Canadian HR Reporter - Ontario

CANADIAN HR REPORTER NOVEMBER 2018 NEWS 9 Personalized Experience The RBC Insurance Wellness Program engages employees with a data-driven approach. Using their preferences, health assessment responses, demographic, and claims data, employees will receive personalized risk insights and content that may encourage them to make healthier choices. Measure Impact While your employees earn rewards and receive personalized wellness advice, you will be able to evaluate the program's impact with built-in reporting and measurement tools. Plus, enjoy the support of service reps to help you at every stage. Track Progress Employees can sync with their wearable tracking devices or track their progress in the program, as well as compare their results against their coworkers' results. Earn Rewards For achieving their goals, employees will enjoy rewards and offers from their favourite merchants, and level up to new tiers for even greater results. This program is powered by LifeWorks. Underwritten by RBC Life Insurance Company. ® / ™ Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. Used under licence. VPS102780 120270 (05/2018) Support and reward your employees' health and well-being with our digital Wellness Program. Some say a healthy lifestyle is rewarding enough. We disagree. The program is free for Group Benefi t Solutions plan members with health coverage. Talk to your Group Benefi ts sales consultant at 1-855-264-2174 or visit rbcinsurance.com/wellness. ex-officio and labour market chair for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association in Guelph, Ont. "If you apply with everything in order — the proof of advertising and the bunkhouse inspection, all of that — and you've been making the same application for a certain number of years, that approval should come the same day you submit the paperwork," he said. "ere's no reason you have to have analysts within Service Cana- da giving that application the same level as scrutiny as they would for a relatively new employer." If you've used the program for so many years with a reasonably unblemished record, there should be a way to avoid jumping through so many hoops, said Delli Santi. New approaches CFIB has proposed another way to streamline processes — an "Introduction to Canada Visa" that would replace the program altogether. "It would be geared toward all skill levels, including entry-level workers, and would be a first step to permanent residency," said D'Autremont. In this program, the foreign worker would agree to work for two years with an employer while integrating into Canadian society before being granted permanent resident status. e possibility of citizenship is appealing to many of the work- ers who come to Canada, said Dianna Bronson, executive di- rector of Food Secure Canada in Montreal. "We're currently in a situation where people can be coming here to work for decades and they still have no clear pathway to perma- nent residency," she said. at's something many work- ers' rights groups would like to see changed. "e seasonal agriculture work- er program has been running for over half a century," said Syed Hus- san, co-ordinator of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in Toronto. "It's a permanent program and a permanent need, so we believe there needs to be a permanent so- lution, and that solution is perma- nent resident status upon arrival for agricultural workers." is happens routinely in this country for workers in many other industries, he said. Almost 300,000 people enter Canada this way — with a per- manent residency status — every year, said Hussan. "We just want to make sure agriculture workers are not excluded." Roadblocks to benefits Another challenge is that workers often encounter roadblocks if they need medical care or want to use other social programs. "ey pay into some of those so- cial protection programs but then aren't able to access them," said Bronson. "We've seen a number of situa- tions where access to health care has been very precarious for mi- grant workers, where they had to pay upfront. Even if they get reimbursed afterward, that's not feasible for many of them." "Our food system depends very much on the migrant work- ers. We're shipping in the workers to produce this food, and yet not giving them the full employment rights that all Canadians have ac- cess to," she said. "ere's a fundamental misfit there that, over time, we need to correct. I think we have an oppor- tunity in front of us to get it right." In the meantime, there's still a labour shortage in agriculture to address, and it's expected to get worse in the coming years, said D'Autremont. The TFWP pro- gram offers a solution. "It's important that the pro- gram remain viable and accessible for those businesses who need it the most," she said. e program is running well, with just a few exceptions, and it's hoped little will change with the review, according to Forth. "I want common sense to pre- vail," he said. "is program works for the farm community, it works for Canadians because it gives us local food produced here, with better labour rules and better food safety rules. And it also provides a livelihood for the 35,000 workers who come here every year." Melissa Campeau is a freelance writer based in Toronto. No clear path to residency TFWP < pg. 3 Dairy farmer Marie-Pier Vincent cares for a cow at her farm in Saint-Valerien-de- Milton, Que., on Aug. 30. Credit: Christinne Muschi (Reuters)

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