Foreign Labour on Canadian Farms

"[The government is] exploring additional ways to shore up our domestic labour supply."
"We continue to encourage employers to hire Canadians, and jobs are posted -- and continue to be available -- for Canadians who are interested [in working as farm labourers]."
Marielle Hossack, spokeswoman, Employment Minister

"This year is very, very different from previous because when we arrive this year, we have been told to keep safe of this COVID-19, but complying with all rules and regulations is difficult."
Foreign worker from Jamaica

"Migrant workers are not allowed to not work -- if they don't work, they get deported."
"But they're getting sick and they're not allowed access to care or any kind of income support when they are not working because they are sick."
Armine Yalnizyan, economist

Canadian farmers are saying the lack of temporary foreign workers due to COVID-19 is putting a strain on food supply.

Food availability, a critical issue during this time of COVID lockdown, when borders are closed and the agricultural sector, so vital to providing adequate food for Canadian consumers, is facing a critical lack of temporary farm workers. Usually seasonal workers are welcomed with few complications involved in their arrival and dispersal to farms where many have worked for years in a familiar seasonal routine bringing in workers from Mexico, Jamaica and Guatemala.

This year it's different, routine and expectations have been disrupted. Fewer migrant workers are willing to travel to Canada from countries for which the transmission of the novel coronavirus is less of a problem than it is in Canada. Regulations require that workers coming in to Canada must be tested and isolate for 14 days, an inconvenience to many for a period for which they will not be paid, though the welcoming farmer is responsible for accommodation and food supplied for that period.

As for the government's statement that employment is open to Canadians for farm work, there are few takers. All the more so when government has been disbursing cheques during the COVID period to the unemployed, to students, with no strings attached, and most would prefer to receive those regular deposits to their bank accounts as opposed to going out to work in the fields. Special measures were implemented to convince seasonal workers to arrive in Canada this year.

File photo of workers on a farm in B.C. in 2018. B.C. Government Photo

Exemptions from border closures, easing of visa renewals for agricultural workers, and making $50 million available for mandatory quarantine costs. The very idea of finding local labour sources within Canada is risible; Canadians simply don't rise to the challenge of hard physical labour in agriculture. And that there is a shortage of thousands of farm labourers this year when the growing season is beginning is seriously troubling.

In four months to the end of April 22,000 agricultural workers arrived in British Columbia and Niagara in Ontario for work in fruit orchards and vegetable fields and wine-grapes. For the month of April, 11,000 workers arrived when 13,000 had been expected. Public health fears and travel difficulties are cited as some of the reasons to explain the shortfall in workers. Fears stem from the fact that Canadian farms and facilities staffed by migrant workers have seen some of the largest outbreaks of the virus.

According to statements held to be confidential by some foreign workers, not all employers follow health guidelines stipulated by the government, leaving the workers concerned for their health. One worker cited a change in transportation, this year crammed charter flights as opposed to previous years on commercial planes; no separation, no quarantine. One worker who gave his statement in confidentiality described living in a  house with six others, sharing kitchen and bath in a house that fails to meet health standards.

At a plant nursery in British Columbia in May, twenty-three foreign workers tested positive for COVID-19. In Alberta, migrant workers at meat plants have been confirmed with the virus. Due to a shortage of labour as a result of non-arrivals and illness among workers, a Mexican worker on a mushroom farm in Ontario described being under pressure to produce more on a farm that has reported a number of COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks.

The farm worker cited the company giving workers face masks to use for two weeks at a time. If workers become ill they must quarantine at home and they earn nothing. Making $500 weekly, the man sends his pay back home to Mexico to support his mother, wife and daughter. At the fsrm, he lives with five others in a three-bedroom house.

Leading migrant rights groups call for greater protection for workers, along with stricter physical distancing. And if they should fall ill, guaranteed pay.

Charles Keddy employs temporary foreign workers on his strawberry farm in Nova Scotia, but concerns around COVID-19 are causing labour shortages. (CBC)