Time is running out for temporary foreign workers trying to enter Canada. Still uncertain about whether Ottawa will let them in after border closures due to coronavirus, farmers warn that an essential source of labour won’t make it in time.

Earlier this week, farmers voiced concerns that temporary foreign workers scheduled to work on their farms would not arrive for seeding and planting season due to the Canadian border restrictions and airport shutdowns in response to COVID-19.

Kenton Possberg, a grain farmer in Saskatchewan and director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said wheat and oilseed growers rely on thousands of workers on visas who arrive in the spring for seeding season.

“It’s absolutely critical for farms and for food production that we get this labour,” he said, adding, “the financial implications are tremendous.”

Many of these workers have all their paperwork completed, but have been prevented from travelling. Possberg said farmers want to get them to Canada before it’s too late.

“This needs to happen now.”

On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair told the CBC in an interview that workers on visas and temporary foreign workers will be able to enter Canada after all. The news was a relief to many farmers and workers.

But by Wednesday evening, industry associations including the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association (BCFGA) and the private sector Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) were reporting that Blair’s statement was actually widely misunderstood.

“Elation turned to confusion when a very senior minister in the federal cabinet clarified that the travel ban was lifted only for (foreign workers) from the U.S. ... The bad news is that the (agriculture) industry is back to square one,” the BCFGA said in a letter to members seen by the Star.

A Public Safety spokesperson told the Star in an email Thursday: “Details around temporary foreign workers and those with student/worker visas are currently being developed and will be announced shortly.”

In Ontario, however, the messaging was different.

In a Wednesday afternoon email to Ontario’s agricultural sector, obtained by Torstar, Ernie Hardeman, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, said the workers will not face the same restrictions placed on other travellers to Canada.

That “temporary foreign workers will be exempt from travel restrictions is great news for our agriculture sector,” Hardeman wrote in the email. “(Public Safety) Minister (Bill) Blair has confirmed that temporary foreign workers will be allowed to enter Canada but will need to observe a 14-day period of self-isolation. Further details will be coming from the federal government shortly.”

According to federal sources familiar with the issue who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential matters, Hardeman “jumped the gun” with his message because key details have to be finalized to bring the workers into Canada.

Ottawa needs to finalize negotiations with the United States because most of those workers come from Mexico and Central America and will cross American points of entry. It is unclear how long those negotiations will take.

Also unknown is where workers would be isolated for 14 days upon arrival. On many farms, these workers live in trailers or other small, tightly packed accommodations. National public health experts say social distancing is a necessary step to prevent the spread of COVID-19, something the traditional quarters of some workers do not permit.

On Thursday, federal officials told the Star their intention is to not just lift restrictions on American workers, but on workers from the countries that supply important labour for Canadian farms.

“There is a desire to get this done, and a recognition that there is a real need for North American food security should this be a prolonged pandemic,” said one official. “And that goes both ways (with the United States.)

Federal sources also said an announcement is expected as soon as Friday, although that will entirely depend on progress in talks with U.S. officials.

According to the Public Safety Ministry, an upcoming decision will address those on student visas, too.

The Canadian agricultural sector has been facing a labour shortage for years, one that temporary foreign workers play a big role in mitigating.

For several decades, farmers have become increasingly reliant on foreign workers, according to Debra Hauer, manager of labour market information for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council (CAHRC). As farms get bigger, the skills needed for farming change with technology, and the Canadian labour demographic also changes.

According to a recent report by the CAHRC, in 2017 the Canadian agricultural workforce benefited from 59,500 international workers through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

Unfilled job vacancies went from 76,000 to 16,500 and lost revenues were almost $3 billion, said Hauer.

Hauer said the CAHRC put together the report after being inundated with questions from partners and the general public.

The labour gap is doubling every decade, said Hauer, and so is the lost revenue: Four years ago, lost revenues amounted to $1.5 billion.

If workers don’t arrive in time this spring, “businesses will struggle to remain viable and the impacts on the Canadian food system and supply would be severe,” according to the report.

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Hauer said spring is an essential time for farms, and most foreign workers were supposed to arrive this month. She said farms will be faced with difficult decisions if their usual labour force doesn’t arrive. For some, it could mean working more, or changing their crops, or planting less.

Canadian food production and supply will be impacted for more than a year, especially fruits and vegetables. Farmers will have to delay or cancel upgrades and businesses will face job losses.

Ontario employs the largest percentage of agricultural workers — 97,800 in 2017. Nearly one in three of those jobs is filled by a foreign worker, according to the report.

British Columbia and Nova Scotia also rely heavily on the workers — almost one in three agricultural labourers is foreign in Nova Scotia, and in B.C. almost a quarter of agricultural workers are foreign.

These numbers are particularly high on farms that produce fruits and vegetables, a labour-intensive job. In 2017, 44 per cent of the workforce in horticulture was filled by foreign workers.

Two out of three farms employ foreign workers. And despite these high numbers, half of all Canadian horticulture farms were unable to fill all their positions in 2018, resulting in $622 million in lost sales, according to the report.

That labour shortage is something Erin Carlson knows all too well.

She grew up on her parents’ orchard and is now the manager at Carcajou Fruit Company in Summerland, B.C. In the past, the farm always got by with local staff, but in the last few years they’ve had increasing difficulty filling jobs.

“There are so many acres now and so much to pick and so much to pack. It’s not possible anymore to do it without help from foreign workers,” she said.

Carlson said farmers have also found it hard to convince a younger generation of Canadians to stick with farm work.

“It’s physical work and you have to be quick, too. There’s a lot of food safety rules so we have to train people rigorously and expect them not to quit right away, which turns a lot of people off from participating.”

Carlson said the farm now relies on people from Europe and Australia on backpacker visas and people from SAWP, which mainly brings in workers from Mexico.

She says a lack of workers could result in more debt for farmers in an already difficult industry.

“We had four employees booked to fly directly from Mexico City to Vancouver this week, but their tickets have been cancelled and they are awaiting word as to whether or not they will be coming to Canada as planned.

“Even if something changes with the government allowing them to travel, I bet some Canadians would be grateful to have those seats,” Carlson told the Star on Thursday.

Farmers are holding out hope that the government will soon allow exemptions for migrant workers, and industry associations are prepared to help with transportation as plane seats become increasingly scarce.

“The B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association would help co-ordinate charter flights if needed. First we have to gain access to the workers,” Lucas, the association’s general manager, told the Star.

the Public Safety Ministry spokesperson said information was not yet available about potential government travel assistance for migrant workers if travel bans are lifted.

Hauer said she wants Canadian farmers to know that they are not alone: The US, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy are all facing labour shortages in agriculture, she said.

“It’s a worldwide phenomenon.”

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu

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