by SUSAN MANN
About 16,000 workers from Mexico and the Caribbean will be participating in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers program in Ontario this year.
Ken Forth, president of the Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS), says there are 16,800 job placements for Ontario. As of last Friday, there were 11,000 workers already in the province but currently as some workers arrive others, who have been here since Jan. 1, will be returning home by the end of June. “At this time of year they start coming and going,” he says.
Of the 16,000 workers, between 80 and 85 per cent are returning employees and most go back to the same farms they were on in previous years. Forth says one worker has returned to his farm as part of the program for the past 30 years.
FARMS, which takes care of administration and travel arrangements for the program, issued a press release June 3 outlining the benefits of the program, including that workers earn five times more working as part of the program in Canada than they do in their own countries. That income enables them to improve their families’ standard of living, educate their children and buy businesses and farms in their own countries.
The program, which has been in place since 1966, also benefits Ontario farmers and the province’s economy. Two jobs are created for Canadians in the agri-food industry for every seasonal agriculture worker employed through the program, the release says.
The participating countries are Mexico, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad/Tobago and the Eastern Caribbean states. The program was established in 1966 in response to a critical shortage of available and suitable local Canadian agricultural workers. Workers are hired from participating countries only after farmers demonstrate they can’t find local Canadian employees to fill vacancies.
The 48-year-old program has come under heavy criticism over the years from unions and social justice groups and that’s partly why FARMS decided to hire a public relations firm two years ago that issues about five press releases a year outlining the positive attributes of the program.
“We tell people the truth all the time and we tell our story,” Forth notes. BF
Comments
It all starts in Mexico and some of these other countries where their agriculture industries have been decimated by the flood of heavily subsidized American produce.
These are not poor city dwellers coming up here to work,they are rural mexican farmers that just can't make a living on their own land.
If the US want to supply cheaper food to other countries, at taxpayers expense(the rich), so be it.
Besides it does not matter where they live, you benefit also. Next time you go for a ride on your Can Am just remember the price you paid was a result of outsourcing of parts from Mexico and China.
It is quite tiring really. Anytime something goes wrong up here, the finger waggling always points anywhere except here.
Raube Beuerman
I really don't know what "Can Am" you are talking about but does it have anything to do with foriegn workers coming into Canada ?
Its not always a question of the US flooding another Country with cheaper food but of producing food cheaper through heavy subsidies.Subsidies which a poorer Nation like Mexico have no chance of matching.
You have to remember when you see a Can Am (what ever that is) going by, our food is too expensive because we have a high minimum wage level in Ontario. Minimum wages is the biggest form of protectionism there is and drives up the costs of EVERYTHING.
How about pointing that finger at yourself first and volunteer to work for LESS than what the government tells you must have. Step up to the plate and show some real leadership.
For the last 16 years I've been drawing less than minimum wage from my hog barn, which is why pork and all other foods are priced accordingly-without the subsidy of SM increasing it.
The only reason that a minimum wage exists, is so that consumers can afford to buy supply managed food.
If there is anyone that is working "for what the government says you must have", it is hands down, dairy and poultry farmers, with their nanny state price fixing system.
Raube Beuerman
Drawing a small amount from your profits is not the same as taking wage. Dont distort the discussion with strawman dribble. Mimimun wages are not in place to buy food. If that was the case, food would cost more than 8% of household income. 42% of household incomes go to taxes. Energy takes more than food.
For 16 years, profits plus what I have withdrawn in wages are less than minimum wage.
Also, it is entirely appropriate for me to claim that minimum wage exists to ensure that those on it can afford to buy SM food, since , by definition, SM is a regressive tax where the poor pay more in relation to their income.
Therefore, it is entirely unappropriate for you to claim that 8% of household income goes to food, and 42% goes to taxes, because while that may be true, those numbers will not be true of a family that lives on minimum wage. The food portion will be much higher, and the tax portion will be signifigantly lower.
How about you tell us what you do for a living.....naahh, we couldn't expect the average anonymous poster to be honest with us. On this site, for the most part, the ignorant and the anonymous go together like peas and carrots.
Raube Beuerman
Re-send with signature and editor will consider publishing.
The original anonymous poster demanded I step up and "volunteer", which I proved that I have done. By my own choice that is. As soon as I pummel the anonymous posters argument they quickly change the subject, go off topic, resort to personal attacks and garbage replies, so much so in fact, that their comments are too trashy and pathetic to publish. LOL
Raube Beuerman
Re-send with signature and editor will publish.
I can believe alot of people but not ones who claim to grow crops in a corn , soy & wheat rotation but have not grown beans in 12 years .
You say that for 16 years your profits plus wages withdrawn are less than minimum wage.
That is not really farming - it is a hobby farm!
A lot of people do the same thing and subsidize their hobby with a second income, maybe as a mechanic or tax filer because they can't manage to make an income farming.
I won't always work for that amount, better times are just around the corner when I get this pesky mortgage out of the way.
It was only last year when Mr.Van Dyk stated that cashcroppers were able to make the interest payments on recently aquired land. So are their profits and wages equal to minimum wage. Not a chance. Are they hobby farmers also according to this poster?
So its like this everyone-this anonymous poster has not signed their name because they have been set up by mommy and daddy, or they also have off farm income, like myself.
They lost the debate with me, and he/she is the worst type of loser.
Raube Beuerman, Dublin, ON
There was no debate, it was, by definition, only a statement of fact.
A "fact" stated by an anonymous poster is garbage, period.
Furthermore, the facts are that virtually every non-supply managed farm tax client I have under the age of 40 is, thanks to the financial bullying of supply management, a so-called hobby farmer because they all need to have at least $100,000 in annual off-farm income, simply to keep their heads above water.
Patronizing the victims of supply management, in the way the above anonymous poster did, simply adds fuel to the resentment already felt in the farm community towards supply management, and the anonymous cowards who keep defending the double standards and bitterness it promotes.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
You sure don't speak for me or all non-SM farmers. I have ups and downs but am diversified and well managed enough to prosper. Sure, SM has income and stability but they have their own issues too. I am not bitter or a victim. Suck it up, buttercup. And I know many other under-40 non-SM farmers who have one off-farm job in the household but most urban families do this as well. Most families do this regardless. If your tax clients "all need to have at least $100,000 in annual off-farm income, simply to keep their heads above water" them maybe they should re-examine their business plans and perhaps get better tax advice as well.
When, as several of my clients do, one pays over $400 per acre per year in interest just to own a 75 acre farm which is, by definition, little more than a 75 acre roof over your head - and had to pay that in order to not have the local chicken farmer buy it, then the matter has nothing to do with a business plan or tax advice, it has everything to do with the long term effect of the bullying power given, by legislation, to supply management.
In addition, there is nothing wrong with the farm management ability of any of my under-40 clients - and for you to suggest that you are somehow a better manager than any of them, is a classic example of the boorishness and dismissiveness, and dare I say it, willing-obtuseness of the anonymous posters on this site.
For all anyone knows, you are a dairy farmer pretending, by utilizing the cloak of anonymity, to be something else - all of which makes anonymous posters, and anonymous postings, little more than literary road-kill
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Has anyone noticed that a few people here who sign their names have been demonizing those involved in supply management? They use all manner of name calling and sometimes even claim there is criminal activity on the part of law abiding farmers who work hard and follow the rules.
The good news is I've noticed a change. The bad news is that these regular posters are now demonizing those who post anonymously. Yes that's right they are attacking people with good ideas who go to the trouble of expressing themselves well and follow the rules the rules set out by the owners of the forum.
Doing well, following the rules, successful. Is it just me or is there a pattern here?
Yes, the demonizing is noticed by many of us.
By now, the paranoia and language actually makes me feel sorry for these two, believe it or not!
And yes, I have noticed the switch to attacking posters at large, although the paranoia often leads to them seeing plots and connections everywhere.
I noticed the pattern too, so you may have something there as well.
All in all, kind of sad.
Would real estate agents ever say a chicken farmer was bidding to shill up a price? Yes.
Would people collude? Yes.
People get fleeced regularly. Real estate is a very imperfect market.
Did he pay too much for the farm? Likely.
Could he have a lower mortgage rate. Possibly.
When interest rates return to the norm, a lot of farmers are going to be in trouble.
Classic example of numerary illiteracy - Half the managers, by definition, are better than the other half. Not an attack, just basic math.
Paying too much for land is and always will be . Talk to any farmer and he will tell you that the day he bought a farm he paid too much for it but hopefully a few or 5 years later it will look like a steal of a deal . This I believe is some thing so simple and so basic that even an economist could grasp . But hey I don't claim to try speak for so many , just for my self !!
More than a few guys thought they had to buy land in 1980 and then paid high interest rates ,land values fell for 15 years , but it worked out they either filed bankruptcy or asked for debt review write down and then did it all over again . You do know its just good money management to do it that way as I have been told.
On the one hand, Stephen you claim "cost of production is meaningless", yet on the other hand $400/ ac "interest is somehow too high". "Trying to have it both ways" comes to mind.
If you run with the big boys you are going to get hurt.
Seems to me, by definition, like basic economic principles.
It has been like this for decades. Sometimes better times do happen in pork but always for less than 12 months, then it is back in the toilet again. Must be SM's fault of course!
"Poor poor unfortunate me".
You and others on here at times talk like its a crime for Parents to pass on a farm to their children via succession.I have a couple of nieghbours that take great pride in having "generation" farms.The one couple have pictures of the original house and barn being built in the early 1900's and are not SM farmers.
Farming is hard work and sometimes its not always about the farm making or losing money that children base their decisions to stay or leave on.Many farmers in just about every Agr-sector would love to see their children take over but its just not always in the cards.
I had simply replied to the anonymous poster who implied that they had done it all on their own simply due to superior management. Which we know is a farce.
So calm down.
Happy Canada day everyone.
Raube Beuerman
That is not true. Anyone making minimum wage is paying far more than your figure of 8% for food. What's the saying? Figure don't lie but liars....you get the picture.
Mr. Beuerman's point that we need a minimum wage so that poor people can afford the rip-off prices supply management forces onto dairy and poultry products, is completely-true - it's a basic economic truth supply management supporters studiously ignore and even deny, but it's still the truth, and is exactly the reason why supply management is, and will always be, regressive economic and public policy.
Furthermore, the truth of Mr. Beuerman's claim can be validated by deductive logic - if, for example, the minimum wage was to be lowered by $2.00 per hour, would supply managed dairy and poultry products be more, or less, affordable to people making the minimum wage?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
So now not only are you a proponet of getting rid of SM but also lower of min wage .
Sm people don't care about minimum wage their wage goes up as a percentage same as if any body receives an in crease in the world sm gets there piece
Which destroys his point.
I have enjoyed cheap pork, thanks for working for nothing Rube!
Your circular nonsense also applies if there was no minimum wage. Why stop at $2.00/hr.? Drop wage protection entirely throughout all sectors. With cheaper wages, the cost of production will drop. Does that make it more or less affordable to everyone? I know your farm will be worth less too if wage protectionism is dropped.
Now why would you come on here and expect to get sympathy . You and only you are the fool who signed the agreement . I don't think any one gives a hoot about whether or not you make or loose money when they price pork in the store .
Then why don't we have Canadian pork produced with the same subsidies as the US pork producer gets ?
Im confused the Americans pay the Mexican farmers more to work in the usa then subsidize the product so much that they can't compete in there own country is that right . If that is correct and I have no idea. Would they make more money if the usa didn't subsidize.
Young Canadians these days do not want to get their hands dirty.
Although I do agree to a point , I dohave to say that some will . The problem is that the majority they want a wallstreet execs wage before they will do so .
Young people want to start where or above where their parents currently are . They have no idea what it took their parents to get there .
It's no wonder even farm children have unreasonably-high expectations - two local elementary school teachers recently told me they are starting to see an increase in bad attitudes among their students - when chided for not working on their studies, the response of the student is typically becoming - "Why should we study? - my dad is going to buy me a chicken farm", thereby giving these students, by virtue of being born with quota under their pillow, better than a Wall Street salary with no investment of time, education, experience, and/or money.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
One of the main political questions posed at last years OFA convention was " where are the jobs for the young people?" Mile high hydro costs was on the radar.
What BS ? Do you suspect the only bad children in school now is SM Farm Kids, why is it that anything you have to say it is all about SM Farmers and now its their Kids.
I made my comment based on what I heard from two teachers whose opinions I respect. Furthermore, my comment was entirely appropriate given that the subject matter was about farm work, farm workers, and/or the desire and ability of young Canadians to do menial jobs.
I thought it was both interesting, and timely, to note that even elementary school teachers are figuring out that the children of supply managed farmers are so certain of their perpetual entitlement to be financial bullies in the farm community, that they not only don't have any work ethic, they disdain work, and are adopting this attitude at a very-young age.
More to the point, since I seemed to have hit a nerve, and since your writing style clearly shows you were NOT a good student,
, I can't help but think you may be one of those disdainful students who was born with quota under his/her pillow, and whose father bought them a chicken farm.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Comment modified by editor in accordance with our guidelines.
Thanks for that SM twist on a serious subject . I believe you could say the same for hog farmer kids too . Thing is they still have to have a work ethic and if they can not manage money they are at risk of loosing everything also . At least there are very few SM farmers so they really are the minor number of the kids who today need a wake up call .
G&O farmer kids are getting further away from the farm mainly because of the unfair treatment they get with support programs compared to livestock farmers .
Young people should be paid accordingly,minimum wage is fine for flipping burgers or stocking store shelves but strenuous farm work or hot blazing-sun construction deserves much more.
When the minimum wage was 5-6 dollars l was paying students $12-13 for throwing hay bales,mainly because it was hard demanding work for them,they weren't used to it and l wanted them back the next day.
Some farmers have to wise up,the young work force is there but the pay has to parallel the demands of the job.Hence the rising tide of cheap immigrant workers who are more than happy to get our mimimum wage and run back home, where in Mexico minimum wage is around $8.00/per 12 hr day.
Many of the large trucking companies have been pushing these foreign and other drivers. All trucking companies should be limited to 2 truck drivers and one other person per year until drivers are paid off the elog at twice the min wage with overtime after 44 hour per week
All farmers should allowed one foreign worker/ nanny. Those wanting bring in more between dec 15 and april 1 should have to pay a$2.00 per tax to be used to help train canadians for farm work and to pay up to $4.50 per hour for the 500 hours working on a farmer per year limited to total wage assistance of $9,000.00 per farm per year. many farmers in the Exeter area a chatham area were abusing the program
The farmers should get paid a subsidy for hiring Canadian workers and pay a tax on any foreign worker in the in the winter months of $ 150 per week and in the summer of $50 per week that do not live in the owners house with their family or if they have separate housing after the first 4 workers or do not have each one their own bed room and a max of 3 workers per bathroom and get free internet so they can call their families very cheaply. Many of these workers after spending one 8 month term working for one farmer should get 2 weeks off before going back so that they can apply to worker other farmers for the next year, The workers after working 2 8 month terms should be allowed to stay for up to 24 months straight and operate cars and trucks and fix them. They should full health care and after worker 3 8 month periods or 24 months total their wage should a min. of $14.00 per hour , All foreign workers should get overtime in Ontario after 44 hours per week
The government should allow 2 foreign workers for dec1 until april 20th from april 20th dec 1 allow a max of 9 worker with a limit of 3 per bath room 9 per kitchen and 1 per bedroom. or a max. of 2 living in the owners home and provide free internet sat tv , free use of washer and dryer and car or van so the worker can go on their own on time off and get over time after 40 hours per week after 8 months can switch to another farm and be given one day per week that they can work on another farm of their own choosing . Any farmer needing more than 9 placements per year should have pay $2,000.00 per placement to farm job training and placement fund. This would be used to train people on Ontario works to be able to work on farms and pay 40% of their wages to a max of 2000 hours per year per farmer and to help with travel costs and providing work boots and gloves. The government also to set policies in place for better housing standards and dental and other medical is provided to any foeign worker who gets hurt or sick while in canada
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The government needs to cancel the program for 2 years and then limit to those farmers paying foreign workers $15.0 per hour and 3 per farm with no cost for housing
Many people think the programs should sharply limited and wages increased with thing like frees internet and free tv. and E-bikes plus a 50% increase in the wages paid to seasonal workers. Some farmers think these cheap seasonal workers make the farms bigger.
TFWs on farms should limited to the out growing of plants only not Packing line at not less than $ 18.00 per hour and 30% of the total work force plus 2
The OFA. needs to inpect every farm that houses more than 5 TFWs .No farmer should able to bring more than 10 TFWs per year or 400 manweeks per year. At 200 man weeks per year the wages should be $15.00 per hour plus free housing with free internet and sat TV. One minvan or car once you have 5 or more TFWs and one e-bike per 4 TFWs.
You should have a local church inspect all farms that employ more than 10,000 hours per year of TFWs . The farmer should have give $3.00 worth of food per hour or $1.00 cash to the food bank for TFWs hours worker above 10,000 hours per year.
I can see it now . The likes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker doing inspections and collecting the money on behalf of !
There are many good people that go to main stream church who would be fair
The OFA needs to interview workers from every farm employing more than 5 ,000 hours per year Of TFWs
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