Thank you, colleagues.

We now move to our second item on our agenda, which is to continue our study on Canada’s temporary and migrant labour force with a panel focusing on the seafood industry.

Before we begin, I would like to do a quick round table and have senators introduce themselves to our public and to our witness, starting with the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Cordy.

I’m Jane Cordy. I’m a senator from Nova Scotia. Welcome.

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Wanda Thomas Bernard. I’m also from Nova Scotia.

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I’m Rosemary Moodie from Ontario.

Good to see you again. I’m Stan Kutcher from Nova Scotia.

I’m Sharon Burey from Ontario.

I’m Gigi Osler from Manitoba.

I’m Judith Seidman from Montréal, Quebec.

Welcome to our committee, Mr. Paul Lansbergen, President of the Fisheries Council of Canada. Thank you for joining us today.

You have five minutes, Mr. Lansbergen, to make your opening statement, and then we follow with questions from the senators. Please.

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, Mr. Lansbergen. My apologies for the interruptions.

Colleagues, we only have one witness today, so you have the luxury of time. We will start with questions from senators starting with Senator Cordy, and everyone will have five minutes for their question, which includes the answer.

Thank you very much for being here today. Senator Kutcher and I are on the Fisheries Committee, my inclination is to first talk about the stocks of fish and all that kind of thing. Forgive me if I go over the line a little bit.

It’s interesting to look at your statistics. I’m from Nova Scotia, from Atlantic Canada, and the fisheries sector is very important there. We have had the biggest influx of population — I shouldn’t say since I don’t know historically — in my lifetime. We now have over a million people in Nova Scotia. The numbers have been staying relatively stable in Nova Scotia, but we now have a significant input.

The challenges, of course, are the points that you raised. First of all, it’s the rural area, which is a good lifestyle and all of that, a lower cost for housing and so on, but the challenge is that people who are immigrating to Nova Scotia — I’ll speak just about Nova Scotia — tend to want to go to the more populated areas. I’m not quite sure how we deal with that aspect of it.

The aging population is another one. In Nova Scotia, the population is aging, and I think that’s true all over Atlantic Canada. How do we encourage our younger people to go into the fishing industry? Those would be my two 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.

You spoke about the path to permanent residency being made easier. How do you see the government doing that? That is something that the federal government can do.

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.

What percentage of the temporary foreign workers who do come to Canada actually want permanent residency? I know a lot in the farming industry come to Nova Scotia, and their intent is just to stay for the planting and harvesting. In the fishing industry, what percentage wants to stay permanently?

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.

That’s okay. Thank you.

Thank you for being with us today. Canada’s seafood sector is predominantly located in the East and West, on the two coasts. What I want to talk about is the comparison in the labour markets between those two coasts and whether there are any differences in the jobs available or the work and living conditions for temporary and migrant workers on those two coasts.

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.