The National Farmers Union in New Brunswick is joining with other local farming advocates to speak out against the ban on temporary foreign workers during the COVID-19 crisis.
The NFU issued a joint statement with the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick and Really Local Harvest calling for the reversal of the ban, which it believes is detrimental to provincial farmers and consumers.
Rebeka Frazer-Chiasson, the union’s president, says the province’s ban will have strong financial impacts on farmers.
She believes the only viable option for the province is to allow an exemption on the ban for agriculture workers.
“There’s no real amount of money or initiatives that could compensate farmers that are directly affected by this decision,” Frazer-Chiasson said.
With the spike in unemployment due to COVID-19, the provincial government has begun to look for ways to put the province’s unemployed workers into jobs typically reserved for temporary foreign workers.
The NFU argues that skilled workers, like those who are now banned from entering the province, can’t simply be replaced by summer students or other newcomers to the industry.
“It’s a skilled position which people fill after years of experience, and often years of experience on the same farm,” Frazer-Chiasson said. “They know the system, they know the routine. They are an integral part of a team.”
Frazer-Chiasson also believes farmers wouldn’t be the only people affected by the ban. Consumers would also bear the brunt of a ban on temporary foreign workers as they’d lose access to locally-sourced food.
“It might mean you can’t go to a u-pick this fall, you can’t access farmer’s market stands as you had before,” she said. “It could mean there’s less local food on your grocery store shelves.”
The National Farmers Union plans to continue to challenge the ban and push the provincial government to reverse its decision.
