Family Farmers to Foreign Fieldhands: Consolidation of Canadian Agriculture and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

The repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic have made it harder for temporary foreign workers (TFWs) to travel to Canada to work in food production, as they normally would, at the same time that there are large numbers of unemployed Canadians due to the economic lockdown. Some people, including policy-makers, might be tempted into believing that perhaps the two problems can solve each other, by deploying Canadian workers to the farms, ranches and food-processing plants to fill the jobs that would normally go to TFWs. History suggests that this is fanciful thinking and that any attempt to manage our food supply system without a heavy reliance on foreign workers could easily result in higher food prices and poorer food choices for Canadian consumers at the supermarket. It’s true that there was once a time when food production was mostly managed by domestic workers, however that was when most of these workers were farm families, relying on unpaid family labour to manage smaller farms. Only a small portion of domestic workers were paid employees, aiding farmers for only short periods of time. In the postwar period, Canadian farms underwent a dramatic consolidation, creating significantly fewer farms of substantially larger size that require outside labour to manage them. For decades, food producers have tried to utilize more domestic labour through various means, including higher wages. However, Canadian workers have, for various reasons, largely been reluctant to work on farms or in other parts of the food-processing system and food producers have been forced instead to resort to a combination of technological solutions and an imported, temporary labour force. Any government trying to shut down the TFW program and replace the labour pool it provides with domestic workers could find little uptake among Canadians, resulting in labour shortages. With producers unable to rapidly or completely substitute missing workers with mechanization, the result could be higher prices for domestically produced food, reduced Canadian food exports and a greater reliance on imports for our food supply. A more sensible approach, to better assure the security of Canada’s food supply chain and promote economic growth, would be for governments to enact policies that help ameliorate the pandemic-related challenges to the foreign supply of labour. This could include promoting better health and safety regulations through programs, subsidies and enforcement. It could also include measures that provide temporary workers with greater flexibility in case of illness. It might also include additional incentives to attract more TFWs to come and work in our food sector. The COVID-19 pandemic does not change the reality that the security and affordability of Canada’s food supply system relies on producers having greater access to imported labour, not less.