Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

[Peggy Brekveld]

With regard to the first question, I think it's continued consultation with the industry. Work with us and we'll work with you to ensure it's the right program. Again, we are in such a shortage in our industry that we want the employees to have a good experience so that they want to come back and continue to come back. Many do.

With regard to the second question, there have always been paths to permanent residency. My grandparents came as farm workers and have become permanent residents. My husband came on a farm worker permit as well and is now a permanent resident. The options have always been there. If the process isn't right, let's continue to work towards a better process, but the options are there.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Can you expand on the tangible impact of labour shortages on the agricultural industry? How has it affected the industry, the consumers and the workers themselves?

[Peggy Brekveld]

When we don't have enough employees, it means that we don't do the expansion that we can. It means that we leave produce on the field. We saw that significantly during our COVID years. We left a lot of produce out on the field because we didn't have enough people to bring it in. It's a conversation about how we continue to develop rural Ontario and ensure the health of our agricultural sector, which contributes so greatly to the economy of Canada.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I know that COVID has been a terrible strain on the whole world, not just on the farming industry.

We heard from many witnesses that temporary foreign workers are absolutely indispensable to the agricultural sector. You referenced your council's agricultural labour market research that was released on November 1 of this year. It found that more than 28,200 jobs went unfilled during the peak season.

How can the government help with the recruitment of temporary foreign workers? Also, how can the government ensure the safety and protection of these workers, who are often made vulnerable?

[Peggy Brekveld]

It has been a continued conversation and continued effort on both accountability and enforcement. The government has the ability, and has used its ability, to monitor, assess, investigate and do inspections, etc., on farms. All of those pieces are part of what government does to ensure that employees are properly taken care of and the program is working appropriately.

I believe the future is continuing that conversation. Do we have the right tools? Times change. We have to ensure that we have the right tools in the right situations for employees and employers.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

With your background and experience in this agriculture industry, do you have any recommendations that you would like to share with this committee about the work you do and how we can enhance it?

[Peggy Brekveld]

CAHRC is currently working on the national workforce strategic plan. I'm looking forward to sharing that data and that information, which is a bigger conversation about the labour shortage and the answers to go forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary Chiang.

Now we will go to my dear friend Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses.

Just so you know, I'm the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean, a riding in northern Quebec, which is very agricultural and very rural. Many of my friends are agricultural producers, and they're asking themselves questions right now.

The vast majority of producers who participate in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program under closed permits are honest people. That's why, when they see a news story on TV about a case of abuse, they feel unfairly targeted. Indeed, it reflects poorly on them when they have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

That's what I took from what you said, Mr. Possberg. I think you felt attacked, among other things, by the words of the UN Special Rapporteur.

Did I understand your feeling correctly?

[Kenton Possberg]

On the abuse of workers, it doesn't matter if they're Canadian citizens or foreign workers, I think that employer needs to be dealt with swiftly. There needs to be proper punishment put in place.

So if that is the case, and it's proven to be true, I hope they're removed from the program and they are no longer eligible to hire foreign workers again.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

What does it mean to a small agricultural producer when a worker quits before the contract is up? Isn't it a bit catastrophic when this happens, especially when it's harvest time?

[Kenton Possberg]

Well, if you set foot outside today, it's not very nice. We do not control the weather. Mother Nature controls the weather. For seeding, for instance, we have roughly 21 days to get the crop in the ground. After that, it's been statistically shown that yields will decline. We need to make sure we have the people in place to operate the equipment we require to get the job done, whether it's seeding, spraying or harvesting. If you don't have the people in place, that farm will not be successful.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

You also talked about the investments it represents, for producers, to bring temporary foreign workers onto a farm.

Concretely, what investments do you have to make to obtain the services of a worker, for example?

[Kenton Possberg]

When it comes to investment, I'm not looking for government to invest in anything for my farm. I'm just looking for the freedom to operate—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

In fact, I'm asking how much money you need to invest for a worker. I'm talking about the money you have to take out of your own pockets.

[Kenton Possberg]

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. I see what you mean.

It's quite significant. We don't have to pay for an LMIA to be processed, but if a person doesn't understand the program, they have to hire a consultant, which can be around $3,000 or $5,000. The bigger issue is finding that worker. You can't get your LMIA approved, walk outside, shake the foreign worker tree, see who all falls down and then pick them and go back in. You need to recruit and locate these individuals, which can be quite difficult.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

At the same time, some workers' rights advocates come to us and tell us that there are abuses directly related to the fact that the permits are closed and the program operates this way.

On the one hand, we know what it means for a producer if the worker goes elsewhere, but, on the other hand, cases of abuse have been documented. That's not to say that they are committed by all employers, but they have been documented. The police have even intervened in certain circumstances in Quebec, among others.

We realize that the status quo cannot be maintained. We can't keep the program as it is now. It's difficult for employers, but at the same time, a UN Special Rapporteur has compared the program to a breeding ground for modern slavery. Furthermore, workers' rights associations tell us that this is just the tip of the iceberg, because many workers don't even dare describe their situation for fear of being sent home.

How do we deal with the problem? Do you agree with me that it can't stay the way it is right now?

[Kenton Possberg]

I am not aware of any of these situations, but I do fully support that these employers be dealt with in the manner...and not just if it's a foreign worker but also if it's a Canadian resident. There should be no abuse.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I've never heard of a closed permit in the case of a Canadian citizen, though.

Presumably, closed permits for foreign workers give the employer much more power than any employer dealing with Canadian citizens, who don't have closed permits.

I was a freelancer, in my previous life. I had a contract job. If I wasn't happy with my contract, as a Canadian citizen, I could walk away. Right now, there are workers who don't dare report their employer. We're told that if they do, they're put on a blacklist of people not to be hired.

In my opinion, there's no right or wrong answer, but, logically, we can't keep this program as it is now. I don't like to see people saying, on the news, that there are cases of abuse in Quebec because of a federal program that obviously isn't up to the task.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Give a short answer. I will give you a little bit of time.

[Kenton Possberg]

Thanks.

I am not happy to hear of those instances either.

What you're describing—a possible open work permit system—is a push versus a pull. A push would be the Canadian government saying, “Here are 40,000 foreign workers. Go find your jobs.” What we have in place right now is a pull. It's employers that have demonstrated that they cannot find Canadian citizens—in our case, for seasonal purposes—to work on their farms. They have to go through the process, demonstrate that, and get the approvals in place. It's a pull; they're demonstrating that they need that.

Having an open work permit circumvents that process. It also doesn't protect Canadian citizens and Canadian jobs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Possberg.

We'll go to the honourable member, Madam Kwan, for six minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and for being here today.

I appreciate Mr. Possberg's comments about the concern over violations of labour codes, whether it's a domestic worker or a temporary foreign worker. I guess the operative difference, though, between those two categories of workers, is that temporary foreign workers do not have full status. People who are here—Canadians or people with permanent resident status—have status and, therefore, protection.

In the case of temporary foreign workers, the biggest problem, of course, is this: Because they don't have full status, they have very few options. When they are subjected to mistreatment or abuse by the employer, what happens to them? They have dilemmas. They have difficult decisions to make. If they report this situation, they stand to lose their job. If they lose their job, they run into a whole host of other problems. These include not having financial resources, not only to support themselves but also to send home to their families.

We also have situations where a lot of workers may not have access to information about where to go to make their reports. There have been surveys done. The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, for example, has done a lot of work with migrant workers. When they survey migrant workers, how many of them have actually received information about their rights? The vast majority of them say they haven't. Then, when you ask further questions about how many of them received information about their rights in the language they speak, that number reduces even more. You can anticipate the difficulties with all of that.

Now, I want to get into the issue of status. The Canadian government has put in place something that says temporary foreign workers who may be subjected to abuse are “vulnerable workers”. They can report, and there's a process people can go through. If, through that investigation, it's proven there has in fact been abuse, they would be able to get an open work permit. What I don't understand is why we have a system that says only after you've been subjected to abuse—you've already experienced terrible working and housing conditions, and what have you—can you get an open work permit.

The question for me is this: Why not offer the open work permit upfront to people? I get that people will say, “They'll all leave. They won't come and we will lose the sector.” In our last panel, that question was asked of the witnesses. It is an issue of working conditions and competitive working environments, so you can attract and retain workers both locally and, I guess, possibly from abroad.

I will share this with you: I am an immigrant. My family immigrated here. When we first arrived as a family of eight, we had a low income. My mom went into the workforce and worked in the fields at a farm. She made $10 a day to support the family. She left at 5 a.m. and did not get back until 9 p.m. She made $10 a day. Now, I know that was a long time ago. Ten dollars is not very much now, but back then it wasn't very much either. That was the reality. She did that for two years to support the family. She eventually got a better job making minimum wage.

The question then is this: If employers were to consider better working conditions and competitive wages to attract and retain domestic workers as well as temporary foreign workers, wouldn't that be a much better way, instead of subjecting people to potential abuse? I'm not saying all employers are abusive. It's potential abuse.

I'm reading a report from the news here, which indicates the government did a series of assessments and found 116 violations, with 93 employers facing monetary penalties totalling $1.5 million.

What were their violations? We are talking about wages not being compliant with what they were supposed to pay workers and that workers thought they were signed up for. Inadequate accommodations and issues around safe working conditions were among these violations. This is the reality that people are faced with.

What I would urge you to consider is this. What should be done to ensure that workers' rights are protected?

That is the big question which, in my mind, is absolutely critical. I would urge all employers to take it into consideration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You have 30 seconds to respond to the question. You can always come back to it in the next round.

[Kenton Possberg]

From a broader context, the foreign worker program, first and foremost, needs to protect the Canadian workforce and the Canadian worker. That's at the very top.

This is probably in the same study you're referring to. In a recent study, 96% of employers were compliant. What I found really interesting was that of those 4% that were not compliant, the majority were non-compliant due to things like not keeping documents for six years.

Now, I know there are instances where there could be potential abuse. If they are verified, that's not good. We have systems in place already to deal with these situations. These employers are dealt with. They are blacklisted from the program. Whether it's for a foreign worker or a Canadian citizen, they need to have these protections in place.