How Will the Government Address the Shortage of Temporary Foreign Workers? | Senator Munson & Senator Dalphond
On May 15, 2020 Senator Jim Munson asked Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, how the federal government plans to address the shortage of seasonal agricultural workers that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senator Munson: Thank you for that. If I could pivot to temporary foreign workers, we had our first Social Affairs Committee meeting yesterday, and we had people speaking to us from Agriculture Canada. It is stuck in my head that the New Brunswick premier said foreign workers are not coming and they’re not going to come. We had gone through this and I have seen this over and over again where there is always a shortage of foreign workers.
I noticed when your deputy was here, Mr. Forbes, he talked about this. Also at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee on May 5, just a few days ago, he talked about foreign workers coming here. Is there any guarantee that this country can fill that void? Is there any guarantee during this particular time, with the money that has been distributed to young people across the country, of others replacing those foreign workers temporarily to get a taste of working in their own country, and giving them that motivation with sort of an on-the-ground program? The United States had the Peace Corps doing things all around the world, but doing something within your country to give value to who you are as a young Canadian, to sit and work, albeit temporarily, because I don’t know how that void is going to be filled.
Ms. Bibeau: Labour shortage is definitely a huge challenge. It was already a challenge before the COVID-19 crisis. We normally welcome 60,000 temporary foreign workers, and even with all of them, we used to have 15,000 or so vacant jobs. So this is definitely a challenge.
That is why we are working very hard with the Minister of Immigration and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs to try to simplify the process as much as we can, so we can get as many temporary workers as we can. In April it actually went well; better than what we expected. We were able to receive 11,200 workers, while last year it was 13,000. So we are hopeful that we will be better than we thought a month ago.
Maybe just to complement this part, we are offering $1,500 to employers — mainly farmers but also food processors — who have temporary foreign workers. So $1,500 per worker to help them support the extra costs related to the 14-day isolation period.
We have also put in place the initiative Step Up to the Plate, which is a portal where you can find all the agriculture jobs offered across the country. We are trying to promote these jobs differently with all the stakeholders.
Through the Canada Summer Jobs program, we have also made the agriculture and food sector essential. Now farmers can get workers through this program — not necessarily students, but young people — and have 100% of their salaries paid.
Maybe I can also remind everyone that we have agreed to transfer $3 billion to the provinces so they can top up the wage of essential workers, including agriculture and food workers.
On May 15, 2020 Senator Pierre Dalphond asked Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, about the shortage of seasonal agricultural workers in Quebec due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the possibility of having students fill in for the absent temporary foreign workers.
Senator Dalphond: I do want to ask you two questions as a senator from Quebec. The first is about the shortage of temporary workers on Quebec farms. Many of those workers come from abroad, but foreign labour will be reduced this year. The Quebec government set up a program to encourage students to fill in for the absent foreign workers. Then the federal government announced a program to help students who can’t find a job. That measure and other measures are having a perverse effect in that they provide no incentive for students to go work on farms. When the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion appeared before the Senate, I asked her whether it would be possible for the $100 a week offered by the Quebec government not to count towards the $1,000 revenue threshold, because that’s when you lose the entire benefit. Do you have any news on that front?
Ms. Bibeau: Temporary foreign workers are essential to the food industry. To make it easier to hire them despite COVID-19, we’re allowing them to enter the country and we’ve implemented exceptional measures to fast-track their documents. Some workers have faced challenges in their countries of origin, even if just in terms of local transportation to get the necessary visas and documents. We’re working as efficiently as we can at this time. In April, some 11,200 workers arrived in Canada, compared to 13,000 last year. We do still believe we’ll be able to welcome many more than the early, concerning scenarios we were shown at the beginning of the crisis had projected.
We’re also trying to bring in measures that will encourage Canadians to work in the food sector and on farms this year. We’ve implemented the Step up to the Plate platform to bring together employment resources in the agriculture sector all in one place to make things easier for people. You’ll notice that we’re trying to adapt the various measures being implemented to our current reality. We’re building the airplane in mid-flight. That is our current reality.
You mentioned the Canada Emergency Student Benefit, and that’s one example. We specified that students have to have looked for work, and they have to be able to prove it if we ask them. We’ll be following up in the months to come. That’s an important detail.
We transferred $3 billion to the provinces so they can pay essential workers and the health and food sectors higher wages. Quebec was among the first to introduce measures like the $100 benefit. It’s hard to make small adjustments right now. Whenever we change something, we try to make sure it helps everyone. At this point in time, we want to introduce programs that help as many people as possible, but we know those programs aren’t perfect. Our priority has been acting fast because we want to create the best possible social safety net under the circumstances. I don’t yet have an answer to your particular question. Thank you.