Thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee today.
I have a title there, but in my day job I am a vegetable and fruit grower in Manitoba. That means I have to live with all of these rules on an ongoing basis.
Agriculture stands ready to be an integral part of the economic recovery of Canada as we emerge into the post-pandemic era. One of our major limiting factors is the availability of labour. In the fresh fruit and vegetable industry, which is what I represent, mechanization is being developed as technology advances. However, when you go to your local grocers, most of the produce you see and buy is still being hand-harvested for you. This creates a labour demand that is not met by Canadians who have little interest in rural, seasonal employment. They are understandably looking for something that will pay the bills year-round. For these labour intensive and seasonal crops, having timely, reliable and consistent labour in place during our season is crucial to our success and to our financial viability as a business.
In our search for employees, a labour market impact assessment has become a part of our toolbox in accessing the agricultural stream of the temporary foreign worker program. As an industry which, by definition, is rural and far away from the major population centres and labour pools, access to workers can be very problematic. Many rural locations around the country have been able to demonstrate labour shortages for decades. Last year was an especially difficult year with COVID and the pandemic. Two in five employers were indicating that they could not find the workers they needed. Delays and missing foreign workers meant that many acres of produce went unharvested.
SAWP jobs are seasonal—usually four to eight months in duration—and employers have no capacity to offer year-round employment to these workers. The full-time positions on farms are filled by Canadian workers when we can find them. This is in line with our hire Canadians first policies. When we do have the opportunity to transition a worker to a year-round position, the current model is usually to apply through provincial nominee programs and try to help these employees become eligible. Very often, it is difficult for them to qualify through our immigration system.
We would like to thank the government for the concerted effort that has gone into refining and improving the LMIA process over the last few years, in particular the team lead by Katie Alexander. Increased collaboration within government and with industry have given us all a better understanding of the processes and roadblocks involved. This has resulted in a shortened timeline, which is appreciated by all employers. In fact, work permit processing in IRCC can sometimes be the bigger processing challenge for us. A direct line of communication between ESDC and IRCC for changes needed on work permits would speed the process.
The online LMIA application is a great tool and we use it ourselves. As with any other program, tweaking will improve it, but many employers are using it as part of their TFW application process. Third parties are involved in the LMIA process, but many of the employers, especially in the western provinces, do their own LMIAs and find it very useful. Expanding the online portal to include groups like WALI in B.C., F.A.R.M.S. in Ontario and Ferme in Quebec and allowing them to vet applications before submission could improve the quality of the online applications being received.
There are ongoing concerns around potential fees to access the agricultural TFW streams, which hold the potential to make a program prohibitively expensive for producers. These streams provide critical access to labour for Canadian food production. In particular, the SAWP stream is an annual application.
There's also been discussion of a trusted employer designation for employers who have demonstrated consistent quality employment opportunities for TFWs over a period of time.