Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2016

[Claudia Colocho, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada]

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Claudia Colocho. It's my pleasure to be here with you today to tell you my story with the temporary foreign worker program.

I am originally from El Salvador. I came to Canada in 2005 as a temporary worker with a food processing plant in Brandon, Manitoba. As with most migrant workers, our family situation back home was not financially ideal.

I lived with my mother, who took care of us as a single mother. I lived with my brother and my younger sister. My mother worked hard to take care of us. She worked as a secretary for many hours a day. My older brother worked as a customs agent in El Salvador, and my younger sister worked to pay for her education. I can tell you that for us to get an education is very difficult. We both worked and tried to go to school before I made my way to Canada.

We lived in one of the poorest areas of El Salvador. I was only able to make about $5 in a day, and my school cost about $60 per month. It was basically impossible for my sister and me to attend school. I had great aspirations of becoming a lawyer in El Salvador, but it was exceptionally difficult to make ends meet. That is when the opportunity to come to Canada and work for Maple Leaf Foods arose.

I came to Canada at the age of 23. I was single and I didn't have any children. I could focus on learning English and saving money to return to my country, but then I fell in love with the Canadian culture, with the Canadian people, and with Brandon. I didn't fall in love with the winter, though.

Working in a meat packing plant is not an easy job, but I worked for Maple Leaf Foods for four years, first as a meat cutter, then in sanitation, followed by quality control in the procurement department. Determined that I would make Canada my home, I studied English at night through the courses provided by my union. Once I became a permanent resident, I worked in a settlement services office. I have the privilege of helping others to make Canada their home.

I cannot imagine going through this process without the immense help of my union, UFCW Local 832, and my employer, Maple Leaf Foods. They provided me with the settlement services that are not available to the vast majority of migrant workers. I did not have gaps in my health care. I had decent wages and working conditions, and I was part of a bigger family. As a result of being fortunate enough to be hired into a unionized setting, I was able to go into the Manitoba provincial nominee program.

I feel I am an important part of the workplace in the community, as all people should be. I was treated with dignity and respect. Both my union and my employer invested in me, and I can now invest in Canada. Rather than being just a temporary visitor to this great country, I am now part of its fabric. I am a Canadian citizen now. I pay taxes, and more and more of my money stays in Canada so that I may build a life here and be part of the Canadian economy. Without the provincial nominee programs and the support of my union and employer working together, I would likely not be here speaking to you today. I wish for all workers coming to this country not to be visitors, not to be temporary workers, but to make this great country their country.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

You have about one minute, sir.

[Naveen Mehta]

Fantastic.

In closing, I'm going to ask you to review our written submissions, which detail what we see as a progressive immigration system.

I also want to thank the federal government for having the courage to take the step of reviewing this desperately broken program.

This submission is part of a web of submissions from industry, unionized employers such as Maple Leaf Foods and HyLife, grassroots organizations such as the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, and UFCW Canada, which is a prominent voice for labour on migrant workers' issues. We've worked together towards what we see benefits Canadians, the Canadian economy, and workers.

For instance, what we did in 2014 was ingenious. UFCW Canada and our employers negotiated a memorandum of understanding that laid out the shared understanding of a sustainable immigration regime and what it should entail.

I'm just going to quote this one little piece:

The temporary foreign worker program has never been a coherent, strategic, or reasonable alternative to what the Canadian economy requires, an immigration regime allowing individuals with a variety of skill sets to become permanent residents and eventually citizens of Canada.

That's the union and the employer talking about those two facts together.

Thank you for your consideration and the opportunity to present today. Subject to any questions you might have, those are our comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That was great. Thank you very much.

We go over to Mr. Deltell for the first questions.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to your House of Commons. We are very pleased to welcome you here.

I will say a few words in my mother tongue. Welcome.

The topic we are discussing is a current issue in your provinces. However, I can tell you that, in Quebec, we are facing exactly the same reality. We have production companies that need workers.

Temporary workers are hired to harvest crops, including fruit and vegetables, but also in many pork processing plants. In Quebec, we joke that we have more hogs than people. The annual hog production is around 7 million and the province has about 7 million people.

I can repeat that. There are more pigs in Quebec than citizens. My colleague, Mr. Cuzner, is always accurate on that issue.

But seriously, we face exactly the same challenges. There are two points here: those who work on the farms and those who work in the processing plants.

I want to get some information from you.

First of all, Madame Langner and Mr. Janzen, I would like to hear you explain why we have to hire people from outside Canada. I know that in your city there is no unemployment. We all recognize that 2%, so everybody works there, I suppose. In your province it is 6.4%, or 6.1% in Winnipeg, so there is a good situation, but how can you explain that in Canada, where not everyone is working, we have to attract people from other countries? How can you explain that in your specific area?

[Jeremy Janzen]

You're agreeing that in our areas, where we operate, it's explainable why we would need to go outside.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Yes. Why would we need people from outside? How come? How could you explain that?

[Jeremy Janzen]

For us, for our industry, for our area, you did mention our low local population, so that's one factor. If the town of Neepawa has 3,000 people and we need 1,000 people at the plant....

As well, they need to have a certain skill level in cutting up the meat, because our customers demand it in Japan. We're in the highest-end market in the world. HyLife exports the largest number of kilograms to Japan of any hog producer, so we need skilled meat cutters, people who know how to cut that meat, and not just numbers of people. We need people who are maybe from the Philippines and are from AA or AAA plants, not just people who did some butchering in their backyard. Those people, unfortunately, are not available, so that's one factor.

There's low unemployment, and you mentioned the 2.4%, so there are just not a lot of local people available. That's a factor.

Then there's the simple fact of turnover rates, even if you're not growing your plant. I told the story of how we were growing our plant from 300 to 1,200, but even just to maintain turnover.... We have the industry-low turnover rate of 10%. The industry average is 25%. Let's say that we went to 25%. We'd need 250 folks per year. We wouldn't get that locally in that area, or even throughout Canada.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

But why don't you think of attracting people from Alberta? There are a lot of people who are losing their jobs, so why is it that you cannot attract people from Alberta and have to go offshore to attract people?

[Jeremy Janzen]

We also go to Alberta for job fairs every year. We were there this year in the last few months. We aggressively look for folks who are willing to move and transfer over and we open our doors up, but we don't get applicants.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

And the results of what you are doing are not good?

[Jeremy Janzen]

No. In the last couple of years we hired some construction workers from Alberta back when we were double-shifting our plant. We managed to hire a few, but it's interesting that we hired construction workers from Alberta rather than people from our industry. Again, they didn't have the skills we were looking for, but we needed folks, so we did so.

We had a job fair this last weekend in Winnipeg, which is two hours away from our plant, and met with an organization that's facilitating the movement of permanent resident immigrants from different parts of the world who are already here in Canada. We said, “Come work for us.” We're ready for this. We have connected with the provincial nominee program and their various settlement offices throughout Manitoba to say that if there are Syrian folks who eventually get to rural parts of Manitoba, please meet with us. We're opening our doors to that as well.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I will get back to my first question. How can you explain that Canadians don't want to work in your plant?

[Baerbel Langner]

I think you had a similar answer from one of the witnesses on Monday, which maybe I'll give you today.

The challenge that we have is that folks are not moving from other parts of Canada to rural parts of Manitoba to process meat and to cut up pigs. We invite you to come to our plant and have a look—we'll give you a tour—and you can see the reality of the work. That's it. There is no other answer. The answer is very simple. People are not coming to rural Manitoba to process pigs. There you have it. It's not an attractive, sexy thing to do, unfortunately.

[Jeremy Janzen]

The short answer is that the work is tough, but there are a lot of tough jobs, and I don't always believe that's the full answer. There are a lot of different things you can do on the floor. There's sanitation. There's quality. There's cutting meat, putting boxes together. However, is it the coolest thing for our parents to encourage our kids to get into meat processing?

I think that if you came to the plant, you'd see that there are great jobs there, but that mindset isn't pervasive in the typical youth of today. They aren't saying they want to grow up to be a meat cutter, even though you can make 21 bucks an hour in our collective bargaining agreement, plus $1 attendance, plus great benefits and all this stuff. It's just not in people's mindset to come and do that kind of work, for the most part.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Sorry, but we do have to move on. I believe we are going to Mr. Long.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the presenters.

I too used to work in a meat processing plant as a meat cutter. I used to work for Canada Packers, and I also was in the aquaculture industry, in processing and marketing. There's no question that you all are speaking with one voice, and as I said to the witnesses before, there are certainly examples of atrocities and abuses of the system. Then there are examples of what is needed, and the potential downside, I guess, to not having temporary foreign workers.

I think I'll start with Ms. MacDonald-Dewhirst.

Can you give me an overview of what will happen to the industry, in your opinion, over the next five years, if you don't get what you need for temporary foreign workers?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

What the industry is experiencing today is a contraction. We know that the industry and agriculture have lost $1.5 billion in sales. That's the agriculture side of the agri-food industry, this huge driver of our economy.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

I'm just going to jump in quickly, if you don't mind——

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

It's already contracted.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Is the industry limited by a market mechanism? Is it availability, or is it simply as easy as...?

I'm good friends with Scott McCain. I wasn't in the Brandon plant, but we drove by it on the way to the Memorial Cup. Is it just that if you have more temporary foreign workers, you can process more hogs? Is it that simple?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

It's that simple. The industry is poised for growth. There's great potential in this industry. It can be as big as we want it to be, but right now it is being constrained. It is the number one risk to business success, never mind expansion.

The number one risk to business success is this labour shortage, the unfilled vacancies. If you go to the meat processing plants, you will see hundreds of stations that sit empty. They cannot find people to work in those positions. These plants and farms across Canada are in rural settings. Where does our population live? It's in the urban centres.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Can you put a number on what you think would be lost in jobs and in dollars?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

Right now, we know there is $1.5 billion in lost sales on the agriculture side alone.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

You said $1.5 billion?