rights. I think the federal government can and should do more in terms of nudging Ontario, which we know is really the heartland of agriculture in Canada and where many migrants work.
That having been said, I heard some of my colleagues in their opening remarks speaking about more mobility within the sector and throughout the labour market as a whole. That is such a crucial reform that needs to take place for a bunch of reasons, as I’m sure we will get into.
Once we establish more of a sector approach to this program, quite frankly, it really opens the door to a way of re-envisioning how workers can be better protected. We have long argued and recommended a tripartite model, at the very least, on a sectoral basis where you have key stakeholders like labour, employers and the government playing a key role. We do not have those sectoral conversations in Canada anymore. We had them once upon a time with the sector council program and infrastructure, but that has been dismantled, regrettably. We do not have this sector infrastructure. We have always maintained as UFCW that if we did have that, if we had a sectoral approach and brought stakeholders together, we would be in a position to start negotiating better standards and work together with stakeholders to ensure that the rights and contributions that these workers make are so critical and are properly respected.
I get it on the jurisdictional piece in Canada. It is a federalist country. We certainly respect that, and we respect that labour is the jurisdiction of the provinces, but there are mechanisms available to the government. This is a federal program, okay? This is their program. We just have not seen a federal government yet step up in terms of really tackling this issue and using the tools that they have. We are keen to have that conversation, but we have yet to get there.
Senator Moodie: Thank you to our witnesses today.
My question is for Professor Weiler and your group. I would like to understand if there are differences in the types of health, welfare and safety concerns faced by temporary foreign workers depending upon gender, country of origin or other intersectional considerations. What is the data telling us?
Ms. Weiler: Thank you for your question. I think that my colleague Janet McLaughlin would be best placed to answer this, and I would be happy to add additional points.
Janet McLaughlin, Associate Professor, Department of Health Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group: Thank you for the question.
We have seen with respect to women’s health that there are definitely issues specific to them, particularly around sexual harassment and reproductive health. When women get pregnant, it is very difficult for them to access prenatal care or abortion services, if they wish. They also face challenges in the realm of sexual harassment, sometimes from co-workers, supervisors or employers. Those are issues specific to women.
With respect to other health issues, those would be experienced by both men and women: occupational health, mental health, missing their families, enduring difficult circumstances and those other issues.
With respect to country of origin, again, these would be similar across but Mexican or other Spanish-speaking or non-English-speaking workers from different countries obviously face additional challenges with respect to language. They might have difficult understanding health and safety instructions that are only provided in English. They may have heightened challenges accessing health care when these are only provided in English or French and not with an interpreter. Depending upon their language needs, those can provide additional challenges.
Ms. Weiler: I will echo everything that my colleague just mentioned.
I will add that for workers from Jamaica or Caribbean Commonwealth countries, we also see instances of anti-Black racism affecting workers’ mental health and various challenges related to other kinds of physical health. For workers from Latin America, many are Indigenous language speakers, so learning and receiving instructions around health and safety in Spanish is not necessarily something that provides accessibility for that specific group of workers. We are seeing a wide array of challenges in terms of intersectional issues around health and safety for workers.
Senator Moodie: The follow-up question that I have is really around the data we collect. In your view, is the data useful, meaningful and telling us what we need to know to understand the challenges for migrant workers and how to support them? Are you seeing any influence or meaningful changes from the data on the programs that are operating?
Ms. Weiler: Thank you for that question.
We have a tremendous amount of data from decades of scholarly research as well as frontline health care practitioners. We know largely what the problems are. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing movement in actually addressing the fundamental issues which relate to tied work permits and exemptions from provincial standards. Those are really the issues where we haven’t seen movement informing the way that the program is fundamentally designed.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: I would like to thank the witnesses for being here with us this morning. My first question is for Ms. Weiler. You mentioned that language is a major problem that puts workers at risk of abuse, because they do not understand the instructions that they are being given, such as those involving health protocols. This prevents workers from fitting in properly. I am thinking about the province of Quebec, which is francophone. Have you thought about seeking to recruit workers from francophone countries, such as Haiti, to work here? I don’t think we are doing that. Do you think we should?
[English]
Ms. Weiler: Thank you for that question.
One of the trends that we’ve seen in the past couple of decades is sourcing from countries all over the world, whether they are French-speaking countries or Spanish-speaking countries, and this creates a much more complex problem in terms of providing health and safety instructions for workers and access to health care because they don’t necessarily have the kind of linguistic supports, particularly in small, rural communities.
For permanent residents, access to English-language settlement services is a real boon in terms of community integration and access to, in practical terms, health and safety. For people who come on temporary visas, this is something that would make a real difference: formal access to free language support services that is systematic.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. I have another question for Mr. Johnstone, and Ms. Weiler can provide additional details, if necessary.
Do you know if the temporary foreign workers’ experience brings other benefits apart from financial ones for the families that are still living in the workers’ country of origin?
[English]
Mr. Johnstone: It’s clear from the many workers we’ve helped over the years that it’s all about their families. It really is. These are individuals, historically mostly men, but that’s changing. More and more women are coming up to work in farms. As the program has exponentially really exploded in recent years, all throughout the food sector, such as hospitality and whatnot, it has become both men and women coming up here for their families.
I think it’s safe to say that, given the opportunity, all these workers would love to bring their families up here and have an opportunity to have a pathway to citizenship. Everything they do is about improving the lives of their families. Yes, the remittances they send home now, which I understand have, in some cases, eclipsed foreign aid. The remittances that go to source countries, are massive and growing, but if Canada is really interested in helping families who increasingly make our food system and other critical systems possible, then Canada would institute real pathways to allow these folks to become Canadian.
Right now, the immigration system has become very class-based, quite frankly. If you’re working in a white-collar job, then you have all kinds of opportunities to become Canadian, but if you work with your hands, get dirty, pick tomatoes or work in a mushroom factory, you don’t have that opportunity. The families don’t have the opportunity that so many others have. That has to change if Canada is serious about helping families.
Senator Cordy: Thank you, Mr. Johnstone, to you and your union and to the Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group for the work you are doing for people who are very vulnerable when they come to our country. They are often open to abuse, which you have all spoken about in your comments.
I know that both groups have made a number of recommendations about how to make things better. You’ve expressed them here today. Is anybody listening to these recommendations? Are there changes being made? Are some provinces better at providing security and benefits to migrant workers than others?
Ms. Weiler: I’m happy to jump in on this one. I think my colleague Leah Vosko is maybe wanting to answer this, so I’ll pivot over to you, Leah.
Leah F. Vosko, Professor, Department of Politics, York University, Migrant Workers Health Expert Working Group: Is anybody listening, I believe is the question. I think the challenge — and the opportunity that today’s session provides — is to really illustrate where our recommendations aren’t being heard.
For example, when Derek Johnstone was asked the question about the problem with the enforcement of employment standards in a federal program, it occurred to me — and he underlined in his response — that employment standards, yes, are very difficult to enforce. There is federal legislation in that area around the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, for example, that requires many of the things we’re calling for to be done, such as routine, on-site inspections of farms. Additionally, a lot of attention has been drawn to the exemption of farm workers from a range of collective rights and protections.
I think that, in some respects, the federal government has felt like its hands are tied because labour is largely a provincial matter. However, we have argued and I think illustrated that this is a federal program, as my colleague Professor Weiler has noted. As a federal program and as institutionalized under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, there are measures that the federal government could take to ensure that standards are better applied.
I think it’s perhaps about listening to those recommendations and thinking through at what level and in which jurisdiction responsibility lies, and where there can be coordination, as is the case with employment standards enforcement, for example, between Ontario and the federal government, where there’s a lack of coordination and institutions like our Senate can recommend that coordination be undertaken to ensure that workers receive the rights and protections that they’re due.
Senator Cordy: Thank you. It always gets complicated when it’s provincial or federal jurisdiction. One would hope that everyone would work together instead of everything sliding down the middle, so thank you very much for that.
Mr. Johnstone, you spoke about the advantages to unionization. Certainly, you know that when the migrant workers come, proof of abuse is on the migrant worker. There must be a lot of abuse again not being told by the victims just because they are afraid. Would you comment on that?
Mr. Johnstone: Oh, it has become a characteristic of the program, quite frankly. Just to pick up on Professor Weiler’s opening comments, there is a fairly new sort of mechanism in place, this open work permit, for those who can demonstrate that they are the victims of employer abuse.
First of all, the fact that any migrant workers have come forward to try to demonstrate this is really a testament to their courage as people because you couldn’t find a more precarious worker population. The fact is they’re tied to a single employer who, in reality, can send them home with the stroke of a pen. The fact that anybody comes forward is remarkable. That having been said, we’ve had probably a couple hundred successfully get this, which is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of mistreatment.
I think Professor Vosko really underlined the issues here. One of them is enforcement, quite frankly. Even if those numbers were in the thousands of workers coming forward, the federal government and the provincial governments just don’t have the capacity to properly enforce the magnitude of this program and of this issue, which makes it all the more bewildering why they’re not engaging other stakeholders like the trade union movement to play a more meaningful role here in terms of recalibrating the power imbalance that has been so well documented with this system.
The abuses are rampant. The abuses will continue to be rampant. There are good employers, sure, and I’ll be the first to admit that, but there’s a long list going back many years of employers who are not responsible. You have a population that’s so vulnerable, and it’s inevitable that exploitation is going to happen there with the current system. We just haven’t had a government yet that has been willing to look at the reforms that are desperately needed for the system. Until that happens …
Senator Petitclerc: I’m not sure who can or wants to answer my question. It’s a simple and direct one. What I’m hearing is that there are some individuals, some workers, who are not aware of their rights, and even if they are aware of their rights, they will not necessarily exercise them for the many reasons that you’ve mentioned. Of course, we can do the language training, the education and all of that, but would you say that nothing will really be successful when this imbalance of power remains, and that really, it begins with some sort of an open work permit? Does that make sense? Would you go that far? I see nodding, but if someone wants to put some words on the record, that would be great.
Ms. Weiler: Certainly. You’ve articulated the core point we really want to underscore, that while many Band-Aid measures, such as the open work permit, are valuable for a small number of workers, fundamentally, the issue here is the closed work permit and the fact that worker permits are tied to individual employers. What we need to see is access to permanent residency on arrival and an open work permit.
I see my colleagues Leah Vosko and Derek Johnstone would like to add, so I’ll pass it over to them.
Ms. Vosko: Just to add to what Professor Weiler has said and what the senator emphasized, the problem with the existing open work permit system, in part, is that when one is vulnerable, as Derek Johnstone has also underlined it’s unfair to place — the burden of proof rests on the worker. What we know from research on employment standards enforcement is that for workers of any sort, even if they do not hold precarious residency status, which all of the workers we’re talking about do — that is, people enrolled in the SAWP or Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, people enrolled in the agricultural stream, people coming on the agricultural pilot, as well as undocumented people — when there is a risk of reprisal not only from the employer but the threat of being repatriated — and many on this panel have written about this threat — it means that this power imbalance is so acute. It’s not even a typical power imbalance between a worker and an employer where a worker needs to keep their job. They also need to remain in the country in order to provide support for their families, which they are compelled to leave behind. I would just reinforce what Professor Weiler and Derek Johnstone have said, which is that the power imbalance is so very acute for this group of workers.
The Chair: I’d like to ask a few questions of the panellists in my allotted four minutes, and I’d like to focus first on EI. As we know, temporary migrant works, whether in agriculture or in any other sector, must pay into the EI fund, as must their employers, but the migrant workers are never able to qualify for EI. In fact, they are disqualified from applying for a fund that they have paid into. To me, as an ordinary citizen even, this sounds completely unfair. The reasons behind including migrant workers and their employers in the Employment Insurance scheme is apparently not to privilege the hiring of migrant workers over local workers because if employers don’t pay into the EI fund, it’s a financial benefit to them, so to say. Is there a policy recommendation or a way out of this conundrum? I see Professor Weiler nodding her head. Mr. Johnstone, perhaps you both could weigh in.
Ms. Weiler: I’ll say as the centrepiece that full access to the Employment Insurance program that workers are already paying into is the fundamental policy recommendation. That is something that would make a huge difference for a large number of workers, particularly in terms of access to special parental benefits and when we see climate-related extreme weather events, as we saw in British Columbia, where workers all of a sudden lost their jobs and really needed access to Employment Insurance.
My colleague Leah Vosko has specific expertise on this topic, so I’ll invite Leah to add any core points and then perhaps pass it over to Mr. Johnstone.
Ms. Vosko: I support what Professor Weiler said, but I would just add there are also intermediate hurdles that must be addressed around EI. For example, migrant farm workers often have to illustrate that they have a non-expired work permit in order to access EI, so even if the principle that you would advocate, senator, is not in question, then the design of the system is out of sync with workers’ experience.
We may all recall during the pandemic that there were a number of migrant workers from Jamaica that were stranded, unable to fly home and unable to have access to open work permits in order to work and be able to survive. That was a deficiency, a disjunct, with the way the policy is designed. Policy needs to be redesigned such that, as Professor Weiler underscores, it applies at a formal level to migrant workers, and then the application needs to be meaningful such that when they return home, they can access benefits — as the first senator mentioned, many people have come for 20 or 30 years. Recently I interviewed 35 of the migrant workers, and about 20 workers had been coming for this long. They know the season. They’re only out of work for a certain number of months, and they should have access to the EI system that they pay into, like everyone else. We should make it possible for them to access those aspects of EI that currently apply by not having undue requirements.
The Chair: Thank you. One of the bugs in the system is clearly that you have to be available in Canada to look for work, and if they are tied to an employer, they’re not available to look for work. So we go back to the question, is an open-sector work permit a more modernized way of doing things? I’m sure we’ve all been watching FIFA World Cup soccer in Qatar. They have a kafala system that ties migrant workers to an employer. Ours is not much different, from the sounds of it.
Senator Bovey: I don’t really have anything to ask, except that I’m very impressed with the information you’ve given us. You’ve certainly opened my eyes to the need and the inequities. I knew it was precarious, but the inequities are striking. If you have any other recommendations for either EI, to carry on with our chair’s question, or for permanent residency and thus a pathway to citizenship, I’d be very grateful.
The Chair: If I may quickly follow up with Ms. Vosko on unjust terminations or work that leads to repatriation, is there an administrative tribunal that would address the question leaving it up to the employer or the province? This is a systemic problem. Do we need a different kind of systemic solution outside of open sector work permits?
Ms. Vosko: I know that the group with which I’m affiliated and speaking here on behalf of has argued for the absolute need for a tribunal to adjudicate cases around unjust dismissal. We have argued that there needs to be not only an independent tribunal, but that all cases of dismissal where the worker is concerned that there has been injustice automatically go to a tribunal of the sort that you describe. We have a lot of examples. Most recently in Ontario, a worker was threatened to be sent home, and in the context of COVID-19, he complained as he was very concerned about his health and safety conditions. This worker didn’t really have much recourse under the Occupational Health and Safety legislation. We absolutely need a federal tribunal to review those cases. In such instances, we have argued that it’s very important that the burden of proof not be on the worker because of the vulnerabilities that workers face in that sort of situation.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Vosko. If you have anything more written about the federal administrative tribunal, we’d be happy to look at it.
Senator Kutcher: I have a wide question to any of the witnesses. What structural remedies are available to the federal government to better protect temporary foreign workers’ rights and address the differences between provincial, territorial and federal labour codes?
Ms. Weiler: In terms of structural remedies — and I apologize if I’m being repetitive — the fundamental issue about access to permanent residency on arrival would play a tremendous role in addressing the real challenges we see in terms of access to rights in practice.
Another point I’ll underscore pertains to the question we had earlier around why it is that we have so much data on what the challenges are, yet we’re not seeing really fundamental interventions to address those issues and those increasingly well-documented abuses. That speaks to the power of agri-business lobbying and the way the program is designed primarily to serve employers and trusts. That relationship has been highly skewed.
I’m going to pass things over to Professor Vosko to add anything.
Ms. Vosko: I absolutely agree with what Professor Weiler has said, but most immediately, I can tell you that, as the Auditor General said at the end of 2021 when there was a report on the lack of on-farm inspections during the course of the pandemic — inspections were desk-based — what the federal government has most immediately at the tips of its fingers is an inspectorate where there could be proactive inspections of farms to ensure that those standards that do exist most immediately are enforced, if that’s what you mean by a structural remedy.
Of course, foremost, workers will be more inclined to see their rights enforced and more aware of them, as Professor Weiler has underlined, with access to permanent residency upon arrival, but there are other levers that the federal government could also use.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Johnstone, I have a question for you, and it’s a question about the confusion that we are already seeing in the many pathways. Last week, we looked at caregivers, which is a veritable maze. Even in terms of agricultural workers, we’ve got the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, the primary TFW program, the Agri-Food Pilot and the PNP. The PNP brings workers in for their provincial workforce, and they’re on a path to permanency. The PNP has been growing rapidly — 40% as of 2020. What is the share of primary ag and food-processing workers in this increase of PNP? Do we have that figure?
Mr. Johnstone: That’s a good question.
I know the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has long eclipsed the SAWP in terms of the total share of migrants in Canada. I would defer to my academic co-panellists on the data piece, but I presume that primary agriculture is still significant. I can only speak to our experience as the food workers’ union. I can tell you that in all elements of the food system, we’re seeing more and more migrants.
I believe Professor Vosko mentioned this, but the power of the agri-business lobby is tremendous. There’s no question that they doubled down throughout COVID and leveraged COVID to make a migrant labour force even more accessible. We’ve seen that in our core sectors in food processing, hospitality and even retail, we anticipate.
I just go back to the beginning in terms of the idea that there really is a tale of two cities here when it comes to migrant worker usage in Canada. There’s the experience we’ve long had in the meatpacking sector where there is a large number of migrants who are now either permanent residents or Canadians, and then there’s the experience that we’ve all seen in the media, which is the horrible experience of migrants in primary agriculture. Those are two very different experiences. One of our main points here would be, in addition to supporting everything that our co-panellists have said, that there is a good Canadian example of how this program can work better in terms of protecting workers, and that’s in the meat sector. That works because those folks are represented. It works because it’s a system that includes labour, employers and government sitting at the table to work out solutions that not only benefit the sector but benefit the people who make it possible.
Ms. Vosko: I only have 2020 figures in front of me, but in response to your question about the data, first, I would step back and say that from 2002 to 2019, the numbers of agricultural work-permit holders tripled, from 19,000 to 56,665. In 2020, we see that there were just under 80,000 total temporary foreign workers with a labour market impact assessment, and 50,000 of them were in agriculture.
What we’ve seen overall in terms of patterns is that there has been a growth in Canada’s International Mobility Program. At the same time, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has kind of declined or flattened. The majority of participants in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program are in agriculture, and that has been a sustained thing since the SAWP was introduced in the 1960s.
But I would say that the pandemic did very little to decrease the number of agricultural workers. My colleagues have done a lot of work in documenting that.
Ms. Weiler: If I may add to the points that Professor Vosko is underscoring, one of the challenges with the expansion of all of these different streams is access to rights and practices, particularly for workers in the primary agricultural stream. There are numerous challenges with the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program, but for workers in primary agricultural, one of the biggest issues we’ve seen is around exploitation by recruiters who charge a fee for placing workers in specific jobs. So with all of those specific streams, we’re seeing new problems arise.
One other small point that I’ll underscore with respect to a two-step pathway to permanent residency is that, as we’ve seen with the caregiver program, that in between period — that interim before accessing permanent residency — leaves workers in a highly vulnerable position where they are often reluctant to bring up issues like unsafe working conditions. For that reason, we’ve advocated for permanent status on arrival as opposed to that period of limbo where workers are at a high risk.
The Chair: Thank you very much, witnesses, for sharing with us your perspectives, experience and wisdom. We have learned a great deal.
For our second panel, we welcome, by video conference, Jennifer Wright, Acting Executive Director and Director, Operations, Programs and Partnerships, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council; and Ms. Mary Robinson, President, and Brodie Berrigan, Director of Government Relations and Farm Policy, from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Thank you for being with us today. I invite you to provide opening remarks. You have five minutes allocated for opening statements, which will be followed by questions from our members.
Jennifer Wright, Acting Executive Director and Director, Operations, Programs and Partnerships, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council: Thank you to the committee for your invitation to participate in the committee’s study. My comments today will focus on the value of temporary foreign workers to the Canadian agriculture industry.
The workforce needs of Canada’s agriculture industry is something that CAHRC has been examining for more than 15 years. It is clear that the industry cannot continue to produce healthy, safe and affordable food for Canadians and global consumers without an adequate supply of agricultural workers. The COVID pandemic has put an even greater spotlight on this issue.
CAHRC’s labour market research indicates that job vacancies are exceptionally higher in agriculture compared to other industries, resulting in close to $3 billion in lost revenues in 2018. The inability for farmers to fill all of their vacant positions with either Canadian or foreign workers makes the business of food production in Canada very difficult.
International workers come to Canada to work on farms and fill positions when Canadians can’t be found. Although approximately 60,000 foreign workers are brought in each year, thousands of vacancies still remain, with 16,500 vacancies recorded in 2018. In fact, workforce shortages are doubling every 10 years, with a forecasted total labour cap of 123,000 workers by 2029. Businesses that are unable to fill vacancies face high production losses and delayed expansion plans, and some are forgoing operations altogether.
Securing a full team of workers is challenging for farm businesses at any time, and it has been especially challenging during the pandemic. CAHRC’s research on the impacts of COVID on the sector confirmed significant impacts on farm operations, including production delays, overtime costs and delayed or cancelled investment or expansion.
There are a few key factors impacting the growing labour shortage in Canadian agriculture.
There are fewer traditional family farms in Canada, increasing the need for non-family labour. In fact, family members make up the majority of workers lost over the last decade.
The aging agricultural workforce is also seeing more people leave the industry for retirement. For example, the 2021 Census of Agriculture reported that the median age of Canadians was 41.6 years — up from 41.2 in 2016 — and that 33.1% of Canadians were at least 55 years old. The median age of farm operators rose by two years from the previous census, reaching 58 years old in 2021.
The average size of seasonal or temporary work teams on farms has more than doubled over the past decade as well. As demonstrated in CAHRC’s research, which I shared earlier, there is a steady and gradually increasing number of international farm workers who are being used to meet these local labour needs.
Beyond the clear economic impact that temporary foreign workers have on Canadian food production, there is also a positive domestic and international economic impact. Workers take money earned while in Canada and spend it in their home communities on housing, training, education for themselves and their families and in their own businesses. Furthermore, farm workers have a positive impact on the Canadian communities in which they live while working here in Canada. They contribute positively to the social and economic well-being of these Canadian communities.
In spring 2021, CAHRC — along with our partners the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and Food and Beverage Canada — commenced the development of a National Workforce Strategy for Agriculture and Food and Beverage Manufacturing with the goal to bring stakeholders together to collaborate and develop an actionable road map to address the increasing labour shortage. There are over 50 industry organizations contributing to this process. One of the key pillars in this strategy is immigration and foreign workers.
In summary, foreign workers play an essential and valued part in the Canadian agricultural industry. Without these workers, Canadians’ access to domestically grown food and the enormous impact of the industry on the Canadian economy would not be possible.
I look forward to questions from the committee. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you so much.
Mary Robinson, President, Canadian Federation of Agriculture: Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and a sixth-generation farmer from Prince Edward Island.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is Canada’s largest general farm organization, representing over 190,000 farmers and farm families across Canada. These people, our members, are the heart of a Canadian agri-food system generating $134.9 billion of Canada’s GDP. However, like so many other sectors, agriculture is facing a chronic and increasing labour and skills shortage. The most recent statistics from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, CAHRC, identified over 76,000 vacancies in primary agriculture alone. Jennifer Wright has already spoken to some of these numbers.
Why such a labour shortage? Well, many of the positions are seasonal in nature, requiring workers at very specific times of the year, especially during planting in spring and during harvest in summer and fall. These positions are also located in rural parts of the country, for the better part, and are often physically demanding. In addition, because farmers are predominantly price takers in global markets, many of us face limitations in the wages we can afford to pay. Ultimately, many Canadian farmers and food processors simply cannot find enough people to work, and that is costing our economy billions.
CAHRC estimated annual lost revenues due to labour and skill shortages in primary agriculture to be $2.90 billion. As a result, the agriculture sector is highly dependent upon the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, which account for upwards of 20% of total employment in our sector. In 2021 alone, the Canadian ag sector welcomed over 61,000 temporary foreign workers in an attempt to fill this domestic labour shortage. The unfortunate reality is that as the broader labour market has tightened, competition for talent and retention of seasonal employees is only getting more difficult.
This workforce plays such an important part in Canada’s food production and food security, and the CFA takes worker protections very seriously. We are a strong supporter of a rigorous inspection and compliance regime that weeds bad actors and bad practices out of our system. However, we have heard from some of our members that this compliance regime is not always consistently applied, with farmers experiencing different interpretations and a wide variability in inspection timelines, which can introduce uncertainty and confusion. We strongly support continued investment into the program both to streamline application processing and to ensure a well-trained, well-resourced integrity function.
Furthermore, CFA strongly recommends increased information-sharing agreements between the federal and provincial governments to strengthen oversight of the system while avoiding duplicative inspections.
Similarly, CFA believes that there is a need to look closely at the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program as a source of best practices that other programming streams could learn from, such as quarterly meetings with source countries to review how the program is functioning, the presences of consular liaison officers and streamlined transfers to ensure workers can take advantage of additional on-farm opportunities that arise.
Industry associations and community-based organizations also have a significant shared responsibility to provide tools, resources and information to workers to support their quality of life and sense of community while in Canada. Future funding for migrant worker support should explicitly target and encourage tripartite collaborations that bring employers, worker support groups and the government together in the shared delivery of these supports.
We understand that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was always intended to be a program to help address temporary job vacancies. That is why CFA also strongly supports pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, particularly those in year-round jobs. CFA recommends reviewing how the agricultural and low-wage streams can be optimized as a transitional program to permanent residency, given the in-demand nature of agri-food jobs. The introduction of the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot is a good first step, but our sector continues to see limited uptake of these opportunities due to barriers that exist via the education and language criteria. We would strongly encourage putting more emphasis on years of work experience for those who have demonstrated they are able and ready to keep working in Canada, as many face difficulties demonstrating educational credentials and meeting the language criteria. Finally, we would like to see the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot be made permanent, with flexibility to increase available positions were uptake to increase.
I would conclude by noting that farm organizations and farm associations recognize that industry has a significant role to play here. The CFA is co-chairing, as Jennifer Wright mentioned, a national workforce strategy framework for agricultural and food and beverage manufacturing through the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council, with support from the Future Skills Centre. That work is taking an inclusive stakeholder-led approach to identifying actions needed to create a sustainable workforce for the future. Part of that work is on immigration and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. To that end, a working group has been tasked with formulating recommendations in these critical areas —
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Robinson. Much appreciated.
We will go to questions. Colleagues will have five minutes each in this round, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Bovey: Thank you for the comments you have made. I do not know whether it is encouraging or discouraging. I think the reality you present is really important.
You talked about quality of life, and I have seen in some of what I have read that some people come back to the same farms for forty years. I hope that that is a pathway to permanency. It does not seem to be yet.
I was interested, Ms. Robinson, that you felt it was important to expand the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot program, and I appreciated what you said on that. Do you think it would also make it easier to have permanency and the workforce that obviously is needed in the farm sector to make union representation a necessary condition of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program? Do you think it would be helpful to end the employer-specific work permits and replace them with open work permits or occupation-specific work permits, as has been recommended by the Agricultural Workers Alliance?
Ms. Robinson: Thank you for the question, senator.
In regard to union representation, we don’t really see that agriculture aligns well with this. As I mentioned earlier, we are price takers, and it is very difficult for us to get into a situation where unionized wages might exceed our ability. We do have a great program. The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, SAWP, has worked so well for us. We think there are a lot of lessons we could learn from that.
In regard to open work permits, I can say from experience that when you apply for a foreign worker to come and work on your farm, you do that months away from when you need them. When you go to the airport to pick them up, you pray that they are on that plane and they come home because you have a slot on your farm and you need that person there to work. I can say from experience that I know people who have gone to the airport and those people are not there, because they found other jobs, or, when they do arrive, they have somehow managed to find another job, which is great for that person — I do not mean to take away from that individual — but as employers, we need to be able to have a bankable source of labour.
You can appreciate that when we go to plant our crop, we need people in the fields doing that. If the workers that we had invested all of the work in — the Labour Market Impact Assessment, the fees, the inspections, the on-farm accommodations and all of the work that goes into bringing a foreign worker onto the farm — if you do all of that, and then the time comes, and they don’t arrive, there you are. You are out a whole lot of money, and you are unable to do the work. We certainly know about all of the stresses that causes on all the other parts of your farm operation, the operator themselves, as well as the other farm workers who have to pick up that slack. I do have concerns about moving to strictly an open work permit situation.
I think we advocate very strongly for bad actors to be removed from the program and to be disciplined. We think more of that would serve better. I know of farms, as was mentioned, with foreign workers coming back for four decades of coming back. I have a friend who has three generations of one family that comes every year from Mexico. They have no interest in living in Prince Edward Island year round. They want to be able to go home. Islanders here on Prince Edward Island used to always go to Fort McMurray to get high-paying jobs, and that is what happens a lot with our foreign workers who come here to work in agriculture.
The Chair: Ms. Robinson, if I may, what you are saying is completely different from what we have been hearing in a few of the panels — in fact, most of the panels — which is that a work permit that is tied to an employer is a situation rife with abuse and that abuse takes place. It is not a question of a few bad apples. It appears to be more systemic in the system, and, therefore, we are left wondering, where is the truth? Now, you say that if there is an open work permit, the employees may find another job. What evidence do you have? I mean, do you have anecdotes, or do you have evidence?
Ms. Robinson: Thank you, senator.
I might ask either Jennifer or Brodie to jump in here.
The evidence that I have, senator, is firsthand evidence, and it is the farmers that I know who employ temporary foreign workers and view these people as a high value component of their operation. In my personal opinion, the abuses are the minority, definitely not the majority, but I would invite either Jen or Brodie to step in with any evidence to help to answer this, if you are open to that.
Brodie Berrigan, Director of Government Relations and Farm Policy, Canadian Federation of Agriculture: Well, in terms of evidence, as you said, Mary, a lot of it is anecdotal and information that we are hearing from our members, certainly on a number of occasions, so it is not a one-off situation by any means.
But just in terms of answering the first part of the question, really the keyword here is “balance.” I mean, it is about finding that right balance between protecting the interests of employers and worker protections at the same time, and that is why, as Mary alluded to, we really see the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program as an effective middle ground in that place where workers are able to change employers without getting a new work permit provided the employer has the worker’s consent, written approval from a foreign government representative in Canada and prior and written approval from ESDC or Service Canada. It is a bit more of a structured process.
The Chair: I think that we have heard that that process is relatively impossible for a migrant worker to use. I am getting in the way of my colleagues.
Senator Bovey: This is something that I will ask you to send to our clerk. I would be really interested in the data. You mention the need to retain the workers. I certainly understand that, and many people are obviously doing it if subsequent generations are coming back to the same farm. Data would really help us on this. Are we getting two extremes? Where is the middle ground? We are looking for recommendations that will help solve your problems and that will help to solve the problems of the migrant workers. If you could give us some hard evidence, that would help us to move forward. Thank you.
The Chair: We would certainly welcome that. Good policy is made on evidence, not on anecdotes, as much as we like to tell our anecdotes.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for coming before our committee. Certainly, you have firsthand experience in the hiring of foreign workers.
I would like to return to the comment that you made about the education level. I believe it is Grade 12 and the language is level 4. We heard from previous witnesses as well that this was a challenge. You suggested that work experience could be used in lieu of the language or education. I remember in the late forties and early fifties in Nova Scotia we had a lot of immigrants who came in not speaking English, working in the coal mines and steel plants because there was such a need for labour at that time. They learned the language very quickly because they were using it every single day. What would you suggest a recommendation be for this committee in terms of changing or making provisions in lieu of Grade 12 education or English or French language?
Ms. Robinson: I do know that the program is seriously under-subscribed because of both the language and the educational requirements.
I met with some friends who is said that they failed the language requirement because they were asked to describe something, and they said, “very funny,” and they were told later on that they had to say, “extremely humorous.” It is quite a subtle difference, and as an English speaker, as my mother tongue, that seems absurd.
Anyhow, I think that Jen may have some more concrete answers to your questions as to how we could address this.
Ms. Wright: Thank you, Mary, and thank you, senator, for the question.
Certainly, our organization does spend a lot of time looking at skill development and skill requirements and different ways to ensure that the skills are in place to meet the needs of our agriculture employers, and so I think that there could be different ways to look at it. As Mary shared, we have heard across the industry about the challenge with meeting the language requirements and the Grade 12 requirements as well.
There are different ways, I suppose, that you could look at the skills being brought in. One thing that I would say is that the skills that foreign workers bring on the farm are very high-skilled and very specific to the needs of food production. Sometimes those skills are developed in a way that aren’t within what we know as a more structured, formal education process such as high school. Looking at ways to identify and define those skills that they do bring that are extremely valued and important to the sector should be more important than whether they bring in a Grade 12 education or have completed that level of education.
Our organization is looking at different ways to provide training and to be able to measure skills that workers have, looking at things such as micro credentials or occupational standards that clearly outline the different skills at various levels of an occupation. There are things like that which exist that may be more beneficial than just looking at someone’s high school completion or not.
Again, the value of the skills that these workers bring to Canadian farms is something that does not always happen within a formal education environment but they are extremely important to the work on the farm.
Ms. Robinson: If I could add, a member of ours, Mushrooms Canada, has certainly raised this issue with us for some time, and we have also heard it from primary meatpackers. We have been working with those members to get more detail on the number of successful participants in the Rural and Agri-Food Immigration pilot. We believe it is in the low hundreds, in contrast to the thousands of positions that have been made available over the past couple of years.
We certainly do need to do something to address the fact. As Jen said, these are highly skilled positions, although they may just not have Grade 12 chemistry. I know that on my farm, the people that I work with that I consider to be basically geniuses at what they do may have a Grade 4 education. They cannot write very well. They are born and raised here. If I did not have them, I would not have a farm operation.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
I would like to go back to the topic of the abuses of agricultural workers, and abuses that they experience in employment. Certainly, we have asked for more data, which is important, but we also know that a lot of the abuses are not reported, so that is another issue there.
Could you explain to me how inspections are done? I am not exactly sure how that happens. Who does them? How often are inspections done? Are they done on a complaint basis or a regular routine basis? Ms. Robinson, what can we do, in your view, to improve the inspection process? What are the priorities there? Thank you.
Ms. Robinson: Thank you. I will go first, and I’m sure that Jen and Brodie will build on this.
I do want to point out that we have seen a significant number of recent steps that have been taken to strengthen workers’ protections. What we really need is to see this play out a little bit. Some of these steps are extraordinary. We need to see them play out, see how successful they are and take stock of how well they are working and learn from them before we take more action.
In regard to on-site inspections, I understand those can happen in just about any way, shape or form, senator. I understand that it can happen multiple days from multiple departments, whether it is provincial, federal or even municipal, depending upon where you live. A farmer could actually have a revolving door of inspectors on site.
I would ask Jen or Brodie to speak in more detail to that.
Mr. Berrigan: Thank you, Mary, and thank you, senator, for the question. It is a really good one. I will do my best to try and address it.
My understanding on inspections is that — at least at the federal level — they can be conducted for three reasons: if there’s a reason to suspect non-compliance, if there has been a past employer issue related to non-compliance or the employer has been randomly selected. There are a couple different ways those inspections can unfold. There’s an administrative review, which is more of a paper process, and on-site inspections, which is the more rigorous route.
If the employer is deemed non-compliant with the terms of the inspection, the government will provide them with opportunities to address those discrepancies. In fact, I think they give them a couple of opportunities, after which it triggers enforcement and whatever sort of monetary penalties or whatever the case may be, depending on the severity of the non-compliance.
As Mary was alluding to, some of the issues that we’ve been hearing from our members are really around the variability and the terms of application of the inspection. Some take a week or two weeks, and some can go as long as a year. A lot of that can be due to employers’ inability to provide the necessary documentation, but not always. This is something that we keep hearing about, so there has to be something going here and we’d be curious to know more about it as well.
Another issue is related to interpretation. We have heard from some of our members of instances where rules from non-agricultural-related streams were inappropriately applied to the agricultural stream. A good example is the demand for a transition plan, which is for high-wage occupations and not something that is required in the agriculture stream. The program is very complex, and to us, that speaks to complexity even on the part of inspectors sometimes having challenges in interpreting the actual rules and when they apply.
As well, just in terms of information-sharing between the different levels of government, we’ve heard from members about incidents where provincial occupational health and safety folks will be in and inspecting on a set of issues, and then Service Canada will show up the next day or the next week and do an inspection on very similar issues.
As Mary alluded to in her opening remarks, we strongly believe in a strong compliance and integrity function. There are just some issues in terms of how it’s applied that we would like to highlight.
The Chair: I’ve heard your objections to the open work permit, and I think I understand your concerns. You need a bankable source of labour, and strawberries don’t wait to get picked. They need to be picked when they’re ripe, and Canadians want to enjoy them when they’re at their best. I wonder if you would consider an open-sector work permit that you would have a role in designing, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, if one could entice your imagination, let’s say, through the design of a program where everyone is at the table. It’s an open work permit for a sector. It’s not to go work at Walmart or whatever; it’s to work on farms. If individuals want to move from one employer for specific reasons to another employer, it would be within the management, let’s say, of some kind of an industry federal organization. I wonder what your response to that is. We’re trying to be balanced here, as we must be, but we’re also trying to find a way forward.
Ms. Robinson: I immediately go to the defensive to understand what the risks would be for producers in this. I think that’s just the nature of where I sit. I do want to make sure that there’s appreciation for just how much work and expense and investment is made on the part of producers to bring workers here. With this idea of an open-sector work permit, we would certainly have to address that, because if I’ve invested thousands of dollars to bring someone to work here for a season, I’d need some kind of guarantee on that investment. I think that would be one thing that we would have to dive into. We’re always willing to collaborate and work with government to come up with better programs because we need this program and we need it to work. You’re our dance partners, and we’re happy to take part in any kind of collaboration, for sure.
I think another thing we should talk about is SAWP workers are able to change employers without getting out a new work permit, provided the employer has the worker’s consent and that prior written approval from the foreign government representative of Canada is in hand, as well as prior written approve from ESDC. That is an option now. I have friends — one is a potato farmer, one is a strawberry farmer and one is a blueberry farmer — and they do kind of share workers because their seasons rub shoulders but don’t overlap that much. Certainly, we do work within industry to capture some of those synergies and make sure people can get work. Because when they come here, they really want to work. They want to make as much money as they can to take home.
I’ll open it up for either Jen or Brodie to make comment as well.
Ms. Wright: I would echo your comments, Mary, that we are always open to looking at different ways and different program development. As Mary said, being at the table would be very important, and taking a look at what some of the risks could be and ensuring they would be mitigated before the program was delivered would be extremely important.
The Chair: An evidence-based proposal from you around the creation of an open-sector work permit that meets the needs both of industry and the workers that we have heard from would be very welcome.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: This question is for Ms. Wright. In 2021, Statistics Canada data showed that 73% of temporary foreign workers were working in the agricultural sector in Ontario and Quebec; the numbers in the other provinces were markedly different. Do the provincial programs offer work opportunities or working conditions that are more attractive for migrant agricultural workers than those offered through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the TFWP?
[English]
Ms. Wright: Thank you for your question, senator.
I want to ensure that I understand the question about the significant number of temporary foreign workers who work in Ontario and Quebec. Is your question around why that would be, or is it if there are work conditions that attract workers to those provinces more than other provinces?
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Yes.
[English]
Ms. Wright: I don’t have all the data in front of me, and I would be happy to share additional data afterwards, but there’s a significant amount of primary production that takes place within Ontario and Quebec. There is also a substantial amount of seasonal primary production and horticultural production that would take place in those two provinces. My thought would be that the number of temporary foreign workers who work between those two provinces would be a reflection of the amount of primary production activity within those two provinces as well.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. I have another question. After the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry published its report in June 2022, the government responded with an action plan for employers and workers participating in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the TFWP, and with initiatives provided for in the federal budget of 2022.
My question for you both is how much time needs to go by before we can assess with a good degree of precision the impact of the changes that are being brought in through the action plan? In your opinion, has the government really made the necessary changes to the agricultural and food processing sectors in order to attract and recruit workers in greater numbers through the TFWP?
[English]
Ms. Wright: Thank you for the question, senator. I would leave the answer to maybe Brodie or Mary, who would be working more directly with those recommendations and how they are being absorbed or inputted by employers.
Mr. Berrigan: Thank you, senator, for the question. It is a very good one and not an easy one to answer, to be perfectly honest with you.
I don’t know that I could confidently speak to how much time we need to take to absorb the impact of some of the recent government measures or investments that have been made in this area, and I think Mary alluded to some of them. From my notes, Budget 2021 announced almost $50 million over three years for worker supports, and just this past September, a number of new regulatory amendments came on stream as well to strengthen worker protection. I really don’t want to say a time frame in terms of what it would take, but, to the earlier point that was made, it’s important to reflect on and take stock of these measures to see whether they are having the desired effect before we can make an informed and evidence-based decision, as the committee has called it, on where there may be further gaps and where we need to place further emphasis.
Senator Bovey: I’ll push the conversation a little further. Ms. Robinson, you mentioned in your opening statement the positives of the Agri-Food Pilot Program and the fact that you felt it should be expanded. Maybe that’s the way we can look at this. It’s due to expire in May 2023. What measures do you think the federal government should be taking to determine if and how that program should be ongoing? What would you see as the key objectives of expanding it, from your perspective? What would you recommend to expand it and make it better, rather than just saying it needs to be expanded? I want to get to the “how.”
Ms. Robinson: You are right that it expires in May 2023. We’re looking at this, as I said earlier, as a good first step, but we’re taking stock with our members to see where the successes of it are and where the shortcomings of it are to be ready to respond to government when they come to us so we have some evidence to answer those questions. Hopefully at that point in time, we’ll also have input from our members as to how they see it could be improved. I think it’s still kind of early days for me to answer the question with a lot of evidence as we’re still gathering that and people are still learning about how the program is operating and how it can be improved.
The education and the language requirements are certainly a big concern, and we will certainly look forward to collaborating with government as to how we address those points without putting undue burden on rural areas as we bring people in who maybe have language barriers. I certainly appreciate what it means to live in a rural community and see people you have difficulty speaking with because they don’t speak the language. We want to have retention, and we want to have people who are pleased to be here.
We’ll come back with more information closer to the wrap-up of the program.
Senator Bovey: Do you have a timeline? We’re obviously doing this study, and we’ll be doing a report and taking it to the Senate for further discussion. Have you got a timeline for when you might be able to come up with some thoughts that will help us inform the conclusions of our report to inform our colleagues in the Senate so we can make solid recommendations including your thoughts?
Ms. Robinson: I don’t have a timeline offhand, but I know this committee has asked us to come back to them with other information. Maybe we can put some thought into what that timeline can look like and give you that information.
Ms. Wright: Although this isn’t specific to the one program, our National Workforce Strategic Plan Working Group on Foreign Workers and Immigration is looking at various ways to improve processes and that type of thing. We have just released an interim report for the entire project, but it also summarizes the working group’s thoughts around foreign worker and immigration programs. I wonder if I may submit that interim report to the committee as a first step while we look at gathering evidence and the specific questions that have been asked today.
Senator Bovey: Thank you.
The Chair: I’m going to put forward an assumption to you, and I’d like you to comment on it. It’s an assumption that I have around the jobs Canadians will simply not do over the longer term, primary agricultural jobs being one of those jobs that they will not do over the longer term, hence the need for all these entries into Canada for ag workers. Economists, on the other hand, have said it’s a matter of supply and demand. If employers raised wages significantly, then the supply of labour would open up. Can you comment on both my assumption and on the proposals of economists, which I’m sure you have all read about?
Ms. Robinson: I’ll make the first comment on that, senator. Thank you.
I believe you’re right. There are jobs that Canadians unfortunately don’t see themselves doing, and many of those are within agriculture, many are within hospitality and many are within transportation. We have all kinds of industries that suffer from not being able to attract and retain employees for one reason or another. I would suggest that increasing wages would possibly play a role. I think for sure the economists are right. There is a tipping point when people will do just about anything if they’re paid the right amount of money.
I would share with you a story from the beginning of COVID. We had a member who was an asparagus grower, and they relied on temporary foreign workers to harvest that asparagus crop, which is a very time-sensitive harvest. They put the call out locally that they were paying, I believe, $40 per hour for people to come and harvest asparagus. At the end of the day, they had over 100 people show up, and by 2 p.m. they had 12 people left.
Back to the comments made about skilled work, this work is hard work. Some of it is very physically demanding, and it’s also very skilled. I know people who are unemployed right now who would never be able to work on our farm because they just wouldn’t have the skills or work ethic to do that.
I’ll open it up for others to make comments as well.
Ms. Wright: Thanks, Mary. I agree with your comments. I’ll build on them a little as well.
When talking about labour supply, I think agriculture has had a labour shortage for quite some time, which is growing into a crisis now. We’re also seeing, if you look at the Canadian population, that it is declining, and I think every industry at this point is facing a labour shortage. That increases competition for workers to attract them to work in our industry. I think that’s one consideration, to build on the points that Mary has made.
Also, I grew up in rural Ontario where there was vegetable production. The population sometimes in rural Canada does not support the number of workers required for the very time-sensitive harvest, for example, or the very time-sensitive planting season, whatever it may be. I know in the area I grew up, farmers and agriculture employers very much relied on the influx of seasonal workers because of the demand and the amount of labour it would take to harvest tomatoes, for example. That population in that area just didn’t support the required workers.
I think there are a number of different ways to look at the value that temporary foreign workers bring and a number of different ways to look at the importance of the program, certainly from a labour shortage point of view, but also, it’s just sometimes the work that needs to be done requires a lot more people than live in that area year round.
The Chair: The question we’re struggling with is, yes, temporary foreign workers bring value, but do they have to be temporary to bring value?
Let me try and ask you another question. We’ve heard the industry itself say that it treats employees well in the main, that there may be a few bad apples. Whether it’s just a few bad apples or a few baskets, I’m not able to say. What does the industry association do to help employers maintain standards that are set by provincial and federal governments? What educational programs do you undertake?
Ms. Wright: I can start with answering and sharing some information about the programs, tools and supports that our organization, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council provides. We provide tools and resources to agriculture employers to support HR best practices. For example, we have an agri HR tool kit which basically provides all of the resources around HR management, best practices, policies, health and safety, legislative requirements and human rights requirements that apply to all workers in Canada. We provide that, as well as direct training and work with employers through webinars and that type of thing.
In the past, we have provided a program called the quality agri workforce management program, which provided even more training specific to those employers who were interested in looking at bringing in temporary foreign workers, as well as those who are already bringing in temporary foreign workers. I’m pleased to say that we’ve received some funding to continue that work and that delivery to ensure that we are able to provide that training and education and support to employers.
To the question around whether foreign workers need to be temporary, I think, as you’ll see in the interim report that I’ll provide to the committee, that’s a question that is really circumstantial, I would say. In some respects, the seasonal work and the seasonal nature of whatever commodity is being produced require that those jobs are more seasonal. As well, there’s an assumption that every foreign worker that comes to Canada comes here thinking that they want to stay here year round. In many cases, seasonal workers value the opportunity to come to Canada and earn a good income and return to their home countries and their families so that they have that balance.
In other cases, there are commodities and employers, as well as employees, who are looking at pathways to permanency. So I don’t think there’s one answer to that question and that, both from an employer and an employee point of view, having different options works for different people.
The Chair: We would like to thank all of you for sharing your perspectives, your information and your knowledge with us. It has helped us with our understanding of the sector considerably.
Colleagues, our meetings next week will be devoted to the consideration of the draft report on our study on GBA Plus, which was circulated to you yesterday.
(The committee adjourned.)