Cannabis growers filling jobs with temporary foreign workers
Large pot companies have been going on hiring sprees with legalization looming
Some of Canada’s largest licensed cannabis producers are turning to Ottawa’s Temporary Foreign Workers program to help staff their operations in the lead up to the legalization of recreational cannabis.
Among the companies that have either used or that are considering tapping the program are Canada’s largest cannabis producer, Canopy Growth Corp., along with Aphria Inc. and OrganiGram.
“In specific locations where we have had difficulty filling positions, we have opened up the opportunity for employees to come from abroad to fill essential roles that are valuable to the organization,” Canopy Growth spokesperson Caitlin O’Hara said, adding that the company was “not fans of the term ‘TFW.’”
“They are human beings working hard and receiving very competitive pay for the work they do, which in most cases goes a long way in supporting their families and local economies. We refer to these individuals as important members of the Canopy Growth team, not an acronym.”
More specific questions about just how many temporary foreign workers are currently working in Canopy’s greenhouses went unanswered by the company, though O’Hara said that Canopy is on a general hiring spree and is hoping to fill 1,000 positions “as soon as possible” as the Oct. 17 date for legalization approaches.
Canopy Growth’s name is not on a government list obtained by the Financial Post stating the number of employers that had obtained permission to hire temporary foreign workers between January 2014 and September 2017, but it may have done so before or after that window. The government approvals, known as Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) are a standard used to evaluate if hiring a temporary foreign worker will have “positive or neutral” impact on the labour market.
Leamington, Ontario-based Aphria Inc., one of the top five cannabis producers, was granted permission by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) between July and September 2017 to hire up to eight temporary foreign workers as “harvesting labourers,” according to data from ESDC.
The issuance of a positive LMIA does not necessarily mean that a company has indeed hired the workers — the decision to hand out a work permit under the Temporary Foreign Workers program ultimately rests with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In the case of Aphria, it is unclear if the pot producer currently employs any temporary foreign workers, or has employed temporary foreign workers in the past. Aphria did not respond to requests for clarification.
New Brunswick’s OrganiGram did tell that Post that it is “evaluating the potential” of hiring temporary foreign workers. New Brunswick’s largest pot company said that although it does not currently employ any temporary foreign workers, its recruiting team has “accompanied government personnel and representatives of other manufacturing companies on recruiting trips to Mexico and the Philippines.” Prior experience growing cannabis was “not necessary” to obtain a job with OrganiGram, the company said, although background skill sets in manufacturing and agriculture would possibly be “relevant to some of the roles being recruited for.”
Two of the country ’s cannabis giants, Aurora and Tilray said that they do not hire temporary foreign workers, nor do they intend to. In 2015, the Toronto Star reported that MedReleaf — which was recently acquired by Aurora — had employed 30 temporary foreign workers.
Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers program, which was instituted in 1973 to bring in highskilled foreign workers to Canada in the face of a domestic shortage, was expanded to include lowskilled labour in 2002.
The program came under intense scrutiny in 2013, when it was revealed that dozens of Canadian employees at RBC were losing their jobs to foreign workers coming in on temporary permits.
It has since seen significant changes under the Liberal government, including a stricter evaluation of employers to ensure that they have exhausted all other local recruitment options before considering hiring from abroad.
The latest Statistics Canada data on the number of temporary foreign workers show that 96,875 positions were approved by the government in the last year alone.
As Health Canada continues to issue cultivation and sales licenses to pot companies and the deadline for legalization looms, the demand for workers in the sector has been soaring.
Positions for master growers, growing technicians and extraction specialists are particularly in demand, according to a survey by Cannabis At Work, an Albertabased cannabis staffing agency.