Federal ag minister addresses labour concerns on virtual tour of Coldbrook’s Scotian Gold
President and CEO says accessing labour perhaps their greatest challenge
The federal agriculture minister is reassuring producers across Canada that they’re working to get temporary foreign workers in place promptly.
Marie-Claude Bibeau delivered this message as she and Kings Hants MP Kody Blois were taken on a virtual tour of the Scotian Gold Co-operative apple storage, processing and packaging facilities in Coldbrook in celebration of Canada’s Agriculture Day on Feb. 23.
Scotian Gold president and CEO David Parrish said perhaps the greatest challenge facing them and their apple growers at this point is labour. This was an issue before COVID-19 and the pandemic has presented additional difficulties in terms of getting temporary foreign workers here in a timely manner.
Parrish said this is key because as is the case with other agriculture commodities, growing apples is very labour intensive.
“If we don’t have the labour, we don’t have an industry,” he said.
Parrish said they have about 115 employees company-wide. They’ve remained 100 per cent local in terms of the employees at their Coldbrook facility but Parrish said this past year has been the first time they’ve struggled to find people.
He said it’s become a fulltime job for their human resources person just finding enough people to work on the line over the past four or five months. For apple growers, having access to temporary foreign workers is critical.
“We’ve got 40 growers that supply us with apples,” Parrish said. “The vast majority of those have temporary foreign workers.”
FEDERAL REASSURANCE
Bibeau reassured Parrish that they are working very hard to get temporary foreign workers in place on time.
She said they learned lessons last year that will allow them to streamline the process as much as possible and this wouldn’t result in extra costs for producers.
“Obviously, the 14-day isolation period will remain,”
Bibeau said. “We have added a pre-departure test and an upon-arrival test and we are having conversations right now with the provinces to see how we can strengthen the process.”
Bibeau said producers have to pay foreign workers while they are in isolation, even if they’re not working. She said the federal government would continue to provide $1,500 per worker and offer financial support for any additional sanitary measures that might be added during the 14-day isolation period.
Bibeau said she has a good relationship with provincial Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell and they are working to put the necessary protocols in place in the smoothest way possible.
Blois said that the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program
has traditionally been capped at eight months in terms of how long workers are allowed to remain in Canada during their work term.
“Because of Minister Bibeau’s advocacy, and others, we’ve been able to extend that to nine months, which has been really key to giving producers some level of certainty,” Blois said.
He pointed out that the two-week isolation period sometimes chews into those eight months and the logistics of getting workers here creates other challenges, so the one month extension is very important to agricultural producers.
Blois said Premier Iain Rankin is “on top of” issues relating to temporary foreign labour and they are working to address those issues.
MINISTER IMPRESSED
After the tour, which included a video presentation, Bibeau said she was very impressed. She stated that she is a strong believer in co-ops, particularly in the agricultural sector.
“Everywhere I travel, I hear about the lack of regional processing facilities, so when I see a community being so well organized and ready to fulfil the market everywhere across the country and internationally, it gives me a lot of pride,” she said.
Parrish said it was great having the minister take part in the virtual tour. He said that when you have an opportunity like this to showcase Nova Scotia and what you do, “it’s nothing but positive.”