Canada Relaxes Travel Restrictions on Temporary Foreign Workers

To minimise potential labour shortages due to COVID-19, the Federal Government has relaxed travel restrictions on foreign workers entering Canada. On Friday the Federal Government confirmed, despite travel restrictions implemented to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, temporary foreign workers will be permitted to enter Canada.

 

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says this is great news for farmers who need them to cultivate fields and food businesses who desperately need them in their food processing plants.

 

 

This is nothing less than a matter of food security. The next step will be to work with the countries where the workers come from to ensure the permission to fly on planes that will be chartered by industry and paid by the employers who will get them.

 

In the meantime, along with sector representatives and our colleagues in the province’s, we will finalize the protocols for supervised isolation. Every employer will have the responsibility to put in place a strict isolation protocol of 14 days and if they don't, they would forfeit the right to hire foreign workers for the coming years.

 

In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I want to reassure everyone that we are taking all the measures necessary to protect your health while also ensuring that you have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and high quality food products on the shelves of your grocery stores.

 

During these difficult times I want to sincerely thank the workers in the agriculture and agri-food sectors, the men and women who farm our land, the folks who work in food processing plants, grocery store owners and their employees, truck drivers, volunteers working in food banks and food delivery services and everyone who, despite the concern, goes to work every day so the rest of us can have food to eat. They are nothing short of heroes and during these times we see how essential they are to our country.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.