Feds trample on Downs racing

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This article was published 31/03/2015 (3312 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A crackdown on temporary foreign workers by the federal government has created a critical shortage of grooms and exercise riders at Assiniboia Downs that is threatening to become a labour crisis with the track’s live thoroughbred racing meet just over one month away.

Officials at the Portage Avenue racetrack said this week their application for work permits for 31 grooms and exercise riders for this year’s upcoming live race meet has been put on hold indefinitely pending the result of a random federal audit of the foreign workers who worked at the track last year.

Even more worrisome, track officials say they’ve been given no guarantees that even if they pass the audit — as they expect — they will be given the work permits they require to import 24 grooms and seven exercise riders from the Caribbean and Mexico for this year’s meet.

Officials with the local Horsemens Benevolent and Protective Association — which represents the track’s owners and trainers — say they’ve never before had such difficulties in securing work permits for the foreign workers who have been the lifeblood of the track’s backstretch and barn area for decades.

Local HBPA president Blair Miller said Woodbine in Toronto, Canada’s biggest racetrack, is also having difficulties this year getting work permits, and it appears the country’s thoroughbred industry has got caught up in the government’s crackdown on foreign workers.

Announced last June, the federal crackdown was supposed to be aimed at stemming the tide of low-skilled temporary foreign workers into the country after a series of high-profile incidents in which companies such as RBC and McDonald’s were found to be replacing Canadian staff with foreign workers.

But Miller said the crackdown has also caught in its web the foreign workers the Canadian thoroughbred racing industry relies upon, who Miller says are highly skilled and highly specialized.

He said the racing industry can’t find, or retain, Canadians for those positions. “The government simply doesn’t understand you can’t just hire people off the street to come and do these jobs,” Miller said Tuesday.

“It’s a skilled job that takes years to learn. It’s a very important position,” said Miller, likening the job of a groom to a “physiotherapist for horses.”

Miller said the Downs annually holds training sessions for grooms — called groom schools — but the interest level of Canadian workers in a job that starts at 6 a.m. every day and requires you to work every Friday and Saturday night all summer long is slim to none.

“We do hold these sessions to promote Canadian kids to come and do these jobs,” said Miller, “but unfortunately they don’t want it.”

Miller, who is training this spring at Woodbine, said trainers and owners there have been dramatically scaling back the number of horses to cope with the labour shortage.

Miller said the HBPA plans to contact Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, who is the MP for the constituency that includes the Downs, to see if he can help.

Fletcher said Tuesday he will be happy to investigate the Downs’ concerns “as I would do for any constituent.” But he also cautioned the days of businesses in Canada relying on foreign workers for their survival are coming to an end under his government.

“If the business model is dependent on temporary foreign workers, that business model is likely going to have to change,” said Fletcher. “We want to employ as many Canadians as possible.”

Joanie Hamilton-Johnson, executive-director of the local HBPA, said trainers here have also been scaling back the number of horses they house at the Downs and, in some cases, even delaying their arrival.

There are currently about 200 horses on the backstretch at the Downs. This is a crucial time of year for the track — horses must be conditioned during the late winter and early spring in order for the Downs to begin racing in early May.

Opening day this year is May 10, and Hamilton-Johnson said work permits would normally have been approved months ago. With the delays this year, Downs trainers have been scrambling for patchwork solutions, she said.

“They’re contacting their nieces, their nephews — anyone in their family who has holidays. They’re even advertising on Kijiji,” Hamilton-Johnson said.

Trainer-owner Heather Wallerstedt, who has 30 horses on the Downs backstretch, said she’s waiting for approval for work permits for five grooms and one exercise rider.

In the meantime, she said she’s made do with three grooms, two of whom she borrowed from another trainer but will have to give back next week when that trainer arrives with his horses.

So what’s her plan if the feds don’t come up with those work permits soon? “I’m hoping God will drop a couple of grooms into my tack room,” she laughed.

Wallerstedt cautioned, however, this is no laughing matter, noting the feds are creating a potentially serious workplace safety situation. “These are very high-energy horses in the middle of training. You can’t just throw anybody in that stall who doesn’t know something about racehorses. They’ll end up getting hurt.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek