Senators call on the federal government to encourage Canadians to work in the food sector.   Ottawa—As farmers and processors wait to find out how many of the foreign workers they were counting on for the 2020 growing season actually make it to Canada, a group of Senators is calling on the government to encourage Canadians to fill some of those jobs. Senator Diane Griffin, chair of the Senate agriculture committee in the last Parliament, says, “It is unlikely that all of the nearly 60,000 foreign workers on which farmers and processors depend will arrive in Canada to plant our crops and process food from the land or sea.” She and 21 other Senators want Ottawa to provide economic incentives to encourage Canadians to take on the jobs that aren't filled by foreign workers in the agrifood and aquaculture sectors. They proposed three options to support Canadians and permanent residents who take on jobs commonly filled under the Temporary Foreign Worker or Seasonal Agricultural Workers programs. The Senators said these men and women including students should have option of: --receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) while keeping on-farm earnings; --getting Employment Insurance benefits without having their on-farm earnings clawed back; --be eligible for a grant equivalent to the CERB. Speaking to reporters April 4, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said farmers across the country “rely on temporary foreign workers to make sure that we can feed our country. That has been the way for many, many years and we are of course looking to ensure that we're able to receive temporary foreign workers, that they will be properly quarantined for two weeks before they start doing the work that is so necessary for us all. “At the same time, we see many, many Canadians out of work who are wanting to help out, students who are looking at opportunities for summer jobs that they might not otherwise have and we know there are many people interested in helping out in terms of feeding this country,” he said. “So we're going to be having more to say in the coming, coming days and weeks about how we're going to pull together and make sure that our agricultural producers, our fisheries, our agricultural transformers are going to get the support they need.” Griffin also called on the government “to explore with the provinces and industry measures to provide job protection to workers eligible for the CERB so they can claim it while retaining their connection with their current employer so that they have a job to return to post-crisis, and work in agriculture in the interim.” It could also waive the Guaranteed Income Supplement claw-back for on-farm income. The government could also pay for accommodations at nearby hotels or motels for those who would usually reside in on-farm communal living arrangements, thereby ensuring that accommodations comply with provincial health and emergency measures, she said. “To put food on the table, Canada needs to increase the hiring of its domestic workforce by supporting workers, via economic incentives, to find their way to Canadian fields and food processing facilities,” Griffin said. She said the agrifood sector went into the COVID-19 crisis already short-staffed as the average job vacancy rate in the agriculture sector varied between 4.5 and 6.3 per cent. Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.