Canada's Minister of Employment, Workforce, and Labour was in Winnipeg last week to address agricultural workforce issues.

MaryAnn Mihychuk spoke at the Canadian Agriculture and Agri-food Workforce Summit, talking about issues such as employment insurance. On the note of temporary foreign workers, she thinks Canada should only use the program as a last resort.

"It's always been the position that the temporary foreign workers are here only where there are no Canadians or landed immigrants able to fill the positions," she says. "So I've encouraged the agricultural sector to ensure they're also reaching out to Canadians for those opportunities."

Mihychuk notes the government wants to welcome people to Canada, but says it's their position that opportunities for Canadians should come first.

Not all producers at the Summit, however, were happy with what Mihychuk had to say. Allan Campbell, president of the Manitoba Beekeeper's Association says she missed a lot of the focus on primary producers, specifically when it comes to temporary foreign workers.

"The four in, four out rule is what we're really having trouble with," he says, "it caps foreign workers at a maximum of 48 months cumulative. So once they've worked in Canada for four years, they're locked out for four years. And so for us, we've got four years of training into those people, and then we lose them."

Campbell says for every one temporary foreign worker hired, that creates employment for two to three Canadians. He says if we lose the foreign skilled workers, a lot more Canadians will also be out of work.