Opening Statement before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts
Health and Safety of Agricultural Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada During the COVID‑19 Pandemic
(Report 13—2021 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada)
31 March 2022
Karen Hogan, Fellow Chartered Professional AccountantFCPA, Fellow Chartered AccountantFCA
Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our report on the health and safety of agricultural temporary foreign workers in Canada during the COVID‑19 pandemic. The report was tabled in the House of Commons on 9 December 2021. I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People. Joining me today is David Normand, who was the principal responsible for the audit.
As part of the response to the COVID‑19 pandemic, Canada amended the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations in April 2020 to place additional responsibilities on employers of temporary foreign workers to help prevent the spread of COVID‑19 and to help protect workers’ health and safety. This audit focused primarily on whether Employment and Social Development Canada conducted inspections to verify whether employers followed these new requirements.
Canada’s agricultural sector relies heavily on temporary foreign workers, who are an integral part of the workforce that supports our nation’s food system. From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to June 2021, more than 79,000 of these workers came to Canada.
Overall, we found that Employment and Social Development Canada’s inspections—whether they targeted quarantines, outbreaks, or basic accommodation requirements—did not show that employers were meeting requirements to protect the health and safety of agricultural temporary foreign workers.
In 2020, 73% of the quarantine inspections we examined had significant problems with quality and rigour. Inspectors determined without gathering sufficient evidence that almost all employers were complying with COVID‑19 requirements; or inspectors accepted information that flagged possible non-compliance, but they did not follow up.
In December 2020, we informed the department of these alarming findings. We expected the department to take concrete actions to improve its inspections, and we continued our audit through the 2021 growing season.
Unfortunately, in 2021, the situation worsened. The rate of poor inspections rose to 88%. Timeliness was also a concern, with many quarantine inspections remaining incomplete and inactive long after workers’ mandatory 14‑day quarantines had ended.
Our audit of the department’s inspections of outbreaks found similar delays and gaps in evidence gathering. The department could not show that employers provided sick or symptomatic workers with accommodations that allowed them to properly isolate. We found that about 60% of the outbreak inspections we examined lacked even the most fundamental supporting information, such as photos of workers’ isolation spaces.
This was also the case with the department’s inspections of basic accommodation requirements, such as running water and occupancy levels. We found that 93% of these inspections had little to no information on workers’ accommodations. Many temporary foreign workers depend on the accommodations provided by employers. This responsibility takes on even more importance in the pandemic context of social distancing and disinfection protocols, as accommodations are often shared.
Before and during the pandemic, the department had committed to improving the living conditions for workers by developing minimum accommodation requirements in its Temporary Foreign Worker Program. However, we found that the department had done little to meet these commitments.
Concerns about the living conditions of temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector are not new. The COVID‑19 pandemic has again underscored that Employment and Social Development Canada needs to prioritize the health and safety of temporary foreign workers and deal with accommodations that are overcrowded or otherwise inadequate. It is long past time to fix the situation for temporary foreign workers who come to Canada.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.