Senate calls for establishing a Migrant Worker Commission to support foreign workers

May 22, 2024

At least one industry organization supports this recommendation

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A Senate committee recommends the creation of an independent group to oversee Canada’s migrant worker program.

Establishing a Migrant Worker Commission is the top recommendation in the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology’s report about solutions for temporary and migrant labour in Canada.

The commission would be an “arms-length, independent agency of the Government of Canada that would coordinate policy and respond to Canadian employers, Canadian workers and migrant workers alike,” the report’s executive summary says.

A Commissioner for Migrant Workers would lead this group, which would establish research agendas, advocate for migrant workers, and monitor migrant worker infrastructure.

The number of temporary foreign workers in Canadian ag has gone up each year between 2020 and 2023.

That year, Canadian ag employed 55,171 temporary foreign workers, data from Stats Canada says. In 2023, the number of migrant workers employed in Canadian ag was 70,267 – an increase of 27 per cent over that time.

In total, the senate committee made six recommendations.

These include collaboration with provincial governments about migrant workers’ rights to access health care and reviewing criteria necessary for migrant workers to apply for permanent residence.

Another recommendation is to establish a plan to phase out employer-specific work permits within three years.

These permits set out the conditions of where and how long a migrant worker may work for.

But these permits also make “migrant workers more vulnerable to abuse at the hands of bad actors as well as imposing structural barriers to accessing rights and protections,” the committee’s report says.

The permits also hinder employer flexibility and the ability for employers to recognize good work, the report adds.

At least one industry organization has come out in support of the senate’s report.

Providing measures to support migrant workers is a necessary step, said Bill George, chair of the Labour Committee at the Ontario Fuit and Vegetable Growers’ Association.

“The proposed commission with centralized services is in line with what fruit and vegetable growers have long been asking for – the creation of a one-stop shop for more efficient delivery of TFW services for both employers and workers,” he said in a statement. “Mistreatment of workers is unacceptable and as an industry, we have long been committed to the continuous improvement of Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs to ensure all workers have the opportunity for a positive, safe work experience while in Canada.”

The federal immigration and employment ministers have 120 days to respond to the committee’s recommendations.

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”