Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

Before I get into my specific comments about the topic, I would like to provide some context on the council, the sector and advantages of seafood.

The Fisheries Council of Canada, also known as the FCC, is the national voice for Canada’s wild captured commercial fisheries, and our member companies are processors that are small-, medium- and larger-sized enterprises, as well as Indigenous enterprises, who collectively harvest in Canada’s three oceans. They, first and foremost, are processors, but all of them have harvesting activities.

The Canadian seafood industry creates 90,000 jobs, mainly in coastal and rural communities. In essence, the sector is the beating economic heart of these communities, and the sector accounts for $9 billion in gross domestic product, or GDP, and exports to over a hundred countries.

Growing global demand for protein, including fish and seafood, points to growth opportunities for our sector. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or UN FAO, is projecting global seafood demand to grow from 7% to 10% annually. You might wonder where this is going to come from — 71% of the Earth is covered by oceans; yet, only 3% of our total diet comes from oceans.

The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Oceans’ research indicates that the ocean could sustainably supply six times more food than it does today. This would represent more than two thirds of the animal protein needed to feed the future population. Because ocean-based food has a low carbon footprint, increasing its fraction in the global diet would contribute significantly to climate change mitigation.

The last statistic I want to share with you on the ocean economy is that the World Resources Institute estimates that every $1 invested in ocean-based protein yields $10 in health, environmental and economic benefits, which is a great return on investment.

Back to the topic at hand, the fisheries sector is comprised of two highly integrated activities: Commercial harvesting and seafood product preparation and packaging, with the latter typically involving the addition of some value to seafood products through processing like portioning, canning, smoking, freezing and packaging. Overall, employment is split relatively evenly between the two segments of the industry.

The fisheries sector is like our larger food sector, and we have significant labour shortages. During the pandemic, job vacancies were as high as 25% and had an impact on production volumes. Our labour challenges are not new. We have an aging workforce, and of our workforce in Atlantic Canada, one in three are over 55 years old, which means that retirements will continue to be a challenge for us.

Seasonality and poor perception of employment in the sector are a barrier for some, and operating in small communities can be a double-edged sword. There is a great work-life balance but also a small labour pool. While the working conditions for some positions may not be attractive to some potential workers, the sector does offer good wages, particularly for small coastal communities.

The sector has a number of activities to address some of these issues. First, companies in the sector promote themselves in order to attract workers. This often includes the great work-life balance of coastal communities.

Second, the FCC has a sector-specific career development program called Future Leaders Canada, whereby companies can invest in their employees’ development. We launched it in 2019 and have earned great feedback from our participants.

Third, this year the FCC has partnered with Food Processing Skills Canada to support their Achieving Our Workforce Destination project. This is a suite of new workforce resources for Canada’s food and beverage processing industry.

Fourth, companies invest in automated processing equipment to stay competitive, enhance product quality and eliminate job vacancies, and there are retraining opportunities for any workers displaced, sometimes filling other job vacancies.

Fifth, despite these efforts, companies are becoming increasingly reliant on temporary foreign workers for both seasonal work and year round. Temporary foreign workers help address the workforce gaps. We were pleased with the improvements made to the program in 2021, and the temporary measures were extended until October 31, 2023, while being further evaluated. We’d like to see them made permanent.

A further improvement would be to make it easier for temporary workers to become permanent residents. The pathway to permanent residency needs to be expanded to meet demand. Also, reduce the paper and cost burden of the program. It is costly and plagued by slow processing times.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for your questions; they are difficult ones. I think it would require the collaboration of the federal government, provincial governments, and also community organizations to create a more welcoming environment to attract immigrants to some of those smaller communities. There are more support organizations in the larger urban centres, so it makes it easier for them to acclimatize to our society. We need to do a better job of trying to attract them to the smaller communities. Companies need to do as much as they can to make those positions that they have available attractive as well.

From what we’ve heard from our members, it’s just the sheer number that are allowed through that pathway. We had a company in B.C. that wanted to get some of their temporary foreign workers into that part of the program, and it was oversubscribed before they could complete the paperwork, get the medical testing and such of the workers to be able to submit the applications. Larger numbers would allow more employers and workers to be part of that program.

I don’t have specific numbers on the percentage, but I think there is definitely a mix where the workers who have more seasonal work want to go back home to their families in the offseason. Those who would have the luxury of more year-round work would be more interested in permanent residency, but I don’t have numbers, sorry.

Thank you for the question. You’re right that our industry is predominantly in Atlantic Canada. However, there is a growing part of it up in the eastern Arctic and Nunavut as well. I’ll talk about the three coasts.

The type of work is fairly similar in terms of a mix between seasonal and year-round employment. I think perhaps it might be a little stronger in the East where there is more of an offshore harvesting fleet that can provide year-round employment. The prospects of the industry are better right now in Atlantic Canada than in the West, so job prospects are probably a little bit brighter in the East.

Yes.

With our mandate, we tend to focus more on policy initiatives that will make a better policy environment for the industry for it to compete, invest and support its communities.

Having said that, I know the report you’re referring to, and the one reaction I have — and this is not to belittle the stories of the 15 workers whom they interviewed — but that’s not a representative sample of the over 2,000 temporary foreign workers who were in the seafood industry in New Brunswick that year.

I would hope that any of those stories were fed to ESDC to further investigate, because any abuses like that in the report should be investigated. If they’re found to be true, then those employers should be penalized or kicked out of the program.

In Nunavut, because it’s Inuit communities, I’m not aware of any of our members using the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in the North. What they typically try to do is increase the number of Indigenous workers as part of their workforce. They’re trying to recruit and train the Inuit to work on the vessels and there are only some small plants up north.

I’m not aware of any measurable difference between the two.

I think I should maybe characterize — and you’ll get more of a flavour for this at your next meeting when you have representatives from the lobster sector, because that particular fishery and the processing plants do rely more heavily on temporary foreign workers than other fisheries. I think that might be a good standout between the two coasts.

Those are good questions, and I do have some statistics here on gender breakdown. The source of this information from Employment and Social Development Canada, also known as ESDC, and Service Canada would likely be from Canadians and permanent residents as opposed to my grant workers. It’s still definitely male dominated, 72% versus 28% for women. The vessel crews for the offshore fleets are predominantly male and probably even higher than 72%. Then, for processing plants, it’s predominantly women.

For migrant workers, I don’t have a breakdown. I would hazard a guess that it’s probably still predominantly male, but I don’t have any statistics on that.

Companies are trying to actively recruit more women, more diversified workers and more minorities, but the reputation of the industry is still that it is male dominated. I think that’s probably one of the biggest barriers to overcome in attracting more women to the workforce.

Yes, we have discussed that. I’m pleased to say that, on our board, the number of women has increased; I think it has doubled since I joined the council. That is not necessarily because of me and my particular efforts; I can’t take credit for it. However, in a short five and a half years, I’ve seen a doubling. It’s still male dominated. I think out of 17 on our board, 12 of those are still men.

In our career development program, we’ve seen a predominance of women. This year, there are nine people in the program, and seven or eight are women. So we are making slow progress.

That’s a good question. Honestly, as a council, we haven’t spent lots of time on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, aside from some of the issues that the government was considering last year. I will have to get back to you on that. I don’t want to take a guess.

Those are great questions.

There is a great difference. On the offshore fleet, in particular, the vessel crew has to be Canadian or permanent residents. We’re not allowed to use migrant workers there, as far as I understand, certainly on the West Coast. Members have said that. They would like that to change, because they have such a shortage of workers.

On the inshore harvesting side, certainly in Atlantic Canada, there are owner-operator rules. So the licence holder has to be the captain of the ship — the owner. As to their crew, I don’t know of any particular rules and whether they would allow or prohibit migrant workers from being part of that.

I would have to say that the vast majority of migrant workers are in the processing plants.

I don’t think we would necessarily be an organization to hear it directly. We would hear it in the media, perhaps, and we monitor things relating to the industry.

From my vantage point, there is a low percentage of workers in the food system who are temporary foreign workers. From what I understand, reading the evaluation reports from the government, the number of inspections that have found non-compliance is very low as well. Certainly, the media stories that we do see are a very small number of the overall numbers of temporary foreign workers. But the bad news gets coverage.

Our plants are still located in relatively small communities. There are not that many in Halifax, for example. Whether they’re in Lockeport, Dartmouth or Shelburne, they’re still relatively small communities.

I think it just gets back to the fact that there are fewer community organizations and municipal supports for migrant workers to integrate more smoothly into some of those smaller communities. That’s a challenge, but that’s not just for seafood; I think that applies to small rural communities in agriculture across the country as well.

Our companies are leaders in the industry on sustainability and we do our best in terms of attracting our workforce and treating them well.

My personal reaction to the recommendation of open permits is that the program is already very costly. That would add more risk to the companies trying to get temporary foreign workers; if they were allowed to come and then quickly move to another employer, it would create more problems than it would solve.

In the case of any abuses or anything like that, there’s already a provision for a temporary transfer, or more effective transfer in the case of an abuse. We just need to make sure that those provisions are used effectively.

Certainly. In preparation for this appearance, I looked at evaluation reports from ESDC and at reports from the Cooper Institute. The report itself said there were over 2,000 temporary foreign workers in New Brunswick in that given year. To me, 15 interviews out of 2,000 doesn’t sound like a representative sample, and certainly not statistically significant if it was a quantitative sample.

In terms of Canada as a whole, in 2021, there were 61,000 temporary foreign workers out of employment in the agriculture and agri-food sector of 2.1 million, which would represent about 3%. Temporary foreign worker use is still a small part of the overall labour force in our food system, but it is an important one to address some of the labour challenges that we do have.

Yes, certainly. However, I think that in terms of the cost of participating in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, there are additional costs outside of attracting a Canadian or a permanent resident to work for you. They first have to show that there’s no Canadian available to work in the position. They then have to conduct the Labour Market Impact Assessment, try to attract a worker from a foreign country and work with that government as well as with the authorities here. There are additional costs already in the program. If it’s an open permit where the worker could leave easily, that adds to the risk.

That’s a good question.

[English]

I think attracting university students and graduate students to the industry is as challenging as it is to attract unskilled labour to our industry — certainly, the better educated the more mobile you are.

We see a lack of fisheries scientists in government and universities who conduct the core fisheries science. FCC has started an annual scholarship to help attract fisheries scientists in universities.

In terms of other skilled trades, like engineers, certainly for the vessels, we compete with other sectors like oil and gas. That’s a challenge, because they tend to pay even more than we do.

It will continue to be a challenge, particularly because, as you said, we have an aging workforce. We need to continue doing as much as we can.

[Translation]

The industry is very diversified. The fisheries can be very different from one to the next. The association representation of the industry is diverse because of this. The companies and harvesters, even for their own organizations, tend to look to us for certain things and it tends to be a little narrower.

Quite frankly, I’d be at a loss to identify an organization with the particular mandate to help address some of those issues. For us, it’s not within our mandate.