Marilyn Clarke’s job just got a little tougher.
The owner of Port to Port Immigration in Halifax helps connect East Coast businesses with temporary foreign workers, arranging travel and other logistics.
Last season was challenging, she said, given the two-week quarantines that are now part of Canada’s pandemic protocols.
This year, however, the logistics are a little more complicated, thanks to Ottawa’s decision last week to suspend all commercial flights from Mexico and the Caribbean and to limit international arrivals to just four major airports.
Clarke said her clients are now faced with the extra travel costs of using charter flights, which could be almost twice the cost of commercial flights, as well as the expense of arranging for a second flight to get workers to the East Coast after their quarantine at their point of entry.
And there’s the additional expense of isolating in hotels in Toronto or Montreal.
Paying for isolation
Last season, she said, it cost about $2,000 for each worker for hotels and food for their two-week isolation.
Government subsidies cover about $1,500 per worker.
In 2020, she said, some hotels in Halifax provided all-inclusive $80 nightly rates for the foreign workers.
The cost of hotels in cities like Toronto and Montreal are likely to be much higher, she pointed out, and that will mean additional expense for the companies.
Clarke said her clients are hoping the federal government will tweak the rules and allow charter flights of foreign workers to fly directly to Atlantic Canada, to the major airports in the provinces where they will work.
Since they’ll have to quarantine no matter when they land, she said, it only makes sense to have them fly directly to the East Coast and start their two-week quarantine here.
Nat Richard agrees.
He is the executive director for the Lobster Processors Association, representing processors in New Brunwick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Richards points out that the quarantine protocol for foreign workers last season was “quite rigorous.
“We had no COVID outbreaks in processing plants,” he said.
Staying in central Canada
Right now the number of COVID cases in Atlantic Canada is much lower than in Ontario or Quebec.
“Certainly it would be our preference to land those workers here.”
Richard said having the foreign workers stay in Ontario or Quebec—where COVID infection rates are much higher—is “counterintuitive … from a public health standpoint.”
Then there is the question of whether commercial flights would even be available to get those workers from Central Canada to the East.
“So, it could mean that we might have to hire a second charter.”
Richard said shellfish and other fish processers in the Atlantic region have been discussing the challenges with members of both levels of government, hoping to find a more feasible solution.
They don’t have a lot of time.
There are just a few weeks to the start of the 2021 lobster and snow crab fisheries—snow crab fishing begins in April in some locations, while the summer lobster fishery gets underway in May.
Add in the two or more weeks of quarantine time for workers, and companies will need to have flights and accommodations for those workers arranged by the end of March at the latest.
About 2,500 foreign workers arrive in Atlantic Canada each fishing season to work on the assembly lines at processing plants. According to Clarke, the majority are employed in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
“It’s essential that we do have these workers,” added Richard. “They are critical to the processing sector. In many cases, some of them have been coming to Canada for a decade or more. They are highly skilled and are an important complement to our local workforce.”
He is optimistic that issue facing East Coast employers will be resolved soon.
“I think there’s goodwill from all sides,” he told SaltWire. “We completely understand that these are challenging circumstances for policy makers and we totally get that public health is paramount.
“We just are hoping that we can get creative to find a solution that is more workable for both (fishing and farming) sectors.”
During a funding announcement on Wednesday, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan acknowledged this year’s protocols for foreign workers are more challenging.
“We want to make sure we can get our temporary foreign workers here because they are very important to our sector,” she said, adding, her department will work with the federal departments of agriculture, transport and public safety “to make sure we can address this very valid concern we are hearing.
“We want to work with the provinces, with the (industry) sectors to make sure we get this right.”
