News
Reviewing the temporary foreign worker program

Engaging with employers, workers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector, the federal government is working on ways to modernize the TFW Program’s Primary Agriculture Stream. Key issues raised during the Primary Agriculture Review include:

• simplifying the Primary Agriculture Stream and making it easier for users of the Program to understand their obligations under the Program;
• examining how to set wages for agriculture workers to allow for increased transparency and more flexibility for employers to offer raises and bonuses to workers; and
• working with provinces and territories to improve housing for foreign workers to ensure consistency across the country.

Making these changes to modernize how the TFW Program works for agricultural employers and workers will help to ensure that the labour needs of Canada’s evolving agriculture sector are met, while supporting the domestic labour market and protecting foreign workers.

“Our goal is to ensure that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program keeps Canadians first in line for available jobs, is responsive to the needs of the Canadian job market and protects the rights of vulnerable workers. We cannot effectively develop programs without the input of the people who use them. That is why we are working together with our key stakeholders to modernize the TFW Program to meet the evolving labour needs of the agricultural sector,” says Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour.

More than 60 percent of the positions approved under the TFW Program are in primary agriculture.

Click here for more on the review