Thank you very much.
The Maritime Seafood Coalition was established in the summer of 2015. It's a coalition representing seafood processors, harvesters, and the aquaculture sector. It represents the following organizations: PEI Seafood Processors Association; Lobster Processors Association of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island Aquaculture Alliance; Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association; Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association; Maritime Fishermen's Union; Eastern Fishermen’s Federation; and Affiliation of Seafood Producers Association of Nova Scotia.
It's interesting, because it's a group of harvester and processor and aquaculture sectors. The coming together of these elements of the seafood sector indicate the importance of the temporary foreign worker program to the sector.
The coalition has worked with both bureaucratic and elected officials on trying to address some of the reforms that occurred in 2014. We appreciate the work of this committee as part of a broader review of the temporary foreign worker program.
First, I'd like to give you a very brief overview of our sector. Our sector is a highly export-oriented sector. Canadian seafood exports amounted to $5.9 billion in 2015. That accounted for 85% of the products landed and processed.
The Maritimes are a dominant player in that area. In 2015 the three Maritime provinces accounted for 58% of all seafood exports. In this context, the export performance remains strong and aided by the value of the Canadian dollar. As an employer, the seafood sector in Atlantic Canada and Canada is significant, with 80,000 Canadians earning a living from this sector. In the Maritimes, 45,000 do, and lobster is a major focus of that.
Like many industries, the seafood industry draws upon workers from rural communities. The seafood sector is facing increasing challenges with declining labour supply in these rural communities. Our processors routinely face turnover rates of 20% amongst employees. At the same time, and I'm sure this committee will hear this story again and again, our workforce is aging. The majority of employees in the seafood processing sector are over the age of 55. Declining birth rates and out-migration are demographic factors that we are challenged to address.
In response to these challenges, commencing about 2008 the industry began utilizing the temporary foreign worker program as a way to supplement its labour supply. On average, by 2014, 20% to 25% of the overall processing workforce in the case of the lobster industry was made up of temporary foreign workers, but in some plants in rural communities, where labour supply was shorter, that amounted to almost 50%.
The temporary foreign worker changes set in motion in 2014 have had a significant impact on labour supply in our industry, with a 30% overall cap on TFW employment, dropping to 20% in 2016 and ultimately 10% in 2017. According to research carried out for the industry and for the three Maritime provinces, the reduction in this workforce results in and translates into a $123-million reduction in the value of the product that can't be processed and sold because of a lack of labour supply if those lost temporary foreign workers cannot be replaced by local workers.
It needs to be emphasized that our plants go to great lengths to hire Canadians first. Plants have increased wages, expanded benefits, and adopted more flexible work schedules to allow for employees to manage child care and family responsibilities. Some plants provide transportation. In my home province of Prince Edward Island, the industry initiated a bursary program of $1,000 to convince university and college students to spend the summer working in a fish plant.
These reductions in temporary foreign workers that have been imposed on the seafood sector are especially challenging in light of the trade opportunities that exist for Canada, particularly over the last number of years. CETA and the TPP are two trade agreements that hold the promise of significant tariff reductions for Canadian seafood products. However, the industry's ability to grow, to service these export markets and capitalize on these opportunities, is directly impacted by the loss of temporary foreign workers.
In this context, our processors will do well to service existing markets rather than take the opportunity to explore new ones. Simply put, our immigration and labour market policies appear to be working at cross purposes with our trade policy, and in export-oriented sectors like the Maritimes seafood sector, it's our provincial economies that will lose out.
Equally of concern is the manner in which Canada's major competitors in the global seafood market are making it easier rather than more difficult to access migrant workers to expand production. Seafood-producing countries such as Scotland, Norway, and Sweden rely on migrant workers and don't face the kind of caps that were put in place in Canada in 2014. Closer to home, the Department of Homeland Security in the United States announced in December 2015 significant increases in visas for foreign workers in the seafood processing sector.
I will turn it over to Jerry Amirault to talk a little bit about policy.