Direct immigration programs with more incentives to go to the rural plants and farms is what we all want for permanent full-time jobs. Unfortunately, like we keep saying, the temporary foreign worker program is our only option for placements in the rural.... It functions as a placement agency for those who have full-time permanent jobs. We have no other options with how the immigration programs in Canada are set up. The provincial nominee programs provide some options, but their criteria also limit our workers' access, and increasingly so. They're increasing the education equivalency. They're increasing the education criteria. They're language benchmarking to level 4, so they're basically mimicking the express entry program rather than allowing us more access. That's why we have to use the temporary foreign worker program.
We continue to hope the agri-food immigration pilot is going to provide the pathway to PR that we need, but direct immigration with the LMIAs for the full-time permanent jobs, that's what we'd love, if we could work with the government to achieve that.
Thank you.