EDMONTON - Canada's meat industry says controversy over the temporary foreign worker program has made it increasingly difficult for processing plants to hire enough staff to remain competitive.

There are concerns that changes to the federal program the industry expects the government to roll out in the coming weeks won't help it fill hundreds of vacant jobs.

"We do feel that we are going to have a severe critical labour shortage. It is happening already," Ron Davidson, a spokesman for the Canadian Meat Council, said Tuesday from Ottawa.

"It has been getting worse for the last year and we fear that the new changes will be blanket changes to the program, and that it will be very difficult for our meat plants to remain sustainable."

Davidson said the labour shortage became more of a challenge last year after problems with the program in the mining and banking sectors made national headlines. The government responded by tightening the rules.

He said it has become more difficult since then for companies to get applications to hire foreign workers at beef or pork slaughter plants approved by Ottawa.

"The government introduced new requirements that have made it increasingly progressively difficult to get approvals. We are not now getting the numbers of workers that we require to supplement the Canadian workforce."

In recent months, applications for the program are being refused, he said.

Davidson said despite aggressive recruiting, the meat industry can't find enough Canadians to work in slaughter plants.

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