N.B. premier says laid-off workers passed up jobs because of 'broken' EI system

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs says the federal government needs to rethink the employment insurance system after a St. George, Charlotte County, seafood processor was able to hire only one out of dozens of workers laid off by a competitor down the road.

"We have a system that's broken and we should be addressing that, because our businesses are hurting," he said.

"So we're bringing more temporary foreign workers in and our own people are going home, going on EI, because they qualify. This has been a problem. We have to find a way through this. This is an ongoing issue for companies that can't get workers to work."

The premier has complained about EI before. He made his comments to reporters last week during an exchange about the complications of ensuring temporary foreign workers coming to New Brunswick are vaccinated.

He said it's time to look at the "root cause" of the unwillingness of some New Brunswick workers to take certain jobs.

"The last thing we want is a business to say, 'I can't get people here to employ so I need to look elsewhere,'" he said. "Talk to any company around the province, anywhere… It's the same problem all around our province."

Higgs didn't name the two companies, but Cooke Aquaculture vice-president Joel Richardson confirmed Cooke made the job offers.

"Unfortunately only one of those individuals chose to come work for us and the remainder decided not to," Richardson said.

Cooke's True North Seafood plant is located on Fundy Bay Drive, next to Mowi Canada East, a Norwegian-owned plant.

Richardson didn't name Mowi, but said the laid-off workers were from a plant "next door to us" and could have seamlessly joined the True North operation. "It's actually identical work," he said of the two plants.

Mowi Canada East spokesperson Jason Card confirmed the layoffs, but said the number was closer to 40 or 41, not the 50 touted by Higgs. Card said some of the workers opted to retire while three to six others have been called back to work.

He said the layoffs were because of a lack of salmon, so the company could "eventually" call back other workers when the supply increases "at some point in time," but there's no guarantee of that.

He would not comment on what Higgs said about employment insurance. "We did encourage staff to consider positions at the competitor," he said.

'Benefits may be keeping people out of the workforce,' says Cooke official

Richardson did not go as far as Higgs in blaming the EI system for the workers' decision to turn down the Cooke jobs. "That was their personal choice," he said.

But he added that when the Canada Emergency Response Benefit was announced last year in response to COVID-19, "we did lose some folks right away."

"I think there is a sentiment across New Brunswick, not just in our operation but from other manufacturing and processing operations, that some of those benefits may be keeping people out of the workforce."

The federal government wound down the CERB program last fall but made EI more generous.

Richardson said the company believes the federal and provincial governments should "take a look at the benefits being offered."

But Higgs said last week he doesn't expect EI reforms now. "I'm sure it's not a program that's going to be touched in an election year."

Richardson said starting positions at True North pay more than $15 per hour plus pension and medical benefits. He said it's his understanding that is "virtually identical" to what the other plant had been paying.

"We feel that our wages are very much on par with the folks in the area, and we have a lot of employees who are very happy working for us, long-term employees," he said.

Cooke hired temporary foreign workers

Card said he did not have the hourly wage at the Mowi plant at his fingertips.

Cooke employs 460 people in its True North plant in St. George and Richardson said the company has 100 vacancies at any given time, including plant workers, vessel crew members, truck drivers and fish farm workers.

He said Cooke's human resources director notified the other company the laid-off workers could be taken on, and the workers were apparently notified directly.

The company hired temporary foreign workers for the first time this year, he added.