Mr. Speaker, every year more than 24,000 migrant workers return to Canada to help plant and harvest. They pay income tax and contribute to EI.
Despite their investment made in migrant workers, farmers are now told they will have to hire local workers who, in most cases, are being forced to take a job that does not match their own requirements.
While the minister did not answer when I asked about vital infrastructure cuts to the rural secretariat, perhaps she would like to try to explain why farmers in the Atlantic provinces or here in Ontario in areas like the Holland Marsh are no longer able to hire the skilled workers they truly need.