Travelling midway may tear down carnival for good if feds restrict temporary foreign workers

A midway in Manitoba has been encouraging thrill-seekers to "step right up" for more than 60 years, but the current owner worries new federal government rules may prevent him from welcoming more guests next year.

Ken Kiernicki said his Wonder Shows midway, a travelling carnival popping up at summer fairs throughout rural Manitoba, couldn't operate without dozens of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) to assemble the rides and run the games.

"Basically, if I don't get them, I'm going to shut my doors because I just can't find people to work," he said.

We operate "from the end of April to the end of August, and we haven't even had one person come to the show office [this year] and say, 'Hey, I want a job.'"

The federal government announced Monday it would cut back on the number of temporary foreign workers it accepts.

Ottawa specifically plans to refuse applications for low-wage workers in areas of the country with an unemployment rate of at least six per cent in most sectors, except in "food security sectors," like agriculture, food and fish processing and industries with major staffing shortages like construction and health care.

It's unclear at this point what the federal government considers a low wage, or if any parts of Manitoba may be impacted, as the unemployment rate in the province in July was 5.7 per cent, even though all employment sectors were being counted.

Kiernicki said over time it's become more challenging to find employees for the midway he's owned since 2000. He found interest from domestic workers was waning, and newcomers didn't want to leave their families for the majority of the summer.

"We were just about ready to close the doors," Kiernicki said.

That changed when midway operators in other provinces told him about the TFW program.

He welcomed his first 10 employees in 2019. He's added five more seasonal workers, all from Jamaica, in every successive year, except for the two summers where pandemic restrictions grounded the midway. He's planning to apply for 30 workers next year — more than half his entire staff of 45 to 50 people.

"They're hard workers. They enjoy coming here for four months," said Kiernicki, who explained the vast majority of his seasonal workers choose to return the next summer. "They're here to save some money and have a little bit of a better life back home."

Under the new rules, however, Wonder Shows — if it's permitted to hire temporary foreign workers — would be prevented from hiring more than 10 per cent of its total staff through the TFW program.

Kiernicki said he couldn't put on his show with only a handful of seasonal employees.