“Federal Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre today called for the scrapping of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program. While we will not comment on the effectiveness of the TFW as it applies to other industries or sectors of our economy, the importance of its agricultural streams, and specifically the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), cannot be overstated.
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. 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.
The leader of the Opposition indicated his plan to create a separate, standalone program to address chronic labour shortages in the agriculture sector. While this is reassuring, we are concerned that any move to scrap existing agricultural temporary workers’ programs would create uncertainty and risk exacerbating shortages. Casting aside some 50-plus years of policy work and international cooperation that has resulted in Canada’s robust Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program would erode the foundation of a program that has safeguarded Canada’s food supply for generations.
The existing SAWP must be preserved, and while discussion on how to improve the programming of the current agricultural streams is welcomed, throwing out programs that have served growers, their workers, and Canadian families well for over half a century would be ill-advised at any time, and reckless today, given the current risk exposure of our sector.
We urge prudence when making policies on this matter and look forward to meeting with the Leader of the Opposition and his shadow minister for agriculture to discuss this matter further.”
Source : FVCG