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Now, entering workers are expected to be screened for symptoms before they leave their home countries.

The Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois have said that’s not enough — they have argued all the workers must be fully tested for COVID-19. Bibeau said Monday the screening for symptoms is the best measure, for now.

The money announced Monday only applies to workers arriving after the mandatory quarantine was put in place, and will only be available as long as the requirement exists.

Several thousand workers have already arrived in Canada for this farming season, and are now in or just emerging from isolation.

Farmers and producers are unlikely to get all the workers they need this year.

A chronic labour shortage is being exacerbated by global travel restrictions, said Ken Forth, the president of Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services, which assists farms and other related companies to bring in foreign labour.

Ken Forth

While Jamaica, and more recently Mexico, have said they will allow flights into and out of their countries to transport labourers, other source countries are still closed, for now anyway, he said.

“It is diabolical how this is all changing,” he said. “It could change by the time I get off this call.”

With unemployment rates in Canada at record highs, there have also been questions to the Liberal government about why a made-in-Canada labour solution isn’t being created.

Last week, the Liberals did announce improvements to the Canada Summer Jobs program in a bid to make it more attractive for agricultural firms and others to hire students to fill gaps.

Bill George, who runs a wine-grapes farm in the Niagara region of Ontario, said students can help out, but it’s not enough.

The workers he uses have been coming to his farm for 20 years and know the specific ins-and-outs of the work, he said. Students can’t be trained up in time.

George, who is also the chairman of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, said the money announced Monday was an acknowledgment by the federal government of the importance of the agricultural sector.

“We need to make sure the federal government has the farmers’ backs,” he said.