Labour shortages are one of the most acute threats to fruit and vegetable availability, the FVGC said
At least one Canadian ag organization is voicing concern about a proposal from the Conservatives to do away with the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program.
While speaking in Mississauga, Ont., on Wednesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called on the government to cancel the TFW program to free up employment opportunities for young Canadians.
“Why aren’t employers offering jobs to Canadian kids first? Why are they shutting our own youth out of jobs and replacing them with low-wage labour?” Poilievre said, The Globe and Mail reported.
Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada (FVGC) is concerned about the Conservative stance on the TFW program.
Finding reliable labour to work in ag is a major hurdle, Massimo Bergamini, executive director of the FVGC, said in a statement.
“Labour shortages are one of the most acute threats to the availability, affordability, and diversity of Canadian-grown fruits and vegetables and by extension to Canadians’ food security,” he said. “It has been demonstrated that without access to international worker programs, growers would be unable to secure the workforce they need to plant, care for and harvest perishable crops—leading to higher food prices, more waste, and increased reliance on imports.”
A report from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council highlights the need for TFWs.
The report from February 2024 estimates “the domestic labour gap in Canada’s agricultural sector is projected to increase 15 per cent over the next 8 years from 87,700 in 2023 to 101,100 workers by 2030 during peak season.”
This is partly because attracting and retaining young workers is a challenge, the report adds.
Canada’s reliance on TFWs in ag has been increasing.
In 2021, Canadian ag employed 60,992 temporary foreign workers. That number has increased each year to 78,079 in 2024, Stats Canada says.
That represents a 28 per cent increase in three years.
The Conservatives acknowledge the difficulty in the ag sector and committed to creating a new program.
“Under this urgently-needed plan, the Temporary Foreign Workers program would be permanently abolished with a separate, standalone program for legitimately difficult-to-fill agricultural labour,” the party said in a statement. “For ultra-low-employment regions, there will be a transition period of, at most, five years while the program winds down, but no new permits will be issued anywhere in Canada.”
While pleased to hear the Conservatives are keen to support ag and its labour challenges, creating a new program would erase decades of work, Bergamini said.
“We are concerned that any move to scrap existing agriculture temporary workers’ programs would create uncertainty, risk exacerbating shortages and cast aside some 50 years of policy work and international cooperation that has resulted in Canada’s robust – if not perfect – agricultural foreign worker program.
The existing SAWP must be preserved, and while discussion on how to improve the current agricultural stream programming are welcomed, throwing out a program that has served Canadian growers, their workers, and their families well for almost half a century would be ill-advised at any time and reckless today given the current risk exposure of our sector,” he said.