Agriculture committee  When COVID began we were probably looking at a 10% vacancy rate in food and beverage manufacturing. We're now up to 25%. A lot of that is due to factors related to the pandemic, but it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to measure what might have worked in other regard

Agriculture committee  Yes, we're actually recommending that the cap—

Agriculture committee  Sorry, could you repeat the question for me?

Agriculture committee  One of the biggest things that could benefit us right now is increasing the cap. Across food and beverage manufacturing—unlike primary agriculture—your workforce cannot be more than 10% temporary foreign workers. Just increasing that cap by any amount would be helpful. We are sug

Agriculture committee  You're absolutely right. In this long-term strategy that we're working on, infrastructure is one of the pieces that we are tackling. Housing prices are a problem. Availability and affordability of day care can be a problem. It's not just the cost of public transportation, but re

Agriculture committee  It's going to have an impact in a couple of ways. One is the ability for us to get product across the border. The other is our ability to receive inputs or supplies—including packaging—from the U.S. As I pointed out earlier, we deal with a fairly major transportation disruption,

Agriculture committee  Labour is a huge one. Level of automation is a huge one as is our transportation infrastructure and disruptions. We talk about the current blockades, but we have lived through.... In 2019 there was a rail strike; in 2020 there were pipeline and rail protests; and 2021 was B.C.

Agriculture committee  I sit on the design committee for the code of conduct. I can assure you that the members of that committee meet for several hours every week. A tremendous amount of work and effort are being brought to bear by all of the segments of the supply chain to ensure that we have a code

Agriculture committee  No worries.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. The food and beverage manufacturing sector has come forward to request that the federal government launch an emergency foreign worker program. This is a program that would build on the existing temporary foreign worker program. It would not relax any of the

Agriculture committee  Sure. As you well know, we've met with about 55 officials so far to discuss the labour shortage and the need for an emergency response. We have a meeting coming up next week with senior officials at the departments of Agriculture and Agri-Food, ESDC and IRCC. It would very much b

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen Sullivan and I am the CEO of Food and Beverage Canada, representing Canada’s domestic food and beverage manufacturing sector. I am also co-chair of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Food Sector Network and, with the Canadian Federation of