Ottawa urged to boost cap on foreign workers
CALGARY Canadian food processors are lobbying the federal government to create an “emergency” temporary foreign worker program to address chronic labour shortages they say have been exacerbated by the Omicron variant.
A group of industry associations representing the food and beverage processing sector — including Food and Beverage Canada, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council, and the Canadian Meat Council — have asked Ottawa to increase the existing cap on the number of temporary foreign workers an employer can operate
with. The industry groups want the rules changed to allow for 30 per cent of an employer’s workforce to be made up of TFWs, instead of the current levels of 10 to 20 per cent.
They also want faster foreign worker application processing times, new pathways to permanent residency for TFWs working in the sector, and a pilot program that would direct refugees to the food and beverage processing sector.
“We urgently need the government to help our food processors and implement the measures we are recommending,” said MarieFrance McKinnon, spokesperson for the Canadian Meat Council, which represents the country’s federally registered meat-packing and processing plants.
“Our critical labour shortages impact the whole supply chain.”
Food processing in this country has long been heavily reliant on immigrants and temporary foreign workers. Jobs at slaughterhouses and canning plants are physically difficult, require shift work and are often located in rural areas, making labour attraction and retention an ongoing challenge for the sector.
Now, with the highly contagious Omicron variant resulting in high rates of absences and quarantining among workers in all industries, McKinnon said the situation has gotten worse. Some plants are reporting job vacancy rates as high as 30 per cent, she said.
Last week, a slaughterhouse in Quebec opted to euthanize thousands of chickens that couldn’t be processed, blaming rising COVID-19 infections among employees as well as federal delays processing temporary foreign worker applications for its protracted staff shortage.
Cargill Inc. spokesperson Daniel Sullivan said this week that the company’s beef processing plant in High River, Alta. was operating at a “slightly reduced capacity” to its typical pandemic output due to case numbers among employees.
Marco Luciano, director of Migrante Alberta — a group that advocates for migrant workers and TFWs — said he understands the pressing labour needs affecting the food and beverage processing sector. But he said creating an emergency foreign worker program is not the answer.
Instead, Canada should focus on expediting the processing of applications already in the system, as well as creating an effective and expanded regularization program that will provide status to the approximately 500,000 undocumented migrants in the country.