Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for this opportunity to speak on immigration in Atlantic Canada. As a representative of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and an immigrant myself, I'm pleased to discuss how critical an effective immigration system is to agriculture and Canada's rural communities.
The CFA is Canada's largest general farm organization, representing 200 farm families. Canada's agrifood sector contributes $108 billion to Canada's GDP while employing one in eight Canadians.
Canadian agriculture was actually identified as a key growth sector in this year's federal budget, which is targeting growth in agrifood exports to $75 billion by 2025. This growth is possible only if the agrifood sector continues and can overcome the chronic labour shortages constraining the sector.
A 2015 study conducted by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council identified 59,000 vacancies across Canadian agriculture—a vacancy rate of 7%—while forecasting 114,000 vacancies by 2025, this despite increasing wages and decreasing unemployment in the sector.
These vacancies result in $1.5 billion in lost sales each year, while also making it harder to transfer farms to the next generation. The average farmer is over 55 years of age. Uncertain access to labour and a smaller pool of experienced workers make finding the next generation all the more difficult. Estimates suggest that over $50 billion of farm assets needs to change hands over the next decade. Finding the right people to continue farming is critical to continued growth in the sector.
Therefore, immigration is critical to the future of our industry.
First I would like to briefly discuss my own background to give you a better sense of where I'm coming from. We—my parents and younger brother—came to Canada in 1979, after exploring many avenues in Europe. The Netherlands was too small to allow for expansion to sustain three families. We started in Canada with one farm, milking 30 cows. Today, together with my wife Bethany and three of our four sons, we operate three farms and milk 300 cows while employing four full-time employees. We have experience in hiring and we know it is not easy.
For many farmers across Canada, the continued inability to recruit Canadian workers has required them to look abroad. This often requires access to international workers as a last resort when extensive efforts to find Canadians have failed. This occurs for a number of reasons.
Agriculture is located primarily in remote rural parts of Canada. This limits the availability of local labour, as rural populations continue to stagnate and, in many regions, decline.
My home province of New Brunswick is a clear example. New Brunswick's population has declined by half a per cent since 2011. Even in the previous five years, which saw a 2.9% population growth in the province, that growth was uneven across the province. While some southern New Brunswick cities and towns experienced double-digit growth, less populated communities in the north saw continued declines. This is particularly true of the youth, with many leaving the province for post-secondary school and not returning, posing a significant challenge for agricultural businesses.
The remote locations, combined with perishability and seasonality, create an extremely challenging labour environment.
This is why the CFA supports funding for the Canadian agriculture and agrifood workforce action plan, a multi-faceted strategy to improve access to our domestic workforce with a national career initiative while also improving access to international workers and new Canadians.
At this point, if Canadians are not available, farmers' only alternative is foreign workers, for both seasonal and full-time permanent positions. Despite approximately 50% of agricultural jobs being year-round, there is no clear pathway to permanent residency, because agricultural skills and labour needs are not prioritized within Canadian immigration programs. Express entry is geared towards high-skilled candidates, despite the pressing need for workers in the agrifood sector, who are generally considered low- or semi-skilled. While some food processing employees have come in through express entry, any chance of obtaining permanent residency was shut down in 2016 when job offers were reduced from 500 points to only 60. Combined with other skill requirements, any chance to bring in agriculture or agrifood workers through the program was lost.
At the same time, provincial nominee programs vary considerably. Some are open to farm workers, but most offer no avenue to permanent residency for our sector. The CFA strongly encourages this committee to expand its analysis across Canada, because the rural immigration issues facing Atlantic Canada affect agriculture and food across Canada.
On the Atlantic immigration pilot, one of the most pressing labour needs of the sector is for general farm workers, which are categorized as NOC level C. While they are eligible under the pilot, a lack of awareness amongst farm employers has limited the uptake, with provincial outreach focusing on higher-skilled professions.
Farmers also find it challenging to identify experienced farm workers who meet the education and language requirements, despite a wealth of motivated and experienced candidates. Many international farm workers, despite having extensive agricultural experience, do not have high school diplomas. At the same time, while they can often meet the language requirements for listening and speaking, a level 4 in writing and reading is rare because of the limited use of these skills in many farm settings. Limited uptake on the part of farm workers is directly tied to these challenges.
At the same time, there is a broader disconnect between new Canadians and the opportunities that exist in agriculture and in rural Canada. With settlement services primarily located in large urban centres, employment in agriculture is disconnected from many Canadians, particularly the recent influx of refugees, who often have agrarian backgrounds.
To address these challenges, the CFA proposes the following: first, given the industry's significant labour needs, identify agriculture as a target for the pilot and for broader immigration policy; second, introduce flexibility within eligibility criteria to accommodate unique agricultural skills requirements, which often extend beyond traditional education, while allowing for additional time to meet language criteria; and finally, implement the Canadian agriculture and agrifood workforce action plan as a long-term road map to address agriculture's chronic labour shortages.
Canada requires a long-term rural immigration strategy to ensure immigration policy can capitalize on rural employment opportunities. This begins with pilots like the Atlantic immigration pilot, but requires further support for industry-led pilot projects and research that can help integrate new Canadians by bringing settlement agencies together with agricultural stakeholders.
I thank you for your time.