Thank you very much for this opportunity to address the committee to talk about the amazing mushroom industry in Canada and our issues relating to the horticulture sector.
My name is Ryan Koeslag and I'm the executive vice-president of the Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association. I'll be sharing my time with our president Mike Medeiros, who is also a farmer.
We currently have a workforce of nearly 7,500 people, including farm owners, substrate makers and mushroom pickers. Those 7,500 people produce over 150,000 tonnes of mushrooms each year, year-round. Our growers supply nearly 100% of the fresh mushrooms in grocery stores across Canada.
Forty years ago, mushroom farmers grew one pound of mushrooms on one square foot of growing space. Now, in 2024, they grow nearly six pounds on that same space. That's a 500% increase. Canada exports approximately 40% of our production to the United States. Every day, our mushroom farmers are expected to compete with our neighbours to the south, who continually have fewer government cost pressures.
We're here today to talk about two bad policies imposed by our federal government: the carbon tax and the removal of the temporary foreign worker housing waiver.
Currently, Canadians comprise 70% of our workforce. For decades, our mushroom farms have advertised to and looked for Canadians to fill all our positions. They have conducted hundreds of labour market impact assessments, all showing the need for temporary foreign workers. I say the word “temporary” only because that's the name of the program. Many agriculture groups, including the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, indicate huge job vacancies in agriculture, signalling we will always require foreign workers, just like many other developed nations around the world.
For a long time now, when a worker requested moving out of farmer-provided housing while still under the temporary foreign worker program, Service Canada accepted a housing waiver, allowing workers to move in with family members, spouses, children or friends, or simply to have their own independence. Farms have allowed for contingencies for situations where workers may need to return to employer housing, identifying hotels, setting aside housing or making other arrangements. However, since Service Canada has arbitrarily stopped accepting housing waivers when workers choose to live on their own, they punish farmers by demanding they keep empty housing for workers who have moved out. In some situations, workers moved out years ago, having made families of their own. Our farms are reporting that it's extremely rare to have workers request a return to employer housing.
The farmers' cost due to this policy change will be enormous. This impacts all year-round employers, such as for mushroom, pork, cattle, poultry, dairy and greenhouses, which use the temporary foreign worker agriculture stream. We're talking about hundreds of empty houses, hundreds of empty rooms and hundreds of empty beds for people who may never use them. We have an industry-wide survey out right now, with our preliminary data indicating the need for up to 1,000 empty houses.
Now I will pass it to our president Mike Medeiros to talk about the carbon tax.