Yes, for agriculture and agri-food the shortages are immense. Marie-France talked about 4,000. That's what we're talking about for meat processing. The Canadian Agricultural HR Council explained the shortage for the primary agriculture, but we're happy to start with the 2,750 pilot that we have currently with immigration, the agri-food immigration pilot. We just need the fixes done so that we're allowed to fill it.
Last we heard in December, we only had about 150 who were able to use the pilot at this point. The primary recommendation we have is to allow us to make the changes that make sense for the workers and that would allow us to fill the pilot, and to recognize the experience of the two years in the plant and on the farm as an additional pathway, not just the high school certificate in the village school. This is what makes sense for the workers so that we can get maximum usage of our 2,750 spots.
We're afraid they're going to tell us it's not successful, but we just haven't had a chance to use it. We're still fighting to get the right kinds of criteria to support the workers and the farms and the plants so that we can fill those job vacancies. Let us fill the job vacancies and then we can work from there, but help us fix the pilot. That's what we're asking your support for.
We have a joint report that will be distributed, I guess, next week—it's not translated yet—with the meat council and mushrooms, explaining our recommendations for the agri-food immigration pilot.