Canadian agriculture and agri-food consistently punch above their weight. Agriculture and agri-food contribute $111 billion per year – more than $30 million per day – to the Canadian economy, or over six per cent of our GDP. However, there are still more than 16,000 job vacancies on Canadian farms, and this labour crisis is resulting in avoidable financial strain.
With that considered, you would think that smoothing out the regulatory red tape – especially on access to labour for farmers – should be highest priority for federal and provincial governments when the shortage is both critical and chronic, proven with many years of data and evidence. When COVID-19 challenged supply chains, action was taken to secure our food supply, but this level of urgency and priority for the sector appears to have come to an end.
Producers and workers need new solutions
Agriculture is theoretically prioritized in the immigration regulations, but it continues to be squeezed by on all sides. Agriculture and agri-food businesses, and their workers, are getting caught in immigration dragnet of restrictive changes that will reduce Canadian production and processing capacity now and in the future, if not reversed.
Across the country, for years, agriculture agri-food businesses have been vocal about the reality of their workforces: when Canadians do not apply for jobs, programs are needed to support permanent residency for workers, not just the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). Even getting permits approved under the TFWP Agriculture Stream is an increasing struggle.
The federal Agri-Food Immigration Pilot program was launched in 2020 in response to COVID-19 supply chain challenges in the sector. To the detriment and dismay of the sector, it closed to new applications in May 2025 after reaching the 1,010-maximum permanent resident threshold as defined by the federal government’s 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan. To that point, the program supported more than 4,500 workers and their family members, which included the extension of open work permits to spouses of Agriculture Stream workers.
Click here to see more...