Firms have message ahead of election: We need more immigrant workers

Canadian unemployment is at a record low and businesses have a message for politicians ahead of October’s national election: We need immigrant workers so do not make the campaign about keeping them out.

Concern about immigration is on the rise in Canada, according to a recent survey, especially among Conservative voters whose party leads Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in polls ahead of October elections.

Unlike the United States where immigration is viewed by some as a threat, Canadian businesses broadly support Trudeau’s promise to boost the number of immigrants and refugees allowed into the country every year to about one per cent of the population.

“We don’t want immigration to be used as a political weapon here as it has been in the United States,” said Goldy Hyder, head of the Business Council of Canada, whose members employ 1.7 million people. “We agree with the federal government’s targets and we need to meet those targets ... The facts clearly demonstrate that Canada is going to need immigrants to help grow the economy.”

With unemployment at 5.4 per cent, the lowest level since comparable data were first published in 1976, Canada needs workers. A June 25 report showed the country’s farm labour shortage is costing billions and is expected to balloon in the next decade.

Canadian packaged meat producer Maple Leaf Foods Inc.’s pork-processing plant in Brandon, Man., is operating at 80-per-cent capacity due to both labour and hog shortages, said Susan Yaeger, head of recruiting and hiring. The hog deficit is a function of not being able to find skilled workers to operate the company’s commercial farms.

Despite this, some politicians are pushing to reduce the number of immigrants and refugees coming to Canada every year.

Two-thirds of Canadians who said they voted for the Conservative party said there were too many “visible minorities” — an academic way of saying non-white people — in the country, up from 53 per cent in 2015, according to an April Ekos Politics survey.

Under Trudeau, Canada’s population growth accelerated to 1.4 per cent in 2018 from 0.8 per cent in 2015, official data show.