Evidence of meeting #18 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was labour.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ron Lemaire  President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
Glenn Fraser  National Leader, Food and Beverage Processing Practice, MNP LLP
Derek Johnstone  Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada
Kelleen Tait  Partner, MNP LLP

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Okay, I'll follow the order as listed here.

Mr. Epp, go ahead and ask your question in roughly a couple of minutes.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Epp Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll direct my question to Mr. Lemaire, please.

I heard in your opening comments that you are supportive of a potential code of conduct because it would address the imbalance of power between the big five retailers and the manufacturing suppliers or processors. Can you reconcile that with your other comments where you talked about the regulatory environment and how fresh producers would be selling into...particularly in the Ontario situation? I happen to have a few years of wars in that segment.

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Epp Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON

How do you reconcile that? I hear that you don't necessarily supply under contract or supply a steady stream that would support increased capacity investment. Could address that dichotomy, which is in my mind, at least?

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association

Ron Lemaire

They are two different discussions, and one is about the market conditions and transparencies we heard earlier. The other piece goes back to market conditions in open production and trade.

I think the reality comes back to this. If you are selling into the regulated model and you are a part of the growing community that is paying into that model, you are functioning in a very successful production base. Within the other side of the production industry in fresh fruit and veg, where you are growing for the fresh industry, you have product that could funnel into the processing chain that could build that gap in volume that Ms. Rood mentioned. All of a sudden you are excluded, and you have difficulty in finding channels for that product in the processing, so the opportunity gap exists. It really looks at how you improve that channel for supporting those processed veg producers who may be able to leverage the fresh industry that has excess product.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Lemaire and Mr. Epp.

Now, Mr. Ellis, go ahead with your questioning.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON

I made some quick notes about what you said—I think it was Ron—about 30,000 jobs are short now, and by 2025, you're going to need double, or are going to be double short, in the labour force.

4:55 p.m.

President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association

Ron Lemaire

Correct. Looking at projections and looking at support, and this is also in support of the testimony of Food and Beverage Canada, I think what really comes down in the play is that everyone is working with a smaller labour pool. I know for a fact that working with a smaller labour pool that is to optimal efficiency and delivering growth.... If we're looking at a growth model, do we have the right labour force to drive that growth? If not, back to the point on automation and back to the point on finding more efficiencies, industry is leveraging those tools now. What is unfortunate is there is a segment that loses out on jobs, but there definitely is, as Mr. Drouin mentioned, a segment that gains jobs.

Our goal then is to ensure that we have community colleges and others training the right people to come in with the right technology, the right data knowledge and a range of other skills that can drive automation innovation to fill the labour gap, but the short goal is to increase the percentage available for temporary foreign workers within this sector.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON

Thank you.

I have one quick question for Mr. Johnstone.

Yesterday I believe Minister Qualtrough announced funding of $63 million for the union trading innovation program that supports skilled trades, improving quality of jobs and having a more skilled productive workforce out there.

I just wonder if you could comment on things like this that the federal government is doing now to have more skilled workers.

4:55 p.m.

Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada

Derek Johnstone

The resources the government has put forward are not just that; it's the money through the Future Skills Centre as well. There's some good stuff there, but certainly, in our sectors, just as important is a need to compel employers to come to the table. Back to my earlier point, having the conversation as stakeholders as a sector is critical. It doesn't exist in terms of form right now, so the money is great, but we also need the government to play a role in bringing stakeholders together.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Neil Ellis Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON

Thank you.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

We'll go to Mr. Perron.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor for two minutes.

4:55 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Johnstone, I'm very pleased to have the chance to ask you my question again.

In your presentation, you said that you saw an inverse relationship between the use of foreign workers and investment.

Since the start of the committee's work, we've seen both issues. There's under-investment in the industry in the country. However, the labour shortage is so severe that foreign workers are needed.

Did you really say that? I'd like you to elaborate on this.

How do you reconcile these two issues? Are foreign workers covered by the agreements in place in the plants represented by your association?

4:55 p.m.

Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada

Derek Johnstone

They are, and historically we're very proud of the way that we have used our collective agreements to leverage provincial nominee programs in order to secure real pathways to citizenship, and that's something that we haven't touched enough on.

To your point, Mr. Perron, TFWs have been coming into our membership, absolutely. That's been the case especially in meat plants. We're very proud of the way we have used our contracts to leverage provincial nominee programs in order to secure real pathways to citizenship for migrants.

This is something you probably haven't talked about enough on this call: that the federal government has set up a federal nominee program and provinces have the ability to exercise the nominee program, though Ontario has historically lacked. This has to be seen as a pillar in terms of meeting the needs of the sector.

Having somebody as a migrant, as one of the temporary foreign workers, coming into this country for 30 years and being on a hamster wheel is in nobody's interest. If we're going to build security and stability and longevity in our sector, we need to allow people to come here to lay roots and build lives; that's key.

To your other point, about the inverse relationship between active labour market policy investments and the expansion of the temporary foreign worker program, we're just citing OECD data. This data clearly shows that public investments in such things as activating the underemployed and providing opportunities for people who have taken themselves out of the labour market to upskill—the percentage in terms of Canada's GDP of such investments into those programs—has declined at exactly the same rate that our use of temporary foreign workers has climbed over the last 20 years.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Johnstone.

Mr. MacGregor, go ahead with your questions.

February 18th, 2021 / 5 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Johnstone, I'll continue with you.

I agree with your sentiments about the strength of provincial nominee programs and identifying where particular gaps are. It's why my wife is in Canada. She immigrated to Canada from Australia because of the B.C. provincial nominee program, which identified her skills as being in shortage here on Vancouver Island.

You referenced the existing agri-food pilot program. Continue, if you would like to, any thoughts you have on that particular program. Also tell us if there's a series of concrete recommendations you would like to see us make as a committee in our report. That's what our ultimate aim is with this report: we want to make those kinds of recommendations and have the federal government respond to them.

If there's anything else you want to add in terms of getting stakeholders more involved or anything we can do about encouraging our universities to reach out to get more Canadians connected to those jobs, we would appreciate it.

Thank you.

5 p.m.

Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada

Derek Johnstone

The agri-food pilot was put into effect last year. I just recently asked for an update of data on the way it has been performing. I have yet to receive it, so I don't have any data on how it's rolling out.

The commitment was 2,700 new opportunities for permanent residency for agri-food workers, mainly focused on the meat sector.

The criteria are still very high. They include a level 4 for English. We know that many TFWs come into the country who perhaps haven't attained that facility in language. As far as I know, the program is not accompanied by any opportunities to strengthen language skills.

It is also not enough, quite frankly. We've heard the numbers—30,000, 65,000.... You know, 2,700 a year is an important start, but it's not even close to being—to address your second point, Mr. MacGregor—what needs to be a real pillar of the solution to the crisis facing the sector; that, taken together with significant substantive investments in activating and developing domestic labour markets that are in keeping with the trajectory we are seeing with the use of temporary foreign workers.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Johnstone and thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

That will wrap up today's testimony.

I really want to thank Mr. Ron Lemaire from the Canadian Produce Marketing Association for joining us again today. Kelleen Tait and Mr. Glenn Fraser from MNP, thanks for being here. Mr. Derek Johnstone from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada, thank you for bringing us your perspective on this.

To all our colleagues, have yourself a good day and have a good weekend, if we don't see you tomorrow.

Thank you so much.