By MPP Bobbi Ann Brady
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), a program that has quietly become one of the most important partnerships supporting Ontario agriculture and Canada’s food supply. It is also a reminder that behind every basket of strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes and apples grown in Ontario are thousands of workers who leave their homes and families each year to help out our farm families and feed Canadians.
Recently, I was pleased to learn Ontario fruit and vegetable farmers are supporting a new scholarship initiative for the children of Jamaican seasonal workers. This program was launched by the Jamaican government partnering with the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA). Its purpose is to help students cover costs such as attending high school, including books, transportation, accommodations, and uniforms.
Sometimes in politics and public debate, we spend so much time arguing about programs and policies that we forget the human faces behind them. This scholarship initiative stood out to me because it acknowledges the sacrifices these workers and their families make for us all. Imagine as a parent spending months away from home working crazy hours in hot fields so your children can gain opportunities back home.
We know education changes lives and, as Jamaica’s Minister of Labour and Social Security Pearnel Charles Jr. said during the scholarship announcement, “When you give a child that leg up, it helps not just that child but also their family and their community.” I believe most of us feel the same.
The reality is Ontario’s fruit and vegetable industry relies heavily on seasonal labour.
In 1966, 264 Jamaican workers arrived in our province to assist with apple harvests. Sixty years later, more than 30,000 workers from Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the Eastern Caribbean have travelled to support Canada’s horticulture sector annually, and locally in tobacco fields. Farming is physically demanding work with tight planting and harvest windows, and despite farmers’ efforts to hire locally, labour shortages remain a serious challenge.
That said, I also understand why Canadians have questions about temporary foreign worker programs more broadly. We are living through an affordability crisis, housing shortages, strained infrastructure, and uncertainty about immigration policy. These concerns cannot simply be dismissed, nor should they be. However, it is important to separate legitimate concerns from misconceptions.
Eliminating agricultural worker programs would not solve Ontario’s housing crisis or youth unemployment problem. What it would do is place enormous pressure on our domestic food supply and create even greater reliance on imported produce at a time when food prices are already through the roof.
However, as labour shortages spread across other sectors, there is growing pressure to utilize this program beyond its original purpose. While I understand the stress those other industries endure, expanding or repurposing the program I feel would undermine the very sector it was designed to support.
Improvements to the SAWP continue to evolve especially surrounding worker protections. Highlighting open work permits for vulnerable workers, stronger protections against reprisals, expanded mobility between employers, better workplace injury coverage, and increased worker supports, are all recent examples.
Closer to home, I’ve spoken with many farmers across Haldimand-Norfolk who value the relationships they have built with seasonal workers over decades. In many cases, workers return to the same farms year after year and become extended members of the farming community.
Agriculture remains one of Ontario’s most vital industries, but it only succeeds because of the people willing to do the work. This being both local workers and those who travel thousands of kilometres to support our food system. As we recognize 60 years of SAWP, it is worth remembering respect, fairness, and opportunity should remain at the centre of the conversation.
Bobbi Ann Brady is the MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk