Opinion: The real issue at the heart of Canada's meat processing industry isn't labor shortages—it's low wagesThe report's revelations have intensified scrutiny of the broader reliance on temporary foreign workers in Canada.
The industry relies on the Canadian government to supply these low-wage workers through programs like the Temporary Foreign Worker program, which. In addition, workers usually must own a vehicle and car insurance to commute to work due to a lack of public transportation infrastructure.. This meatpacking wage then plummeted to just 82 percent of the industry average from the mid-1980s to 1997.
Between 2000 and 2005, approximately 2,000 former refugees from Sudan and Somalia resettled in Brooks to work at Lakeside. Then, in 2005, Lakeside The fundamental issue in southern Alberta's meatpacking sector is not a shortage of labor, but rather insufficient wages. The industry is dominated by large, foreign-owned firms that constantly push for greater profits at the expense of employees, perpetuating a cycle of under-payment and poor working conditions.As the beef industry continues to extract record-breaking profits, it's clear that the terms of employment have to change.