Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue No. 56 - Evidence - Meeting of October 2, 2018
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 2, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 6:01 p.m. to study on how the value-added food sector can be more competitive in global markets (topic: Temporary Foreign Worker Program).
Senator Diane F. Griffin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I see that we have a quorum, so I am declaring the meeting in session.
I am Senator Diane Griffin from Prince Edward Island, chair of the committee. I ask the senators to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I’m Senator Maltais from Quebec.
Senator Dagenais: Jean-Guy Dagenais from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Doyle: Norman Doyle, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
Senator R. Black: Robert Black, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: Raymonde Gagné, Manitoba.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Julie Miville-Dechêne, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Mercer: Terry Mercer, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Tonight the committee is to hear about the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. While we were studying how the value-added food sector could be more competitive in global markets, this was an issue that we were hearing about frequently.
We are very pleased to have two panels with us this evening and two more on Thursday to discuss the issue of temporary foreign workers.
This program allows Canadian employers to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary labour and skill shortage positions when qualified Canadian citizens or permanent residents are not available under the program.
The number of participants is noteworthy. Between 2005 and 2009, more than 50,000 workers referred to under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, or TFWs, were brought into Canada under this program.
For our first panel, we have with us from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, Mary Robinson, Chair, and Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, Executive Director. From the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada, we have Derek Johnstone, Special Assistant to the National President.
Thank you, folks, for accepting our invitation to appear here this evening. We will start the presentations with Mr. Johnstone and then move on. We will have lots of questions for you after.
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 say thank you to the standing committee for the opportunity to share our perspective today and for the work of the committee on this important subject. Before I put forward some of our thoughts, perhaps it might be good to say a few words about who we are.
The UFCW is the voice of Canada’s food workers. We are one of Canada’s largest unions. We are proud and privileged to represent more than a quarter of a million hard-working people across Canada. About 80 per cent of our membership works in food-related sectors. As we like to say, you can find UFCW members everywhere in the food chain from field to fork. Within our membership we are very proud to include more than 40,000 food-processing workers who have a direct role in making the value-added sector possible.
The main point we are looking to share with you today is Canada’s food manufacturing industry as a key part of the food chain. The thought of further expanding that sector is certainly music to our ears, but the whole goal is premised upon the existence of a robust primary agricultural sector. While there is no doubt that Canada is a leading source in terms of food production in that we clearly have an opportunity to expand our role as one of the world’s great food leaders, we are here to say that realizing that goal will depend upon a stable labour supply.
Right now in Canada’s agri-food system, finding labour to meet production needs is a growing challenge for producers and processors. Some are saying that it has reached a crisis point. Many employer groups will say that is because ag work is hard, and they are certainly right about that. They also say it is because it is dirty. If you have ever been to a mushroom facility or spent some time in a field, you certainly couldn’t argue with that either.
However, they will also say it is because Canadians don’t want to do the jobs, and that is where we as the UFCW don’t necessarily agree. Construction is hard work and many of the trades are “dirty work,” but they don’t seem to face the same challenges in terms of attracting Canadians to do the work. There is certainly no question that there are far more TFWs in the ag sector versus the construction industry.
When it comes to making agri-food a desired destination for Canadian workers, we believe there is a number of major issues blocking our sector or setting us back.
The first is the continued exclusion of agricultural workers from the labour relations act in Ontario. The fact that workers are effectively barred from joining the union in the heartland of Canada’s ag sector is something that shocks Canadians when they find out. In recent years this fact has also led to our country being shamed by the international community. Especially after the ILO of the UN looked at the situation and found Canada guilty of violating international labour law.
Who wants to work in a dirty, dangerous, hard sector where you don’t have the same rights as everybody else? Who wants to work in a sector where people didn’t have basic health and safety rights in Ontario until 2006? As we know, the answer is not very many Canadians.
We now have a situation where more than 35,000 migrants and growing come to Canada every year to fill the growing labour gap in the agri-food sector. It is important to note that most of these migrants come from developing countries where corruption is often rampant, where the rule of law and the notion of human rights are not nearly as developed as they are here in Canada.
What we get as a result is one of the most vulnerable worker populations in the country. It is a worker population that has no idea of what their rights are. Even if they did, they would have good reason not to demand them. Instead, what we see are abused workers go underground. As a result, we’re assisting a growing number of workers who are being declared victims of human trafficking.
A big part of the reason is that migrant workers come to Canada with closed work permits. It is truly luck of the draw. Those who end up with an irresponsible employer feel like they only have one of two options. They can grin and bear it or they can go underground as part of the shadow economy. When they do the latter, they become completely vulnerable and profoundly susceptible to exploitation.
As Canada’s voice of food workers we once again thank the committee for shouldering this very important work. We are strongly in favour of a policy that advances value-added production in Canada while it fully respects the rights of workers. We reiterate that a strong value-added sector is based on a strong foundation of primary agriculture. The foundation of that foundation is a stable and productive labour force.
To help achieve that, we call on the federal government to urge provinces to ensure that collective bargaining rights are extended to all workers in the food chain. We also recommend the extension of the provincial nominee program or something similar to ensure that more food system workers who come here as TFWs have a realistic path to citizenship. We have many examples where this model has been successful for the meat sector and can be just as beneficial for the ag industry.
In the meantime, the TFWP must urgently introduce some badly needed safeguards to prevent the abuse and exploitation of migrant food workers. We strongly urge this committee to join the UFCW’s call for open work permits and mandatory training as part of that program, which would involve all migrants receiving government-approved training on human rights, health and safety, and other core subjects.
I should also add that the UFCW has been very heavily involved in the Primary Agriculture Review of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. As such, I thought members of the committee might be interested in having a copy of our submission for that process, so I have left some with the clerk.
Beyond that, that concludes my introductory remarks, and I look forward to any questions you might have. Thank you.
Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, Executive Director, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council: Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important study. It is a pleasure to be here.
Our presentation will focus on worker shortages, temporary foreign workers and immigration in support of industry growth for a sector that has such great potential.
We have prepared a presentation deck to coincide with our presentation, so I invite you to take a look at it and follow along with some pictures to be enjoyed while we are sharing our thoughts.
In Canada, we have the advantage of enjoying the benefits of an abundant, healthy, safe and affordable food system, one that feeds 36 million Canadians and as the fifth-largest exporter feeds a multitude of people around the world. It is an important industry to our country not only for nourishment but also because the agri-food industry, our value chain, employs 2.3 million Canadians and is a leading driver of our provincial and national economies. Domestic and global demand for the Canada brand is high. We currently export most of what we produce in terms of beef, pork, soybeans, wheat, canola and pulses.
There are great expectations for growth of this industry, as documented by the Conference Board of Canada, the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, the Economic Strategy - Agri-Food Table and provincial and federal budgets. In fact, our government specifically expects to increase export targets for agri-food by $19 billion in the next 10 years.
However, the agri-food industry relies on people, farm and food businesses, and their workers to plant, grow, harvest, prepare and package its products. Unfortunately, the business of farm and food production is struggling to find enough workers and its future is in jeopardy.
Our research clarifies that in 2004 the agriculture industry was 30,000 workers short. Some 10 years later, that figure doubled to 59,000 workers, with clear expectations that it would double again in the next 10 years to 114,000 workers by 2025. On-farm job vacancies are exceptionally high at 7 per cent when the national average is only 2.8. Vacancies on mushroom F.A.R.M.S. are even worse at 9.7 per cent, as are vacancies in meat processing plants with nearly 1,700 butcher stations sitting empty across Canada today.
These vacancies are costing the farming industry $1.5 billion a year and exist despite extensive efforts by business owners to recruit and attract workers. What is particularly troubling is that the inability to fill job vacancies is resulting in delays or cancellation of expansion plans by large and growth-oriented agri-food business operations.
Our research findings are documented in national, provincial and commodity specific reports that you can access. They are free to access through our website.
The findings are clear. Labour shortages are being experienced across all commodities, all regions of Canada, all sizes of operations and for positions that are both year round and seasonal, despite extensive time and effort spent on recruiting workers.
Although the industry brings in approximately 45,000 temporary foreign workers each year — 35,000 through the soft stream and 10,000 through the ag stream — this represents only 12 per cent of the agri-workforce and secures many Canadian jobs. The industry is still in critical shortage and that shortage worsens each year.
CAHRC conducts labour market intelligence to track the growing labour shortage and its impacts. New research is under way, and we should have those findings by mid-2019.
Following years of extensive research and consultation with industry, CAHRC has clarified that the inability to fill job vacancies is the top business risk identified by Canada’s farmers and food producers. Without being able to fill key positions, farm businesses are struggling as the shortages are impacting production, sales, competitiveness, and certainly future growth. Farmers are choosing to forgo planting all of their fields and are avoiding labour-intensive crops.
Farmers and food producers are forced to throw food out because they do not have enough workers to harvest and process their products. They are unable to fill orders. They are unable to do the value add processing, sending raw products and opportunities to the U.S. and other countries. They are unable to take advantage of opportunities in new markets. They are forgoing expansion plans, choosing to retire early and opting out of the agri-food business altogether.
Right now sustainability is at risk. Achieving any level of industry growth is also critically at risk. These risks need to be acknowledged and mitigated in an intentional and strategic way.
I invite Mary Robinson to complete CAHRC’s presentation as the chair of our Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council. Ms. Robinson is also the co-owner of several agri-food businesses in P.E.I. She serves as director on many associations in the agriculture and agri-food industry. She is also a member of Canada’s national labour task force for the agriculture and agri-food industry.
Mary Robinson, Chair, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council: Thank you for the invitation. It is an honour to be here today to speak to you.
Addressing labour challenges for the agri-food sector needs to be a foundational objective for the Government of Canada. Growing and securing the agri-workforce underpin the priorities of increasing export targets and growing Canada’s agri-food industry. These priorities cannot be fully realized without assessing existing and worsening agri-force shortages.
A number of industry leaders has come forward to Canada’s value chain round tables to create Canada’s national labour task force. Together with the support of CAHRC they have researched and documented a Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Workforce Action Plan that is supported by over 85 leading industry organizations, municipalities and value chain roundtables.
The workforce action plan stresses the importance of continued LMI research conducted by CAHRC to track workforce requirements and includes two overarching priorities to ensure the industry remains viable and competitive.
The first is to increase the labour pool for domestic and international workers. The second is to improve the knowledge and skills of workers.
Canada’s Economic Strategy - Agri-Food Table prepared recommendations that align with the Workforce Action Plan to support the sector’s capacity to plan for, train, attract and retain human capital; to modernize Canada’s immigration and temporary foreign worker programs; and to support greater participation of under-represented groups. In addition, they recommend a skill and talent collaboration hub like CAHRC to support success.
Through these recommendations and plans, industry leaders have been clear about the need to address workforce issues. This means clarifying the exciting work opportunities the industry has to offer to Canadian job seekers, improving diversity of the sector, supporting employers with best practice staff management tools, ensuring appropriate access to workers when Canadians cannot be found, and improving immigration options.
If we want this industry to thrive, we need to grow the agri-workforce and ensure that it is filled to capacity with the brightest people who are willing to push innovation and success.
The industry’s diversity success stories should be highlighted. I think we’re at slide 16, for people trying to follow along, where we have pictures of a couple of folks.
One is a meat processor in Alberta that conducts extensive recruitment strategies to hire Canadians, including ongoing advertising and work with settlement agencies, as well as providing important support for temporary foreign workers. Their workforce integrates Canadians, new immigrants and temporary foreign workers that originate from 100 different countries and speak 66 languages.
It is important that we recognize value and celebrate the international guest workers who come to Canada to help the industry thrive. They are a key component of our agri-food success and have been for over 50 years. Many international workers return year after year, sometimes for more than 30 years, through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, supporting Canadian food producers and using their earnings to support their families in their home countries. This key priority ensures that the agri-food industry has access to international workers when Canadians are unavailable.
The Economic Strategy - Agri-Food Table acknowledges that the sector is experiencing restricted access to foreign workers and recommends program modernization. CAHRC’s research has documented the increasing difficulty agri-food employers face accessing the workers they need in a timely manner through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Particularly troubling is the increasing reports of application delays and refusals for businesses that state they are seeking workers to grow their operations. A new service delivery working group has been initiated recently to tackle short-term issues, but more needs to be done in this critical area to improve the ability of businesses to fill vacancies without delay to avoid losses and growth restrictions.
Securing pathways to permanent residency for those temporary foreign workers who are employed in year-round jobs and are interested in immigration is also key. Retraining Canadian-trained talent makes sense when workers can’t be found. However, those pathways to immigration are currently limited for low-skilled workers.
These limited pathways persist even though the industry is experiencing high vacancies, offering competitive wages and showing successful retention for these workers.
Working with the Canadian Meat Council and Mushrooms Canada, CAHRC has conducted extensive research about butcher and farm worker jobs in terms of vacancies and immigration needs for temporary foreign workers. This research shows that butchers stay at meat processing plants for an average of 10 years and mushroom farm workers stay on average 11 years.
Currently, there are 900 temporary foreign worker butchers like Ronald from Breslau, Ontario, and 700 farm workers, like Eric from Ashburn, Ontario who would like to stay in their positions and are looking for immigration options. Unfortunately, they don’t qualify for federal or most provincial programs, other than Manitoba, given that Canada prioritizes high-skill workers.
Ronald and Eric are workers with agri-food experience and skills seeking a way to stay in rural Canada, where they are valued by their communities and their employers. Although these hard-working farm and food employees are the foundation of what Canada was built on and their positions will go unfilled if they leave, there is not a clear immigration option for them.
This situation is extremely frustrating for workers. It is also extremely frustrating for agri-food business owners because it exposes them to losses, limits their success and restricts their growth.
Time is of the essence for supporting farm and food businesses to thrive. With annual lost revenues in the billions and a future outlook that predicts a doubling of workforce shortages, continued research and focus on these issues is needed. The research clearly indicates that improving competitiveness and expanding the industry will require focused attention on worker shortages, temporary foreign workers and immigration.
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council facilitates collaboration between government and industry stakeholders, and continues to provide up-to-date labour market intelligence and support for workforce issues. Further research and collaboration activities are key to tackling the extensive job vacancies within the industry and the stress those empty positions have on businesses. Strategic investments and coordinated action are needed to enable the industry’s sustainability and are essential if the agri-food system is expected to achieve any growth.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation. I have one question before we go to other questions. You state that unfilled vacancies cost the industry $1.5 billion. Over what period is this, and what is the $1.5 billion? Is it overtime paid to other workers? Is it lost opportunity? What exactly is it?
Ms. Robinson: The $1.5 billion was for the first year that it had been measured, and it was in 2014. It has escalated since 2014. I understand the $1.5 billion is strictly primary production losses due to vacancies, so that would be everything you’ve mentioned, senator, as far as the inability to plant, maintain, harvest, pack, ship, all of the —
The Chair: So It is all lost opportunities plus probably paying some overtime.
Ms. Robinson: It is lost sales.
The Chair: That’s a lot of money.
Ms. Robinson: That was in 2014.
The Chair: Is it for one year only?
Ms. Robinson: When you look at the trajectory of where we’re going with the vacancies, considering that gap is increasing and we have more vacancies, that 2014 figure could definitely be adjusted up.
The Chair: Great.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I have two very quick questions. Mr. Jonhstone, you represent a Canada-wide large union. Have you done any research to find out why there is such a glaring labour shortage right now?
[English]
Mr. Johnstone: That’s a good question. Our studies have been anecdotal for the most part, but there are many anecdotes when we talk about this question,
We have heard from the meat sector, and I have to be honest with you. When we look at agri-food field from the primary through to secondary processing and compare it especially with the meat sector, the reality is that it is a tale of two cities.
In the meat sector we have an industry with a long history of very high union density in all the major markets in Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario, certainly. As a result, we have very mature, developed relationships with employers. We’ve actually partnered with some of the largest meat processors in the country to tackle some of the issues.
We’ve heard about having a fair pathway to citizenship for migrants. That’s a reality in the meat sector. Through UFCW contracts with all of the major processors, we’ve been able to negotiate language that includes the employer becoming a nominee through the provincial nominee program. This has resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of TFWs becoming Canadian citizens. It is a completely different experience on the ag side where they don’t have the right to join the union.
That having been said, we have a number of centres for agriculture workers who come in and tell us their issues. This would be the nature of the anecdotes that we hear. It is a totally different experience on the meat side because we represent them through the collective bargaining process.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: No one anticipated there would be a labour shortage with the increasing number of farmers who supply processors. The two are closely associated. If the farmer doesn’t have workers, he doesn’t have products to supply the processor. If the processor doesn’t have workers, what the farmer produces must be processed and the end result is the same.
I have a question about the selection of temporary workers. Everyone says we are short of butchers. I suppose it’s the same in other processing sectors. When a company applies to hire temporary foreign workers, under the current formula, can it specify that it needs 50 workers, including 15 butchers, three or five forklift truck drivers and general labourers?
[English]
Mr. Johnstone: When you are talking about the meat sector, it is certainly not a couple here or a couple there. They are hiring en masse and bringing in large numbers of temporary foreign workers in two-year arrangements.
In terms of pinpointing particular skills, their top priority is to have people with meat-cutting experience. Some major processors will only take migrants who have that experience.
My colleagues could certainly speak to this, but the demand for labour is so great that they are not hard and fast with a lot of that prior experience. We are usually talking about significant numbers that are being brought in at a time.
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: I agree that labour shortage is so great that often the need is for a number of different workers. That’s included in the LMIA application that is put forward for a position, but it is position specific. The employers indicate the type of worker they are looking for.
Senator Ataullahjan: We have heard about the shortages in the food processing and agriculture business. How do we attract young people? How do we make it more appealing or, dare I say, how do we make it more sexy for young people?
I haven’t spoken to any young person who says, “Yes, I am going into food processing or the agricultural business.” What can we do to attract more young Canadians to these professions?
Mr. Johnstone: There are two different ways of looking at it. When you are looking at the domestic workforce, let’s face it that the sector has perception issues. Young people look at the sector and they don’t see a very glamorous workplace.
As I stated in my opening comments, there is some legitimacy associated with that. There are some excellent employers in the agri-food sector. There are many, many tremendous and very responsible employers, but there are some bad apples. They have done a real number in terms of the perception of the program.
One of my colleagues has done a lot of research on this subject. A common theme is the notion of community when we are looking at temporary foreign workers in terms of people being lucky enough to establish permanent residency and to stay at these locations. Let’s face it, a lot of them are in rural areas. The locations that have been successful in having high retention rates and low turnover rates are ones that established a sense of community.
We have seen that where the UFCW represents members in Brooks, Alberta, for instance. There are some strong ethnic communities there. Quite frankly, the union has played a significant role in helping develop the sense of community.
In Brandon, Manitoba, a lot of Ukrainian temporary foreign workers came in. I talked to one of our members who said, “When I first came here, all I had was my church and my union.” Through the support of the union he was able to get permanent residency. His connections to the community grew over time. His network grew over time. He has citizenship now. He can work anywhere but he stayed there.
Community is a major factor. Whatever government, employers, and the trade union movement as stakeholders do to develop that sense of community is really the secret recipe in terms of transitioning temporary foreign workers hopefully to a real pathway to citizenship, and from there to something that is stable in terms of the workforce for these plants across Canada.
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: You asked how we get young people into the industry. It is important that we recognize it is not just young people we have to convince. Although we have to convince young people, there aren’t enough young people. We need to think about convincing the whole workforce to consider work in this industry.
It is a great place to work. It appeals to a lot of people. It is an exciting place to work. There are entrepreneurial opportunities. It is a tech industry. It is a growing industry. The world is only getting bigger and hungrier.
Senator Mercer: There are some basic facts that Canadians don’t know. Maybe you will take an opportunity to tell them in your answers.
What would the average salaries and other benefits be for temporary foreign workers? We visited some F.A.R.M.S., particularly in British Columbia, where farmers have had to build special housing for temporary foreign workers and to provide some recreation for them.
Is there a simple answer to that question? Mr. Johnstone, I know your union would probably tell me that the average salary is a lot higher than someone who is harvesting fruit or vegetables.
Mr. Johnstone: On the meat side the wages vary. They can go anywhere from $15 up to well over $30 an hour. It depends on where they are in the wage progression. There’s an element of consistency in the meat sector because these workers are covered by a collective agreement.
When you go to the farms you referenced, senator, it is a whole different ball of wax. Again, there are very good employers but there are some that are not good. I know for a fact, because we have assisted countless migrant farm workers on this issue, that many of them are getting paid whatever they are getting paid, whether or not that’s the employment standard.
Irresponsible employers know that these workers are vulnerable. They know that they do not have the same rights as most other people. They know they have a closed work permit, so they are tied to that single employer. If a farmer is an irresponsible employer and is not happy with these workers for whatever reason, they can be sent home at the stroke of a pen.
To be honest, it varies greatly when we look at primary agriculture versus some of the secondary processing where there is a higher level of density.
Ms. Robinson: CAHRC has done some wage survey work on this subject. We can tell you with certainty that in the mushroom farming business the entry level for experienced harvesters ranges from a minimum wage up to about $29 an hour. When we get into supervisory positions, it ranges from $35,000 to $80,000 a year. These are wages that are competitive.
We would like to be able to conduct further research and do more extensive wage surveys. We hope we get approval for some of our project applications so that we are able to give you factual information on what the wages truly are.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Johnstone, my question is for the union. Many of us are shocked that in Ontario temporary foreign workers are excluded from the Ontario Labour Relations Act, and I know that opportunity right now is probably a little tougher than it was a few months ago in Ontario.
Why aren’t you telling Ontarians that this is not only an issue from a fairness point of view? It is an issue from a safety point of view. It is an issue from a growth point of view for agri-foods in Ontario.
Does the union not have a responsibility to get out there and tell that message to Ontarians so they can turn around and demand change from the people at Queen’s Park.
Mr. Johnstone: You are preaching to the choir. We’ve been telling Ontarians since 1995 when the law was rolled back. We have gone so far as to challenge that law many times in the Supreme Court of Canada.
It is not just migrant workers, senator. I was born in Sudbury, Ontario. If I work primarily in the ag sector, I am excluded from the Labour Relations Act. It happens for a number of reasons that we have touched on.
There is a huge number of migrants in the sector. For a number of reasons, it is not the first destination of Canadians in the labour market. As a result, employers have turned to the temporary foreign worker program. It is for the whole sector.
Senator, if you or I wanted to go work on a farm in Leamington, Ontario, we would be excluded from the Ontario Labour Relations Act as well. I am with you 100 per cent. More Ontarians need to do this. We are doing what we can, but we need all the allies we can get, to get the word out. A lot of people don’t know, but when they do know they are quite shocked by that reality.
Senator Mercer: Hopefully, they are paying attention tonight.
The Chair: We hope so. We are hearing about it in spades.
Senator Woo: This is a study about value added, which is another way of saying we want to increase productivity in the sector. Productivity has been a huge problem in the Canadian economy in general. I presume it is also for the ag sector.
The relationship between labour supply and productivity is complex. There are many who believe that access to low-cost labour is a deterrent to productivity because it encourages use of low labour rather than mechanization and labour-saving devices such as automation, innovation and so on. When it comes to harvesting primary production, I understand that maybe there are limits to what mechanization can do.
I would like you to talk a bit about what more can be done in mechanization. In some senses we are shooting ourselves in the foot if we rely only on cheap labour and don’t try to move up the value chain through productivity enhancing investments. We don’t want to create disincentives to industry for not making those investments by providing them with an endless pool of cheap labour.
Can you comment on that?
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: We conducted some research in 2014 on productivity in primary agriculture. The Conference Board of Canada indicated that Canadian agriculture was a productivity star by comparing all other industry sectors. Within a five-year period, it was indicated that the industry had increased productivity per worker by 45 per cent. It is unheard of and mainly due to mechanization and innovative ways to address labour shortage.
They also indicated that trend could not be stabilized over time. There needs to be more consideration for how best to address labour shortage in new, interesting and innovative ways.
Senator Woo: Do productivity and processing increase only at the production level or up the value chain as well?
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: Up the value chain as well.
Senator Woo: That is very helpful. My second question is related.
Having ample labour whether through TFWs or immigration is no guarantee that you will develop value-added products. In some ways it might encourage you to stay with the current production line because you are comfortable, prices are high, markets are secure, and there is no need to develop value-added products.
I am interested in your thinking about accessing foreign labour, let’s call it, not at the low end and not for pickers, butchers, mushroom farms, and so on. I am referring to accessing the best food scientists in the world, the best marketing experts in the world, and the best supply chain value-added people in the world; those people who come from other countries who are not just chopping meat but who understand about markets in Asia, Africa or Latin America, and who know how to innovate Canadian raw materials for markets in those countries.
What are we doing in terms of diversity at the high end of your leadership in the agricultural sector as a way of increasing value added in the sector?
Ms. Robinson: We know for certain that at the lower wage end vacancies are rampant. At the upper end we have quite a lot of expertise within our country. We don’t hear of that need as much. More needs to be done straight across the board.
I don’t know that I would call it cheap labour because producers are paying more for foreign worker labour than they are paying for Joe down the street. We don’t realize one of the big expenses for foreign workers for primary producers. If I need foreign workers on my farm, I will probably have to make application anywhere from four to six months before I need them. In that process, I will have to invest in establishing housing. I will have to put a lot of investment of my time and my resources into that without knowing for certain if I am going to get them.
The gap is most pronounced at the beginning of the process. I would agree that more needs to be done straight across the board.
Senator Oh: Recently Canada has suspended the farm owner category in self-employed business immigration. What is your comment on this change?
Mr. Johnstone: I am sorry?
Senator Oh: l will put the question another way.
We all know that temporary and seasonal workers are very important to Canadian economic growth. Our government needs the revenue coming in. Do you get cooperation from all departments? Because time costs money, how long does it take to process bringing in one worker?
Ms. Robinson: It sure does cost money. There is a lot of money invested upfront to begin the process.
A neighbour of mine has a value-add potato packing facility,just east of Charlottetown. You would know the Vanco operation, senator. They employ about 130 people in their facility, 34 of whom are foreign workers. They began the process four months before they needed them. They have been in the business of accessing temporary foreign workers for quite some time now.
They submitted their application for 34 to come. They paid for the seats and when the plane arrived nine of those seats were empty because there was a processing problem within their home country of Mexico. It was an infrastructure and backlog issue of the time.
What ended up happening was that the facility, for one full month of January this year, ran at 60 per cent capacity because they could not access the people. Their operation is very close to the major capital city of Charlottetown, the metropolis. It means that they compete with other jobs that are a little “more sexy,” to use the words another senator referenced earlier. If it is a minimum wage job in food service or something that is easier, their HR manager told me that in the last two weeks he hired 11 domestic people. Of the 11, six were still there two weeks after the fact.
It is very difficult. When you hire a marketing team you plan all of the crops you are to plant. You buy and build your storage. You make sure you have all the ducks you need in a row to get product out the door. You secure your markets. If someone doesn’t show up to put that potato in that bag, you will not be shipping that product to market.
Mr. Johnstone: Workers have expenses too. We mentioned Mexico. It is not uncommon for workers to actually pay recruiters who are less than scrupulous upward of $5,000. That is a huge sum of money for someone who comes to Canada as a migrant worker. They are indebted to those recruiters who often have shady positions in the communities back home. In addition to employers, it is important to remember that workers have enormous costs coming over to this program as well, which contribute to their vulnerability when they get it because they have to pay it back.
Senator Oh: As you say, farmers invest more and are expecting next year’s sales to increase. Do they face difficulties with their business plans because of problems with immigration and seasonal workers not coming back on time? Can you comment on that?
Ms. Robinson: Yes. Looking forward, something that has people nervous is the biometrics requirement and how much it will hold up the process because these developing countries may not have the infrastructure necessary to support workers that need to satisfy biometric requirements of our government.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I thank our witnesses. My first question is for Ms. Robinson. You talked about the origins of temporary foreign workers, which seem to be quite diverse. Would it not be better for Canada to focus its search on a limited number of countries in order to improve selection and make integration easier? Are employers more successful with certain communities in terms of the jobs that are available?
[English]
Ms. Robinson: I believe a lot of this has been grandfathered in. Different countries are accessed for different skills.
I believe that my partner Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst would be better at answering this question. If you don’t mind, I will defer to her.
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: Those who are here for seasonal work under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program are here for the season eight months of the year and are looking to return to their home countries. For the most part, those workers are not necessarily interested in immigrating to Canada. For those who are, the challenge is that there are limited pathways to permanency for that component of integration. It is clear in the research that more work needs to be done.
A limited number of countries participate in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program based on bilateral agreements between Canada and those other countries, and contracts are negotiated with these countries specifically.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: My second question is for Mr. Johnstone. You talked about the exploitation of foreign workers. Can you give us examples of abuse? Have any complaints been made in this regard?
[English]
Mr. Johnstone: Thank you, senator. Actually, we just had a case in southwestern Ontario where there was a group of Honduran temporary foreign workers. I believe there were eight in total working at the same facility. It was a situation, as with all of workers in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, where it was a closed permit, so they could only work for a single employer.
In either Honduras or Guatemala, I am not sure which, special labour rights for these workers are not as strong as they are here and in other industrialized countries. The notion of these workers speaking up at this very abusive workplace was not an option for them. So they did what many workers do and went underground.
They were picked up by somebody from a similar community who had established residency in Canada. He basically started shopping them around on the black labour market and selling them to the highest bidder. They came to our centre in Leamington, Ontario, where we have had bricks and mortar for 20 years to help these workers.
They advised us of the situation. We went to the federal government, the minister responsible for the program, and advised them. The evidence was so compelling that two of these workers was immediately declared victims of human trafficking. This was a decision by the federal government.
The cases of the other workers that were part of the group are being reviewed right now. This is something that happened in the last two months. It was covered by the mainstream media in southwestern Ontario. It is one instance.
We have 30 years of cases of anything from poor housing conditions up to health and safety issues. Agriculture remains one of the most dangerous industries in the country. It is right up there with mining and construction. Yet these workers do not have anywhere near the same rights as folks who work in those other sectors.
A couple of years ago a worker drowned in a vat of manure. I can’t think of a more undignified way to die as a worker. Do we think for a second that he was comfortable in exercising his right to refuse? Not at all, and this was the outcome.
These are the issues that we hear on a regular basis. They are why we are so grateful for the committee doing this work that hopefully will contribute to the review of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program where training, at the very least, is desperately needed.
Senator R. Black: Where are the application delays? We have heard it from you and from others. I have heard it individually when visiting farms and primary producers. Where are the application delays in the system?
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: It is a tricky question to answer. You have probably heard different answers from different people.
Part of the problem is that a whole number of different departments are responsible for and have their hands in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. There are components that ESDC governs, Service Canada governs, CBSA governs and IRCC governs, along with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Five departments are trying to work together to ensure that the program applications move through the system in an appropriate way. There can be delays from other countries as well.
Senator R. Black: You have answered my question. Thank you.
Ms. Robinson: We do know that there are different streams in the IT business. They have a fast-track system where you can get your worker within 10 days.
Senator Gagné: What would be the most important changes you would recommend to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program?
Ms. Robinson: Consistency and clarity, so that everyone knows what the rules are. I believe that agricultural producers want to abide by the rules. We know that they want more workers. We all know that if we don’t treat our workers right, we won’t have our workers.
I would say consistency and transparency.
Mr. Johnstone: The Provincial Nominee Program or something like it needs to be expanded. We need to shift from a closed to an open permit system. Above all, compulsory training at the very least on health and safety and basic human rights should be a requisite part of this program for all workers engaged in it and employers too, perhaps.
Senator Doyle: I was wondering how we in Canada compare to jurisdictions around the world in the U.S., France and Britain in our treatment of temporary foreign workers. Do they have better, more up-to-date programs for how they monitor and treat temporary foreign workers?
Does the federal government here in Canada have any type of monitoring program for how they check mark how temporary foreign workers are being treated?
Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst: It is important that Canada takes a look outward at what other countries are doing.
All developed countries are facing labour shortages and the world workforce is being globalized. We are competing with other countries for our international workers. We need to be careful and aware of that.
The United States is sorting out its own temporary foreign worker program. It is hoping to streamline it and make it more efficient for employers to access foreign workers, and we compete for the same foreign workers.
Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is held up as a gold standard for labour mobility and benefits that extend to Canadian farmers, the workers and their families at home. It is a model that others look to, so others look to us. There is some give and take.
Mr. Johnstone: I think we would disagree on a gold standard, but in terms of policing I know there are approximately 180 inspectors employed by the federal government for all of Canada, for every province. There are in excess of 10,000 different employers using this program. If we look at the math, there is no way possible that the program can be properly policed with the allocated resources.
The truth is that it is not surprising that to police this program would take tremendous resources. The government is not very good at policing the system. It doesn’t have to be government. We have a long history of other sectors where private sector employers and unions have done a pretty good job of setting standards in the sector.
Our position is simple: It should apply to the primary agriculture sector as well.
The Chair: I have one quick question to which I hope I will get an equally quick answer. This is for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.
How common is the irresponsible employer? I mentioned in my introduction that hundreds of thousands of workers have come through the system. How common is the irresponsible employer? Do you know?
Ms. Robinson: I have a paragraph prepared for you, Madam Chair. We know with certainty that farmers want to do the right thing. If a grower breaks the rules, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program fines or bans the employer from the program.
Out of the 2,888 Temporary Foreign Worker Program inspections in 2017, only one farm was found non-compliant over a minor administrative job description issue. They were considered to be out of line, so they changed the job description and the paperwork.
The Chair: Thank you to the panel for being here. We could have asked questions a lot longer, as you guessed, but we have to cut it off here to hear from the next panel.
For our second panel we two gentlemen who are ready to go. From Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services we have Kenneth Elgin Fort, President, and Keron Headley from Jamaica, a participate in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Thank you, gentlemen, for accepting our invitation to appear. It is great to have you here this evening. You will make your presentations, and then we will ask questions.
The floor is yours.
Kenneth Elgin Forth, President, Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services: Madam Chair and honourable senators, thank you for inviting me tonight to speak about value added and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
I am President of Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services, commonly known as F.A.R.M.S. I am also a farmer. My family has been farming for many generations in Ontario, and I have been an employer in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for almost 50 years.
I understand the Senate committee was well briefed by the Canadian Horticultural Council recently on the value-added food sector. I will also touch on that later but, first of all, I will talk about the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, specifically the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, one of the two temporary foreign worker programs available to Canadian employers.
The Commonwealth Caribbean Mexican Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program was started in 1966 to provide Ontario with a supplementary source of reliable and qualified seasonal workers in order to improve Canada’s prosperity by ensuring that agriculture crops are planted and harvested in a timely fashion. In Ontario and in Canada this program continues to respond to a critical shortage of available workers suitable for agricultural work.
The benefits of the program are many, and I will touch on a few. The workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program are treated exactly like local Canadian residents in relation to employment law. Workers’ Compensation, Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Ontario Health Insurance Program, plus any other provincial labour law regulation in place.
The list is not exhaustive, however, but some key benefits are. The source of income for a worker adds to the quality of life for him and his family back home in the supply country. It is an opportunity to enhance knowledge, skills and technology transfer. A lot of the people on the program are already farmers. They take some of the things we have used in Ontario and in Canada back to their home countries and use them on some of their own small farms.
There are retirement benefits through contributions to the Canada Pension Plan. Large contributions to their home countries’ economies relate to a better standard of living for the countries and their families in particular. It is a direct means of educating their children for professional careers. We have known some workers who have children now that are doctors, lawyers, professors and teachers as a result of being on this program.
To a large extent the availability of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program over the last 50 years has allowed the horticulture industry to flourish. Best practices include the ongoing involvement and commitment of the Canadian and foreign governments and farm operators to annual review meetings. The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is the only one that reviews the program every year. We will be going into the fifty-second annual review shortly.
It is a Canadians-first program endorsed by all stakeholders. There is a presence of foreign government officials posted locally to assist workers if they have a need for it, whatever that need is.
Repeat workers represent 85 per cent of the program year after year. It has been that way since the 1970s. It is a reliable source of labour for horticulture in the absence of local availability. Our houses are all inspected by the offices of local municipal ministries of health. The average length of stay is 20 weeks. It is an organized migration of workers that can stay up to eight months but the average is 20 weeks.
Access to seasonal agricultural workers ensures downstream jobs in local communities. We have seen that, and we have studies in your package to prove their economic value. For every foreign agricultural worker that comes to work in Ontario, two Canadian full-time jobs are created either on the farm or in the value chain just off the farm.
The demographics of Canada have changed over the years. The fact is in Canada today more people are leaving the workforce than entering it. People my age are already gone. Most industries are very short of employees. One only has to see the signs everywhere you go, whether it is Tim Hortons, Walmart, a manufacturing area, trucking or a bus company. The trucks and buses that are sitting there indicate there are simply not enough employees. I am not aware of a trucking company that has enough drivers to fill their trucks every day.
A great deal of agriculture is seasonal, as I already stated. The averaging stay is 20 weeks and the maximum is eight months. When there are some Canadian residents in rural Ontario, they usually take the full-time jobs on our farms. Seasonal work isn’t very attractive to Canadians. There are some in seasonal work in Canada, but most of them want full-time jobs because you can’t buy a house, a car, or educate your children in Canada by working for five months. If that were the case, that’s all I would work. Isn’t it true?
It must be reiterated that it is a Canadians-first program and there are Canadians on our farms. The majority are in full-time positions and supervisory roles in mechanics, equipment operators, trucking and other jobs. There is just plain not enough.
The value added of the agricultural sector is well known and was described by the Canadian Horticultural Council on September 20 before this committee. The presentation I just gave on the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program highlights that without such a program fruit and vegetable production in Canada would be greatly reduced to perhaps no farming or certainly no value added.
The main concern on value added is simple: Over the last two decades, the Government of Ontario and Canadian agricultural ministries and departments have encouraged value added on our farms to increase our returns. As we all know, we do not have a farm bill like the Americans do. They encourage us to do value added on our farms, but the Department of Employment and Social Development Canada, ESDC, does not necessarily see certain connected functions as farming. This results in some operations not being approved for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and having to apply through the low-wage program at a cost of $1,000 per worker.
On the definition of primary agriculture, currently the ESDC is conducting a review of all streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to arrive at a definition of agriculture among other aspects. This is a monumental task from the perspective of a farmer in the industry.
Every farm is different. Every farm situation is different. There is no traditional farm. I give the department credit for trying, but what must be included is flexibility so that it can be adapted to all farms.
Industry gave many suggestions with the hope that they would be included. However, there is another concern about a definition. What about the future? The future is tomorrow. What a farm looks like today may be quite different from what it looks like a year or two from now. With a hard and fast definition, does that exclude future farmers from accessing any kind of seasonal programs like this one? We don’t know that.
In closing my remarks I say that the package we have given you has the economic impact of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program in Ontario, which I have already spoken about. It not only shows that the program contributes to local economies. The fact is that for every seasonal worker, two full-time Canadian jobs are created. If we lost this program tomorrow in Ontario, as an example, because we have 20,000 workers some 40,000 Canadians would lose their jobs. We don’t need people driving trucks or operating equipment for crops we can’t sell.
In addition, an article called Parallel Worlds produced by John Deere follows the life of one individual from arriving in Ontario to returning to his homeland of Jamaica. There is also a comparative document between the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the agricultural low-skill program that I want to stress. The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program has different rules and regulations from those in the low-skill program. They are both good programs but you can’t talk about them at the same time. It would be like mixing orange juice and apple juice together when you only want one of them. You have to talk about the seasonal program and exhaust that, and then talk about the low-skill program and exhaust that. When people start talking about them together, it doesn’t work because the same rules don’t apply to each one.
In closing, I would like to say that I give ESDC credit for trying to make all the temporary foreign worker programs work. Industry has found, from the ESDC minister right through the department, that things have changed for the better. By and large they seem to want to work with agriculture now so that these programs to function as efficiently as possible. Industry welcomes that and we work with them on that.
Keron Headley, as an individual: I am from Jamaica and I have been in the program for six years. The program is a nice program. It helps families and all sorts of people. It keeps us out of trouble and does a lot for us. We would like to see the program still going.
The Chair: You have worked for six years. Have you always worked in the same location?
Mr. Headley: Yes, six years with Mr. Forth.
The Chair: Great. At this point we will ask questions.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Mr. Forth, we are no longer dependent on climate change. We are now dependent on seasonal workers. Both farmers and processors will have serious problems if they cannot rely on these workers. There are, of course, more skilled jobs. You mentioned trucking earlier. Will Canada ever have enough people to compensate for this dependency? I’m quite simply asking you the question.
[English]
Mr. Forth: No. Our birth rate is super low. Look at the Americans. They have about the same size country as we have. They have 10 times our population, and they don’t have enough workers.
I don’t see it. This is a very large country. When you get to rural areas there are not a lot of folks out there. The people who want jobs want them in the city or they want full-time jobs. I don’t see where this seasonal thing will change.
My gosh, it has been 52 years now and I don’t see it changing. Without a doubt, it is very necessary for us to bring people from somewhere and to house them. It costs a lot of money but it is the way we have to farm.
No, I don’t see that population changing unless you have some inside information on how much massive immigration we are to get. Immigration rules today don’t favour people who aren’t rich or university educated. I think we will be into the seasonal worker thing for a long time.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Earlier on, just before you, we heard from Mr. Derek Johnstone, Special Assistant to the National President of United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada. My colleague Senator Dagenais asked him a few questions. Mr. Johnstone replied that in Ontario some employers may be abusing their employees. Have you, as an employer, heard about this kind of thing happening? Is this true? What corrective measures will you take if this is the case?
[English]
Mr. Forth: First of all, I have absolutely heard people say that in the news. Ironically they never name the farm, and we would sure like to know the farm. I have heard the charges. I have not seen it first hand in the farming business.
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. I think it is pretty fundamental. I have worked in an insurance company. I have done a lot of things in my life. I always want the people who work for me to be relatively happy. If they’re not relatively happy, productivity is about zero. It doesn’t make sense to me. I personally haven’t seen it.
We have an Integrity Services Branch at Service Canada now that checks on stuff like that. They do a pretty good job. If I knew of an employer who was not treating his employees right, I would be calling Integrity Services Branch on him.
I don’t have that. When people come forward in the press they say things like that, but they don’t say it is this farm in this place. They just say “farmers” and we all take it personally because they are talking about all of us.
Senator R. Black: Do all users of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program have to go through your organization, F.A.R.M.S.?
Mr. Forth: No, they don’t have to.
Senator R. Black: You just help facilitate.
Mr. Forth: Yes. As a really quick history, in 1984, the Neilsen white paper on cost recovery in government came out. In it there were thousands of things the government was not going to do anymore. One of them was the logistics for this program. They didn’t pay for it, but they had people doing the logistics for it.
They came to us and said, “We are not going to do that anymore.” So we said, “You can’t cancel the program.” They said, “We’re not cancelling the program but we’re not doing it anymore.”
We will always say yes or no to an employer, and the employer will have to approve it through Manpower, as it was called in those days. You had to get it approved through them, and we said, “Who is going to do it?” The minister looked at us and said, “You guys do it.”
We set up a non-profit federal organization. Right now we have and will always have seven board members of the commodity groups in Ontario that said, “Okay, let’s do this.” We went out on a limb in those days, without a doubt, but now it is like a machine.
The LMIAs that come through our office are proofed so it doesn’t aggravate Service Canada. We don’t send incomplete ones. In the old days it is a three-page document. Now it is 18 pages. You can imagine: With one little check box or one little thing not answered, it comes back to you. We proof them first. It goes into Service Canada. It comes back to the farmer and to us at F.A.R.M.S. Then we do all the logistics with the ministries of labour in foreign countries. We have personal relationships with them. We do all that stuff.
We also have a travel agency that flies these guys in and out. Everybody has to pay the airfare. We negotiate directly with Air Canada, Caribbean Airlines, Mexicana or Aeromexico, whichever one it is from Mexico. Everyone pays the same price if you are coming from Mexico or the Caribbean. We average it out a bit. As far as F.A.R.M.S. is concerned, we do all that stuff and we charge the farmer $45 a worker to do it. When we do it in Ontario it is so cheap at $45. No one in their right mind would do this stuff because it is a complex system.
We are not out to run the world or anything. Our mandate was Ontario. Then, 27 years ago, a gentleman in Nova Scotia asked us to do his. Now I think we have all of Atlantic Canada. I don’t know if there is anyone that doesn’t go through it. I mean why would they but they can do it. We have a half-dozen people in Manitoba now too.
Senator R. Black: We’ve heard about application delays and bottlenecks. Where are those bottlenecks?
Mr. Forth: In the old days you could turn it around in 10 days at Service Canada. Now they have a lot of orders going in there. They have a lot of new staff. Two or three years ago, the auditor general came out with a report in which he said that the department wasn’t doing a good enough job.
I don’t want to be facetious, but has the auditor general ever had a good report? He is always complaining about somebody.
Now how it works is: My LMIA goes into Simcoe and they have to call me. They have to verify every question on that document. They won’t verify them all. They’ll pick a half-dozen or so questions and they will ask me them. They’re only doing that because the auditor general said they weren’t looking over everybody’s shoulder enough.
A lot of farmers out there, Senator Black, have been on this program for 50 years, and nothing changes. It should be pretty quick for those guys. The only person who really thought about that happening quickly was John McCallum, when he was immigration minister. He had that idea. He asked, “Why don’t we just have it like NEXUS for the guy who has been on for 10 or 15 years?”
Nothing is changing. When it goes in, nothing has changed. All his documents are there like his bunkhouse inspection. Everything is advertised and everything is there. It could get stamped that he is getting 18 guys and they go back out.
Instead, they have to analyze every one. I sat with him for a couple of hours, and he said, “Maybe we should analyze the ones that have changed their numbers radically or new people on the program. Maybe we should ensure that’s being done right.”
If the guy has been doing it right for 30 or 40 years, maybe he should have a little easier time. Then it would free up Service Canada because they wouldn’t have to analyze every one that is the same thing year after year.
Senator Doyle: Now that we have USMCA instead of NAFTA, is it easier to access temporary foreign workers from Mexico as opposed to other countries?
Mr. Forth: I don’t think it is any different. The new president is not there yet. The trade deal has not been signed, but our people in Mexico are saying they don’t see that there will be a difference. We will see.
Senator Doyle: Does your organization have people in foreign countries as part of your operations?
Mr. Forth: No. Everybody is in Canada. We do go to Mexico periodically during the year or to Caribbean as a need happens. We’re going there at the end of this month and the end of next month for the annual review meeting. We’re going to the Caribbean once and to Mexico once, but on a moment’s notice our staff in Toronto will go there.
By the way, our staff in Toronto also have immigration clearance. Our people are behind the scenes at Pearson airport. We meet every plane that comes in with every person that we work with. Even if it is one person or 101 people, we have people behind the scenes there helping to get them in line so Immigration has an easier time as the list lines up. We also operate a bus company across Ontario if a farmer doesn’t want to come to the airport. I don’t know if you wait for people at Pearson anymore, but who knows when you’re going to get out. We do that for them.
We have an all-encompassing support team there that tries to do everything so that there are no bottlenecks. When we’re sending people to Atlantic Canada, we walk them to the gate. You can imagine what it is like for somebody from Mexico who doesn’t speak English or anyone. It would be like us landing in Beijing when we haven’t been there before. We walk them to the gate, put them on the transfer plane and they are gone.
Senator Doyle: Do you mainly access farm workers from Central and South America? Do you have any from Asian countries coming in?
Mr. Forth: No. We mostly do the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program which has been ongoing for 52 years. We cover the Caribbean islands, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and Mexico. We also do the low-skill program out of Jamaica, Mexico and Guatemala, but if we don’t have a relationship with those ministries of labour we don’t do it.
There are other farmers that bring them in from Thailand or wherever. That’s fine, but we won’t do it because we don’t have a relationship where there is somebody we can call.
Senator Doyle: What percentage of farm workers in Ontario are Canadian?
Mr. Forth: That is a good question for CAHRC. I think they have that answer.
Foreign workers only make up about 20 to 30 per cent of the workers. It depends on the industry, though. If we’re looking at all of agriculture, it is one thing. The fruit and vegetable industry without a doubt is heavy into the seasonal worker programs. Unfortunately but fortunately for these guys, we can’t buy machines that will pick peaches and tomatoes yet.
Senator Doyle: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Forth, I would like to talk to you about democracy. First, last week we heard a witness say that opening a file costs $1,000. I have always wondered what the government was doing with that money.
Other than wages, how much does a foreign worker cost in terms of miscellaneous costs? Can you give us an overview of the list of fees you have to pay? Also, if that same seasonal worker returns, is it necessary to pay those fees again and restart the process each time?
[English]
Mr. Forth: Yes. It doesn’t matter if you have been on the program for one year or 30. In your package, the one done by John Deere, that gentleman has now worked for me for 33 years. It is the same process for everyone. It doesn’t differentiate between how long I have been on the program or how long they have been on the program.
As far as fees are concerned, they pay income tax,Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan, and the employer contributes to that too.
The airfare is no more than half to the employer or the employee, except that there is a certain amount per day deducted for airfare. In essence, if a worker works for you for 120 days, he will pay 50 per cent of the airfare. If he only works for 45 days, he is only paying that $3.45 a day toward airfare. In the end, if a farmer is an apple grower and only employs people for eight weeks, he is not getting his 120 days, and he pays a bigger portion of the airfare. The worker will always pay so much per day to a maximum number of no more than half. That’s where that is.
The other fee that is paid is in the Caribbean where there is a $5.45 a day deduction on working days that goes to the Jamaican government to operate their liaison service in Toronto, Halifax and Leamington. There are people on the road every day who will look after things like legal problems, health problems or whatever they get into. Those are the deductions that I can think of.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I would like to come back to the allegations of abuse, which we talked about.
How much stock can we put on the existence of a code of silence that would make foreign workers afraid to officially report abuse? Someone may hesitate before denouncing such a situation for fear of no longer being able to return to work in Canada. At that point, it’s the family that will pay the price. Do you think that there may be a code of silence?
[English]
Mr. Forth: Not that I know of. As far as I am concerned, farmers talk too much anyway. So does everybody.
As I said before, allegations are allegations. Tell me where the farm is, tell me where it is at, and we will report them. We will. I wish I had the power to do it because you wouldn’t want me to have the power if somebody was mistreating anyone. I have said it before and I will say it again: If somebody is abusing a worker on a farm he could be cancelled from the program for two years. That wouldn’t be what I would do. I would do it forever. “You’re gone. Find another line of work.” That’s what I would do.
As I said before, I don’t see how you get production out of people who aren’t relatively happy. I know a lot about orientations. If we don’t hear somebody laughing in the middle of the day, we know it is not right. We have these gangs of people working together. Sometimes they tell jokes and they pretty funny. If I don’t hear some of that, I am wondering what we are doing wrong here. I don’t want them laughing all the time, but they are lots of times because we try to have a regular thing.
The people who are saying those things should come forward and name names. I personally have an obligation as a representative of this industry to tell you the truth. That is my obligation. If it is there, I want to get rid of it.
Are there bad apples everywhere? Sure, with employees and employers, in government or whatever. The Integrity Services Branch will start to weed those people out. So far they’ve checked on hundreds, if not thousands, of employers and I think right now only one employer has been taken out of the program.
Senator Oh: Do you have a supervisor going around to check on temporary workers in different farms?
Mr. Forth: No, F.A.R.M.S. does not do that. Everyone is independent. We don’t hire the workers at farms. We just do the logistics. The farmer sends the LMIA in. He employs those workers, and we do not have anybody to do that. First of all, we don’t have the legal right to do it. Service Canada has the right to do it, and they do that.
Senator Oh: The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is a program that needs to stay on because they only need them seasonally. If you bring them in for full time, then they could go anywhere to look for another job.
Mr. Forth: And they would. If I was them, I would too. Lots of them see value in coming here for an average of 20 weeks, making good money, and then going home and doing things for their families at home. That’s what it is about. That’s the only answer I really have.
Canada is one of the most diverse nations in the world as far as crop production is concerned. I love the grain and soybean growers, but do we all want to grow that? We have wine. We have fruits and vegetables. We have everything. Ontario is the most diverse province in Canada, but Canada is a very diverse agricultural country. I think we want to stay there. I know people in foreign lands think about wheat in Canada, but there is a heck of a lot more than that. They don’t want us all growing heat, either. We think we serve Canadians well by the diversity of crops we grow.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have a question on accidents. Obviously this work can be dangerous, tiresome and all kinds of things. What do you do when somebody gets injured? Who pays for it?
Mr. Forth: If anybody is injured, the very first thing you do is take them to a doctor, a clinic or a hospital. Second, you report it to the WSIB in Ontario. There is a requirement to be covered.
It is funny you asked that question because I was director of agriculture for the Workers’ Compensation Board and ran that division for six years in the 1990s. It was one of my adventures when I was still farming. It is irrelevant if a farmer doesn’t declare that he is employing people for a while because the worker in agriculture will be covered, period. When he goes to the hospital, he is covered. It is sent to the WSIB as an example where they will ask, “Who do you work for?” He will say that he works for a guy and if he is not in their records they send investigators out. The fine him a lot of money and charge him the back premiums he would have to pay, but it does not affect the worker at all. It is a no-fault system. That is why the worker is covered whether or not the employer has paid. The employer will pay. We will get the money from him. It is just going to be a little longer.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I would like to ask a few questions of Mr. Headley. I am very curious. I am a former journalist so I really want to know your point of view about working there. I know you are beside your boss, which is a bit of a strange situation.
Mr. Forth: I can leave if you want.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: No, don’t leave.
Mr. Forth: He can say whatever he wants.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: We are in a free country. You say that it is a good job.
Mr. Headley: Yes.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: How did you first get the job? When you were in Jamaica did you have to pay somebody to get into the program?
Mr. Headley: No. My brother is a counsellor.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So he could help you.
Mr. Headley: Yes. Every year from February to March they hand out a card on the farm program. They have 10 or 12 cards to give those who want them.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You have come here for six years. How many weeks or months each year?
Mr. Headley: Five months.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: What do you do for this gentleman? What kind of work do you do?
Mr. Headley: I plant. I reap. I harvest. I sow seeds. Basically I do most things.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You live on the farm. Are you many?
Mr. Headley: Yes, on the farm. We are 18.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Did you ever think about staying here or about asking for papers? Are you happy going back? Do you have a family there? I would like to know a bit about it because obviously the two countries are very different.
Have you inquired? Is there a way? Do you want to become a citizen? I have many questions.
Mr. Headley: I have heard that we can now apply for ourselves to stay here. We can also apply for our families. That was just implicated this year, so we haven’t tried it as yet. We would like to come and stay. Some of us want to go and some don’t want to go.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: What about you?
Mr. Headley: I like going back because wintertime is too cold. I want to go home and to come back. I don’t have any problem with that.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Is it enough money to feed your family all year? Could you explain to us a little more? We are curious and we want to know how it is.
Mr. Headley: As Mr. Forth was saying, when I go back home I also do farming. When I leave here I have enough money to send my kids to school and take care of my mom. My dad died when I was 12, so it is on me to take care of my mom. Now I have two kids, a son and a daughter. It is helpful.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Have you ever worked in another country? Are you able to compare the conditions here with the U.S. or another country?
Mr. Headley: No, no. This is my first foreign country. I have never been to the U.S.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have asked enough questions.
The Chair: Including one I had.
Senator Gagné: It was a question for Mr. Headley. What are the risks you face in Canada as a temporary foreign worker? Are there any risks when you come here?
Mr. Headley: No, no risks. One risk is the cold.
Senator Gagné: We all face that.
Mr. Headley: Apart from that there is nothing else. It is nice and okay.
Senator Gagné: What attracts you to Canada year after year? Is it the stability of the job?
Mr. Headley: It is my family, supporting my family.
Senator Mercer: I have a question for Mr. Forth. You talked about protecting the workers and that being part of the workers’ compensation program, et cetera. We heard from a witness, Derek Johnstone, who is a special assistant and National President of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada. One of the points he made in particular was about the exclusion of agricultural workers from the Labour Relations Act in Ontario.
You seem to indicate that the workers are covered by various provincial laws, workers’ compensation and I assume labour standards, et cetera. I am trying to balance the conflict. You made it sound very good. He didn’t make it sound very good in that the Labour Relations Act of Ontario was excluded from agri-food workers.
Mr. Forth: He knows the truth. They are exclusions in the Labour Relations Act but they are covered by the Agriculture Employees Protection Act in Ontario as a result of a lawsuit they waged against the Ontario attorney general in Dunmore.
I was present at the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada down the street. They said, “We know they are covered but we want you to write a special act in Ontario that says foreign workers are covered.” The Ontario government at the time, wrote the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, which runs parallel to the Labour Relations Act.
When people tell you that things are not happening, there is always something else out there. It is not like that crazy day today.
Senator Mercer: That’s why I asked the question. I appreciate the answer.
I have a very practical question. You talked about flying the workers back and forth from their home countries. I have flown to Caribbean countries and to Mexico, but I have flown with a bathing suit in my backpack to stay a couple of weeks.
Are you able to strike a deal with those airlines that are doing the tourism flights back and forth? Many times they are not completely full coming back and probably not that full going down at certain times of year either.
Mr. Forth: We use them all and we use those two in a different way. Primarily, we use Air Canada. We also Caribbean Airlines and one of the Mexican ones. I am not sure if it is Mexicana or Aeromexico. It is whichever one is still running.
We also have to do charters. Everybody thinks charters are cheaper. They are cheaper to us as Canadians going to Cancun or Montego Bay because a country, an airline or a hotel is subsidizing that fare. When we talk about charters in our way of talking, it will probably cost $30 or $40 more a ticket to come to Canada. We have to do that because we are moving 25,000 people north and 25,000 people south and there is not enough lift in regular fare to do that.
There are airline brokers. We call them and they supply us with airlines. Lots of them are the tour operator airlines that are not using them that day. We do that. We send full planeloads of guys down and bring full planeloads of men and women back. It usually kicks in at the first of the year when there are a lot of people coming to greenhouse industry in January and February. Usually it is a problem too if there is a hurricane or something.
I remember one year Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica and the airport wasn’t open for two weeks. We had lots of people needing to come, so we sent down empty airplanes to pick them up.
Senator Woo: Do you have a view on open contracts versus closed contracts? We heard from Mr. Johnstone on that.
Mr. Forth: I have heard that nonsense before. I say that because I just wonder what the general manager for the Toronto Blues Jays would do with the best pitcher they have under contract for only one year. He’s one of those free agent guys. He comes in the third week of September. They’re going for the pennant and he says, “I think I will play for Boston for three weeks.” How’s that going to work?
This is only a one-year contract. They have a commitment and I have a commitment. With an open contract where are they going to live? Is the concept that I will fly them in and pay for all that? Will I house them and they will work somewhere else? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Senator Woo: I notice in one of the documents that the program only allows seasonal workers to be in the country between January 2 and December 15. It is curious. Why is there a two-week period that they are not allowed to be in the country?
Mr. Forth: If you want people in the country you can go to a low-skill program. You can employ people there for a couple of years. The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program was started 52 years ago. It was all about people on both sides. Whether or not people like to hear, the foreign countries are as really big on Christmas as I am. They want them out of town so they can be home with their family at least at Christmastime.
That’s where they started it. They don’t talk about that anymore, but that’s where it started a couple of decades ago. It breaks the program up into a seasonal program.
If you want temporary workers, you can get them from another program. Lots of people in some industries will do that. They will bring in seasonal workers under this program. They will also bring a component of the low skill or the ag stream program that is for two years. They are never without people. In season, they are way up in employees. Out of season, they are down. They always need somebody, especially the bigger operators.
The Chair: I would like to thank our panellists for being here this evening. It has been great to have you.
We are going to have a quick in camera discussion.
(The committee continued in camera.)