Twenty days before the Federal elections, the NDP candidate for Salaberry-Suroît, Anne Minh-Thu Quach offered support to her colleague from Brome-Missisquoi, Catherine Lusson, who was expressing her concerns about agricultural producers in the region. She emphasized that they had been put in a vulnerable position by the politics of Harper’s government.
During a press conference last Thursday, both candidates were accompanied by Stéphanie Levasseur, President of the Producteurs de pommes du Québec (PPQ), Denis Hamel, Director General of the Fondation des entreprises en recrutement de main-d’œuvre agricole étrangère (FERME) and André Plante, Director General of the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec.
The candidate for Brome-Missisquoi pointed to the difficulties connected to hiring seasonal workers. Through the program “Farm to fork”, a food strategy which contains some forty key issues put forward by Tom Mulcair’s NDP party, Catherine Lusson was advocating for farmers who, like her father, chose agriculture as a way of life.
Programs for hiring seasonal or foreign workers must be completely reviewed according to Anne Minh-Thu Quach. Employment insurance reform initiated by the Conservative Government and implemented in January 2013 has not passed the test she says.
“Employers now pay exorbitant fees for permits which give them the right to accommodate foreign workers,” explains the incumbent for Salaberry-Suroît. They have to spend a lot of time on the administrative component, which is time away from their land. This is stressful and frustrating and in the end affects their harvest, because they only find out at the last minute if they’ll be able to have a worker.” This situation has been experienced among some forty producers in her riding. Farmers must receive greater recognition for the work they do.
Some 9000 foreign workers will have jobs on farms in Québec this year.
Translated by Cathleen Johnston
