Demand for foreign workers increasing

 

Despite the federal government’s announced intention to clamp down on temporary foreign workers, employers ramped up their requests to 81,000 in the last three months of last year. More than half of the applications were for temporary farm workers.

Last year employers were approved to bring in about 240,000 temporary foreign workers. That was 7.5 per cent more than 2018, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic cramped all employment.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said that Canadian companies have become “addicted” to temporary foreign labour.

“Let me be clear, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a last resort,” Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said at a news conference last month. “Employers should not use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as a means to avoid offering competitive wages to Canadians.”

The federal government broadened access to temporary foreign workers in April, 2022, through a mix of temporary and permanent measures aimed at helping employers who were struggling to find new hires. 

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian unemployment rate hit a low of 4.8 per cent in the summer of 2022 – leading to stiff competition to fill vacancies.

Meat packers were among employers that the federal government allowed 25 per cent of job vacancies to be filled with temporary foreign workers, up from the previous cap of 10 per cent.

Last month, Ottawa announced several changes to the program, including that a few industries, such as accommodation and food services, would move down to the 20 per cent cap, effective May 1.

“I think the abuses that we see in the program would be quickly solved if we had open work permits,” said Catherine Connelly, a professor at McMaster University and the author of Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. 

“Because the workers who experience mistreatment, it starts out small enough. … It would be really nice if they could quit and work somewhere else before something terrible happens to them,” she said.

Metro profits decline

Metro Inc. reports its profits declined by 14.5 per cent for the second quarter and sales increased by only 2.2 per cent, which is less than food inflation tracked by Statistics Canada and less than Metro’s own measure of three per cent.

The company took a $20.8 million charge for its decision to drop Air Miles and rely on its own MOI loyalty program. Without that charge, the decline in profits was 8.4 per cent.

Another bite into profits was investment in an automated facility for fresh food in Toronto and an automated distribution center for fresh and frozen products at Terrebonne, Que.

Feds challenge approve Bunge-Viterra merger

 

The federal government’s Competition Bureau is withholding approval of an $8.2-billion merger between Viterra and Bunge.

But the companies believe they can gain approval because they say the concerns focus on ”localized concerns relating to the purchase of canola in the Nipawin, Saskatchewan and Altona, Manitoba areas, and related to canola oil sales to a small segment of customers in Eastern Canada.”

Viterra is a merger among the Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba wheat pools and it bought more grain-handling businesses in the United States. Bunge is one of the world’s largest grain-trading companies and is also a major oilseed crushing business.

The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board owns 40 per cent of Viterra and British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is the other major owner.

Glencore paid $6.2 billion to buy Viterra in 2012 and took the Viterra name in 2020, then sold to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Fun and BCI.

The Competition Bureau report goes to the federal transport minister who is charged with reviewing the merger.

Avian flu spreads cow-to-cow

The United States Department of Agriculture said it has evidence that avian influenza can spread from cow to cow.

Yet no officials have called for quarantines on herds where the infection has been identified in dairy cattle.

It has been identified in eight states and in one person.

Until recently it was believed the only threat to agriculture was the spread of highly-pathogenic avian influenza from migrating birds to domestic chickens and turkeys and in a few notable cases to mink.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it still does not know exactly how the virus is being moved around among cattle.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has asked veterinarians to be on the lookout for cases in cattle.

“Those of us that have worked with influenza for a long time were fairly quickly saying, ‘Yep it moves cow to cow,'” said Jim Lowe, an associate dean at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. “You can’t explain the epidemiology any other way.”

The U.S.D.A . said its investigation into cow infections “includes some cases where the virus spread was associated with cattle movements between herds.” There is also evidence the virus spread from dairy cattle premises “back into nearby poultry premises through an unknown route,” the department said.

The U.S.D.A. said cows shed the virus in milk at high concentrations, so anything that comes in contact with unpasteurized milk may spread the disease. Respiratory transmission is not considered a primary way for the virus to spread in cattle, the department said.

The USDA said it expects that minimizing cattle movement and testing those that must be shipped, along with safety and cleaning practices on farms, should avoid the need for regulatory restrictions.

Officials reported last month that bird flu primarily affected older cows, though additional data now indicates younger cattle have been affected, the U.S.D.A. said.

The World Health Organization has advised consumers that milk should be pasteurized.

 

The two Green Party members made a motion in the Ontario legislature to protect about 770 acres of farmland in Wilmot Township that the Waterloo Regional Government is trying to buy for industrial development.

“From the beginning, the Wilmot land assembly process has lacked transparency and left farmers in the dark,” said Green Party leader Mike Schreiner of Guelph.

“Now, they are at risk of losing their lands, livelihoods and businesses – it’s just not right.”

Kitchener Green Party member Aislinn Clancy said “we know this problem is bigger than 770 acres. The Ford government is determined to use every chance it has to impose expensive sprawl onto communities who have been clear that they don’t want it.”

“Greens will continue working across party lines to fight back against forced boundary expansions and protect prime farmland – in Wilmot, and all across the province – for generations to come,” said a news release from the party.

A vigorous lobbying campaign has been launched and funded by local residents who have criticized the purchase efforts and expropriation threats and the lack of information from municipal politicians and staff who have signed non-disclosure agreements.

The land in question is south of Highway 7&8 and east of New Hamburg.

Some of the land is an abandoned gravel pit. It's a tempest in a teapot because no matter where the Waterloo Region seeks industrial land, it's going to involved fields that are farmed.

World Health urges pasteurization

 

The World Health Organization has voiced concerns about high levels of avian influenza virus in milk of infected cattle in the United States and India and is cautioning the public to only consume milk and dairy products that have been pasteurized.

So far there have been no reports of Canadian dairy cattle being infected, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has asked veterinarians to watch for outbreaks. It took a while for the United States to realize that a mystery disease affecting dairy cattle was avian influenza.

In India, cows have apparently been infected by ducks stricken by the virus. Health officials there have stepped up their lab facilities and testing.

In the United States, the first cows detected with the disease were in Texas where the only person infected so far worked on a farm. It has since been detected in dairy cows in several states.

 

Olymel closing poultry plant

 

Olymel will close its poultry processing plant at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec,  on July 19.

It employs 135 workers, 30 of them temporary foreign workers and another 23 non-regulated.

The plant has been working at 40 per cent of capacity, the company said.