Recent political speculation about the future of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Programs (TFWP) has created uncertainty for Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector. 

It is especially concerning for fruit and vegetable growers, who depend on this reliable seasonal workforce to plant, manage, and harvest much of the country’s produce. Without these essential international workers, Canadians would have difficulty finding locally grown fruits and vegetables on store shelves.

As Canada contemplates the future of its international labour programs, it’s important to remember how they began — and their critical role in our food system. Seasonal or guest workers have long been part of the global workforce; when domestic workers are unavailable, countries open their doors to people from abroad seeking opportunities they can’t find at home.

Guest workers from Italy, Greece, and Spain filled jobs in Northern Europe during the post-war economic boom. Canada welcomed its first seasonal workers in 1966, when 264 Jamaicans came to Ontario to help with the apple harvest, which laid the foundation for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), now one of Canada’s longest-running and most respected labour programs. 

Today, more than 30,000 workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, and the Eastern Caribbean Islands come through SAWP each year to support Canada’s horticulture sector. Thousands more arrive through the agricultural stream of the TFWP, forming the backbone of the workforce that grows, harvests, packs, and ships the fruits and vegetables Canadians rely on.

SAWP is not new or experimental, with 2026 marking 60 years of collaboration between growers, the federal government, and workers’ home-country governments to continually refine and improve the program. Its collaborative structure is one of its key strengths. If an issue arises on a farm, the employer, worker, and liaison or consular staff from the worker’s home country work together to find solutions or, if needed, help the worker transition to another farm. This problem-solving approach has stood the test of time, supporting positive outcomes for both workers and employers.

SAWP also lets participants move between farms when circumstances change or new opportunities open up. Many return to the same farms year after year, building skills, experience, and relationships that make them even more valuable to Canadian agriculture. The system benefits everyone involved. Workers play an essential role in Canada’s food supply, and the wages they earn support their families and communities at home — remittances are a vital income source for many Caribbean and Mexican communities.

Despite this success, the program has faced increasing scrutiny as Canada grapples with housing shortages, strained public services, broader immigration pressures and youth unemployment. It’s easy to blame temporary foreign workers for these challenges, but that oversimplifies complex issues. 

Ending SAWP or the TFWP would not solve Canada’s housing or infrastructure problems — and it would create new ones. These are jobs that, year after year, employers struggle to fill with Canadian workers despite offering competitive wages and good working conditions. They are also jobs that can’t simply be filled by students during school breaks, for example, as employers need a reliable workforce throughout the entire growing season, which is much longer than school holidays.

Without international workers, many farms and food businesses would face crippling labour shortages, reducing domestic food production, increasing dependence on imports, and putting food security at risk.

Last year, the federal government began overhauling its temporary foreign worker programs for agriculture, aiming to merge them into a new national program that would also serve the seafood processing sector. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association (OFVGA) has been deeply involved in these consultations, advocating to retain SAWP’s best features — especially its collaborative dispute-resolution model and worker mobility — while strengthening protections and supports for workers and employers alike. And through our More than a Migrant Worker initiative and traditional and social media, we continue to share accurate information about SAWP and other agricultural TFW streams.

As governments work through this redesign, it’s crucial that public discussions about SAWP and the TFWP are informed, responsible, and grounded in fact. Rhetoric that vilifies workers or paints these programs as the root of unrelated problems risks undermining a system that has fed Canadians for generations.

I strongly encourage growers to engage with their federal Members of Parliament to reinforce how essential these programs are to Canada’s food system — and why future changes must build on decades of accumulated policy experience. Canada’s fruit and vegetable growers are proud to provide fresh, healthy food to Canadians — and to do so in partnership with the skilled, dedicated people who come here to work each season.