Farmers concerned about EI reform changes

The PEI Federation of Agriculture has some concerns about recent employment insurance program reforms and how those changes will affect farmers.

The federation made a presentation Thursday to a committee of MLAs looking into the federal changes.

John Jamieson, the federation's executive director, says farmers are worried Ottawa plans to make it more difficult for them to hire foreign workers.

"The federal government has said 'we want to discourage the use of temporary foreign workers'. But in many, many cases, what we've found is these people have actually provided a base that allows more Islanders to work."

The government plans to do more to reduce reliance on the temporary foreign workers program so that employers turn first to unemployed Canadians. It plans to enhance information sharing between the EI and the temporary foreign worker program.

Jamieson says about 4,000 foreign workers are employed on P.E.I. each year. About 200 of them work on farms.

Farmers are worried about losing seasonal workers to full-time jobs elsewhere.

Jamieson says he's not sure what that will mean to the added burden on farmers to invest in training new staff every year.