Canada launches Agri-Food industry immigration pilot

The Canadian government has announced on 12 July 2019 a new Agri-food industry migration pilot program of 3 years. More details on this new program will be released earlier in 2020.

Temporary foreign workers in different eligible occupations will be able to apply for this permanent residency and will be allowed also to bring their families.

The program mainly focuses on the shortage of skilled workers particularly in meat processing and mushroom production.

The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says that this program would help foreign workers to come to Canada through a temporary work visa program but with the ability to change this work visa to permanent residency that is a path to Canadian citizenship.

PR Quota

This pilot program will be under the laws of the Immigration and refugees act. According to which the number of applicants for this visa category would be limited for permanent residency (so-called PR). The government is interested to have 2750 immigrants every year for the time of first 3 years of the starting of the program. With family members, a total of 16,500 places will be available.

Agri-food pilot program is a mutual collaboration between Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

Eligible Occupations

The occupations and industries eligible under the new Agri-Food Immigration Pilot include:

farm supervisor and specialized livestock worker for meat processing, year-round mushroom production, greenhouse crop production or livestock raising.
meat processing (this includes retail butcher, industrial butcher, and food processing laborer)
harvesting laborer for year-round mushroom production and greenhouse crop production
general farm worker for year-round mushroom production, greenhouse crop production, or livestock raising

Agri-Food industry immigration pilot PR requirements

To be eligible for this new immigration program, the applicants must be having:

12 months of full-time, non-seasonal Canadian work experience in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, in an eligible occupation in processing meat products, raising livestock, or growing mushrooms or greenhouse crops
an English proficiency level of CLB 4 (General IELTS test score of 4.0)
an education at the high school level or greater (Canadian equivalency)
an indeterminate job offer for full-time, non-seasonal work in Canada, outside of Quebec, at or above the prevailing wage

Most of these sectors come from NOC categories ‘C’ and ‘D’ which require workers to have a type of ‘Secondary School certificate’ with related work experience.

Why does Canada need such workers?

The Canadian meat council has already said that it has space for almost 1700 workers such as butchers and meat cutters annually. So this pilot program may help find pathways to residency for butchers in all 11 provinces of Canada. On the other hand, agri-food industry needs almost 114,000 workers till 2025 (a report from 2014). The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) has said that this program will help agricultural works owners to have laborers available round the year. ‘Mr Robinson’ said that agricultural labor has been a limiting factor in Canada. Even 26,400 jobs were unfilled in 2014 that Caused Canada s loss of 1.5 Billion dollars.

Agri-Food industry immigration pilot provides more security

The old seasonal program for laborers has been not that good as the owners have been exploiting the workers by underpaying them and having had them work for extra hours. Facing these issues, the workers could not just leave the job, and if they do so, the result is removal from Canada. According to this new pilot program, the employees will be able to get benefits from Employment Insurance and the Canadian Pension Plan. They would be able to be a good part of social benefits through taxation.

Sample jobs