Image: Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick Facebook page.
Premier Blaine Higgs announced on Friday that temporary foreign workers will be allowed to re-enter the province starting May 29.
“We’re still prioritizing the safety of New Brunswickers, but as we restart our economy, we also have to find ways to meet the needs of the agriculture and seafood sectors,” he said.
“Now that we’ve consulted with experts, including public health authorities, we’ve determined that the risks to New Brunswickers are low as long as safety measures remain in place, including the 14 days of isolation before they start working.”
Employers in the agriculture and aquaculture sector have been calling for a reversal of the ban since it was placed.
Farmers in New Brunswick said they rely on the high-skilled and reliable seasonal foreign workers to run their operations. Since the ban was placed, some farmers have decided to sit out the season altogether, while others have had to cut labour-intensive crops from this year’s roster.
Higgs said the ban’s reversal comes as the province remains “in a good position” with regards to the low number of Covid-19 cases, as well as strong border security. The decision was also made because efforts to recruit locally has proven to be inadequate.
Because the application process to bring in temporary foreign workers can take weeks and the ban has delayed that further, Higgs said the provincial government is working with employers and the federal government to expedite the process.
“My goal right now is to get people up and running and to do it as fast as possible, maybe do it faster than others may and have companies be able to get back to an economic prosperity way of life,” he said.
Lisa Ashworth, president of the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick, said the lifting of the ban is good news although the delay has caused “permanent damage.”
“Some perennial crops require a set care schedule. You’re looking at years worth of implication there in terms of maximizing the yield, that if you didn’t get things done on schedule, you can’t change it,” she said.
“Some crops might not be planted because of the timelines but we’re going to try to minimize those losses for sure.”
Without the temporary foreign workers, New Brunswick farmers were expecting losses of approximately $7-million this season. With today’s decision, it will take some time to ensure all the paperwork and flight arrangements are in order, but the move will help mitigate those losses, Ashworth said.
“If we can have people arriving to get into quarantine next Friday, then it’s better late than never,” she said.
She hopes that this experience has helped the public understand the seasonality of agriculture.
“We can’t go back and plant. If we plant later, we can’t stop frost that will arrive in the fall,” she said. “Our hope is we can recoup as much as possible because these are highly skilled workers. The day that they are able to enter the workforce, they will understand that we are behind schedule and they will be the best asset that we have to play catch up.”
Although some farmers have lost the regular staff that returns to their farms every year – some to farms in other provinces – they can still receive skilled workers from a federally-managed pool.
As employers have built strong bonds with their returning workers, Ashworth is hopeful the relationship will allow them to return to New Brunswick farms next year.
“We will be getting skilled employees either way. But somebody who knows exactly where the fields are, what the weather should be like in June, July, August, September – that level of knowledge won’t be at 100 percent. But we’ll work with what we have,” she said.
Ashworth hopes with increased capability for testing and traceability, and lessons from the crisis so far, that anybody infected could be quickly isolated and treated. Moving forward, she said farmers will push to ensure they’re consulted before major decisions that affect the industry are made.
“We would expect that if there have to be changes…that we would be consulted about how our industry can continue to function to help contribute to the economy in a safe manner,” she said.
Inda Intiar is a reporter with Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
